The Cold War
“To most people in the U.K., indeed throughout Western Europe, space exploration is primarily perceived as 'what NASA does'. This perception is - in many respects - a valid one. Superpower rivalry during the Cold War ramped up U.S. and Soviet space efforts to a scale that Western Europe had no motive to match.” Martin Rees
The Iron Curtain was the name for the 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. A term symbolizing the efforts by the soviet to block itself and its satellite states from open contact with the west and non-Soviet-controlled areas. On the east side of
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The pact outlined an agreement between Germany and the Soviet Union on the division of their soon to be conquered border countries. The Soviet Union and Germany would invade and partition Poland, and the Soviet Union would be allowed to overrun the Baltic states along with Finland. The pact stunned the world.
Relations soured when in 1941 Germany turned against its partner and mounted an invasion known as Operation Barbarossa in an attempt to land grab and weaken the Soviet Union. Barbarossa was the largest military operation in world history in terms of both manpower and casualties. Operation Barbarossa’s failure was a turning point in the war. The Soviet Union then joined the Allies against Germany and ultimately helped to win the
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The Czechs around me put down their shopping bags, briefcases and packages and broke into spontaneous applause.Thousands of people, who had been prisoners, had found a safe, legal way to escape. Less than a week later, the Berlin Wall was open. The Iron Curtain had collapsed.
The Iron Curtain wasn't simply a phrase made famous by Winston Churchill to describe the line separating the Soviet-dominated eastern Europe from the sovereign nations of the west. It was literally a guarded barrier that millions of people couldn't cross because they were imprisoned in their home countries. But by 1988, reformers inside the Hungarian government decided to open their border to the west and allow Hungarians to leave for Austria. The next year they began allowing East Germans on Hungarian soil to leave for Austria as well.
But one thing stood in the way: Czechoslovakia. The route from East Germany to Hungary ran right through it. The government in Prague wasn't looking to the west; it was closer to the hardliners in Berlin than the reformers in Budapest. It wasn't inclined to open
The Iron Curtain is a Western term referring to an imaginary boundary which divided Europe into two separate areas of political influence and ideology from the end of World War II until the end of the Cold War.
World War II left the Soviet Union feeling uneasy; Stalin had lived to see his country invaded a total of three times. Stalin was determined to prevent further damage to his country, so he began creating a buffer zone by essentially forcing the countries of Central Europe to agree to a communistic government that was closely aligned with the USSR. Stalin created the Warsaw Pact in 1955, which bound Central Europe together. However, after Stalin died his iron grip was no longer available to keep the countries of Central Europe in line. Stalin’s successor Khrushchev was an advocate for loosening of the iron grip. Khrushchev believed in the idea that there was “more than one road to socialism.” It was Khrushchev’s policies in regards to socialism
This meant that neither Germany, nor the Soviet Union, would invade the other country. This pact was made because the USSR wanted to remain at peace with Germany and secure time to build up their military, however, the pact did not last long (“Nonaggression Pact”). On June 22, 1941, Germany attacked the Soviet Union without provocation. This lead the Soviet Union to join the Allied side of the fight. They were accompanied by the United States, United Kingdom, France, and many others. Although Stalin had led his country into joining the Allies, there were always underlying tensions between the countries.
Winston Churchill once said “From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the Continent.” (Churchill). When he said this he was coining a term that would be used in history books decades later. He was of course referring to the complete separation of one major city into two smaller separately governed cities by the Berlin Wall. In China Mieville's novel, The City and The City, we see a similar situation in which the two fictional and completely opposite cities of Besźel and Ul Qoma are separated by a wall. Not a physical wall but an ideological wall; one that is so ingrained into the existence of the cities themselves that it might as well be physical made of brick and mortar. I believe that Mieville is using these two cities and the wall between them as a symbol for the Cold War and the chaos created by the Berlin Wall.
This physical border was christened the Iron Curtain by the former Prime Minister of Great Britain Winston Churchill in a speech he made at Fulton Missouri on 5th March 1946. The first two years after the war passed uneventfully with both superpowers establishing themselves into their new sectors within Germany, which had been agreed at the Potsdam Conference in July 1945. This changed with the implementation by Truman of the Truman Doctrine in March 1947.
At the end of WWII, the United States, Great Britain, and France occupied the western zone of Germany while the Soviet Union occupied the east. In 1948, Britain, France, and the U.S. combined their territories to make one nation. Stalin then discovered a loophole. He closed all highway and rail routes into West Berlin. This meant no food or fuel could reach that part of the city. In an attempt to break the blockade, American and British officials started the Berlin airlift. For 327 days, planes carrying food and supplies into West Berlin took off and landed every few minutes. West Berlin might not have made it if it wasn’t for the airlift. By May 1949, the Soviet Union realized it was beaten and lifted the blockade. By using the policy of containment, the Americans and the British were able to defeat the Soviets.
It was a border set up by Joseph. Stalin, the ruler of the USSR in the years after the Second World War. The term the "Iron Curtain," was first introduced in Winston. Churchill's long speech, "an iron curtain has descended across the continent," on March 5, 1946. Churchill's speech triggered Stalin to tighten the iron curtain.
In the fall of 1989, people all around the world were watching unbelievable scenes on their televisions. Thousands of people in eastern Europe were meeting in the streets and squares and demanding the end of the communist rule. For the first time in history, opposition to communism was publically voiced. Barbed wire border fences in Hungary were being torn down. East Germans were fleeing to the West. Overnight the Berlin wall collapsed. The start of these historical events was the Polish Revolution of 1989.
At first, the divisions between East and West Berlin were uncertain. There was nothing that divided the city. For more than ten years after the official split of the city, East Berlin saw a major emigration of East Germans, unhappy with the communist system. With nothing physical to separate East and West Berlin, migration from totalitarianism to democracy was as easy for East Berliners as changing houses. The Soviet Union went against their promises to the people of East Germany, and made East Germany a Communist country. This decision by the Soviet Union separated East Germany even more from the rest of Europe. East Germany was now all by itself, and by the summer of 1952 th...
The Berlin Wall was built in 1961 during the Cold War between Soviet Russia and the United States. The wall was built to separate Soviet controlled East Berlin from US controlled West Berlin. It soon became a physical barrier that symbolized the differing political and social ideologies of the two superpowers. The Berlin wall stood for 28 years separating a city into two very different sections with differing governments, economies and social organization. The importance of Berlin in International politics stemmed from Germany’s role in World War II. After WWII ended, Berlin was divided between the victors, France, England, the US and the USSR. The area surrounding Berlin was under Soviet control making West Berlin a strange island of democracy,
The most visible aspect of the Cold War was the Berlin Wall. Before the wall was constructed, East and West Germans could travel freely between the two states. The number of East Germans fleeing to West was an embarrassment to the Communists, and something had to be done to pro...
... the concrete prison. Soon after the wall fell, most of the East Berlin cabinet resigned and the remaining member were removed. East Berlin and West Berlin were finally reunited and renamed, The Federal Republic of Germany. “The world watched the celebrations on television. After 28 years, the Berlin Wall had fallen.” ("NEWSEUM: Berlin Wall.") The people of East Germany finally saw the light on the other side of the wall, and escaped the concrete nightmare.
On the 22nd June 1941, German forces invaded the Soviet Union under Directive 21. Under the codename “Operation Barbarossa”, it was recorded as the largest military operation ever seen in history as it involved more than 3 million Axis soldiers and 3,500 armoured vehicles. Throughout the war Operation Barbarossa was a conflict that demoralised the Germans and significantly contributed to the Allied victory.
The collapse of the Berlin Wall changed Western Europe as we know it today. The Iron Curtain, which had split Europe, had ascended and the once divided Germans were reunited under one common nation. The causal factors which resulted in the fall of the Berlin Wall were internal — communism imploded upon itself—. Gorbachev attempted to reform communism through Glasnost and Perestroika, which were supposed to incorporate economic reforms and transparency, however, history illustrates that increased liberty is incompatible with communism. Dr. Schmidtke argued that structural deficiencies led along with poor economic growth which led to the collapse of communism in Europe, and consequently the collapse of the Berlin Wall.
The Soviet Union was very concerned about its security after having been invaded and almost defeated twice in the twentieth century. It felt vulnerable being surrounded by hostile democratic states and preferred to have smaller communist states protecting it, thus the Iron Curtain descended. The Iron Curtain refers to an imaginary barrier through Europe that separated Russia and its communist allies from the rest of the democratic nations in the west. The states on each side of the Iron Curtain acted as buffer states in case of war.