The "iron curtain" designates separation, first ideological and then physical, established in Europe in the aftermath of the Second World War between the Soviet zone in the East and the countries of the West. This barrier fell in 1989 with the Berlin Wall.
remains of the iron curtain on the German interior border in 2005. Dr/Wikipedia
Where does the expression come from? < /H2>
This metaphor was popularized by Winston Churchill: "From Stettin on the Baltic to Trieste on the Adriatic, an iron curtain fell on the continent," he said on March 5, 1946 , in a speech in the United States.
His fatherhood is attributed to the Russian writer Vassili Rozanov, who used it in 1918 about the Bolshevik Revolution in his book "The apocalypse of our time ":" By click, crunching and creaking, an iron curtain descends on the history of Russia ".
ideological border, then physical
This border between the Communist Europe and the West, designed by Soviet leaders to block Western ideology, has gradually materialized to slow down the leaks of citizens to the west.
The barbed wire wall, here on the German-Austrian border, about 50 km east of Vienna, will be dismantled in 1989. Keystone Archives
erected from 1949 by Hungary and then by the other countries of the Communist Bloc, it was made up of barbed wire, ditches, concrete works, electrical alarms, automatic or mines installations, extending to Several thousand kilometers.
The Berlin Wall
In East Germany, the Communist leaders decreed in 1952 a ten -meter -wide prohibition area along the border With the German Federal Republic (FRG), with barbed wire fences and watchtwders.
However, there remains a flaw in the device: Berlin, separated in DEU X Parties - one Soviet under control, the other Western - between which can be circulated without major difficulty. Some three million people manage to find refuge in FRG via Berlin-West between 1952 and 1961, emptying the Democratic Republic (RDA) of its living forces.
The East German regime obtains the Moscow Agreement To erect in 1961 the Berlin Wall, presented as an "anti -fascist rampart". The wall, along the east side by a no man’s land, made 155 kilometers (43 km split Berlin in two from north to south, and 112 km isolate the Enclave de Berlin-Ouest from the Territoire de la GDA). It is mainly composed of reinforced concrete and in places of metal fence.
Risky passage to the west
Stays west of the citizens of Eastern Europe 'were authorized only under strict conditions. Exodus candidates took all risks. Some 600 to 700 people, according to historians, lost their lives by trying to flee the East German regime.
The only Berlin Wall caused at least 136 dead. Some 5,000 people have however managed to cross it, using sometimes very imaginative schemes. A family has thus escaped from the roof of a building, thanks to a zipline linked to relatives who were waiting below, on the other side of the wall. Others fled to swimming by the spree, the river which crosses Berlin, by tunnels or hidden in vehicles.
1989, the dismantling
In May 1989, the Hungary decides to open its border with Austria, which will be the first breach in the iron curtain. On August 19, more than 600 Germans in the East, on vacation in Hungary, took advantage of the opening of a border post with Austria during a pan-friend picnic to flee to the west , first exodus of this kind since 1961.
The Communist regimes of Eastern Europe are starting to fall and the USSR, then led by Mikhail Gorbachev, does not intervene. The GDR is shaken by unprecedented demonstrations.
On November 9, a senior DRA leader, Günter Schabowski, member of the Communist Party Political Bureau, is caught when questioned on the date entry into force of new traffic rights for the Eastern Germans. "As much as I know, immediately," he stammered in front of the press.
his answer triggers the influx of thousands of East Berliners to the control posts whose guards, confused, end up lifting the barriers.
during the night the Euphoric Berliners celebrate the event perched on the wall, then set out to destroy it with picks. The following two years, the USSR imploded.
