Summary
Highlights
Winston Churchill first coined the term "Iron Curtain" in a speech on March 5, 1946, at the University of Fulton. This term described the division of Europe into two parts: a Western part under US domination and an Eastern part under USSR domination. The border became increasingly secure and difficult to cross during the Cold War.
Two notable aspects of the Iron Curtain include West Berlin, an isolated Western enclave within communist East Germany, which saw many East Germans flee before the construction of the Berlin Wall in August 1961. The term "Iron Curtain" primarily referred to Central Europe, even though other USSR borders with Finland, Turkey, or Iran were also fortified. Officially, installations aimed to protect Eastern populations from capitalist influence, but in reality, they prevented people from fleeing West.
The Iron Curtain, primarily managed by Eastern Bloc countries supported by the USSR, varied slightly by country but shared common features. It typically involved a forbidden zone several kilometers wide, marked by barbed wire at the border, with the last 500 meters featuring acoustic and visual alarm systems. From 1970 onwards, barbed wire was replaced by three-meter-high wire mesh panels with sharp, unclimbable meshes, complemented by anti-personnel minefields and automatic firing devices. By the 1980s, the East German section alone was patrolled by around 14,000 border guards with dogs.
As the Iron Curtain became more sophisticated, the number of successful crossings decreased. The number of people who died attempting to cross is a subject of controversy, estimated to be several hundred, if not a few thousand. The Iron Curtain began to dismantle gradually after January 1, 1989, when Hungary opened its border with Austria, allowing free movement to the West. The Hungarian section of the Iron Curtain started to be dismantled in May 1989. Most of the remaining Iron Curtain was dismantled with little media attention, with the notable exception of the fall of the Berlin Wall on November 9, 1989, which symbolized the end of the Cold War. In many places, the Iron Curtain remained in place due to the ease and cost of dismantling.