The Iron Curtain symbolized the ideological conflict and physical boundary dividing Europe into two separate areas from the end of World War II in 1945 until the end of the Cold War in 1991. On either side of the Iron Curtain, states developed their own international economic and military alliances:
- Member countries of the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance and the Warsaw Pact, with the Soviet Union as the leading country.
- Member countries of the European Community and of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and associated countries with the United States as the leading country.
Physically, the Iron Curtain took the form of border defenses between the countries of Europe in the middle of the continent. The most notable border was marked by the Berlin Wall and its Checkpoint Charlie which served as a symbol of the Curtain as a whole.
The events that demolished the Iron Curtain started in discontent in Poland, and continued in Hungary, German Democratic Republic (East Germany), Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia and Romania. Romania was the only country in Europe to violently overthrow its communist regime.
Read more about Iron Curtain: Analogous Terms, Pre–Cold War Usage, Fall of The Iron Curtain, Monuments
Famous quotes containing the words iron curtain, iron and/or curtain:
“Should the German people lay down their arms, the Soviets ... would occupy all eastern and south-eastern Europe together with the greater part of the Reich. Over all this territory, which with the Soviet Union included, would be of enormous extent, an iron curtain would at once descend.”
—Joseph Goebbels (1897–1945)
“Or bid the soul of Orpheus sing
Such notes as, warbled to the string,
Drew iron tears down Pluto’s cheek,
And made Hell grant what love did seek;”
—John Milton (1608–1674)
“A good essay must have this permanent quality about it; it must draw its curtain round us, but it must be a curtain that shuts us in, not out.”
—Virginia Woolf (1882–1941)