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CHAPTER 2 A physical metaphor Concrete and barbed wire. For many people in the West this is the typical picture of the Iron Curtain. The Iron Curtain has become synonymous with the Berlin Wall. When discussing the location of the former Iron Curtain, people often refer to the inner German border, continuing along the borders of former Czechoslovakia, Austria, Hungary, Yugoslavia and Italy: a long barrier between Eastern and Western Europe, a divider of ideologies that kept the communist in and the capitalist out, or was it the other way around These ideas of what the Iron Curtain was are a fusion of the physical and the abstract, a metaphor with a physical face. But what was the Iron Curtain Where does this picture of concrete and barbed wire come from Iron curtains first appeared as a very physical feature in the theatres of London during the 19th century to stop the fires that had become all too common. During the First World War, the term was used as an abstract visualisation of the barriers between the fighting sides, and during the interwar period, to make clear the growing differences between Europe and the Soviet Union. It was, however, Churchill’s use of the expression in his speech at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri, in 1946, where he referred to an Iron Curtain, stretching across the continent from the Baltic to the Adriatic (Wright 2007:43), that cemented the image of the Iron Curtain in the popular imagination. Churchill may not have been the first to use this metaphor but by using these particular words he was pointing to something highly solid and impenetrable, a physical iron curtain imperative to stop fires and not letting them get out of control, he created an image in people’s minds which was to have a massive impact on how people viewed the division of post-war Europe even before any militarised borders had been fully raised. This image of an Iron Curtain as a barrier between two superpowers of different ideological convictions was therefore created through words before they were set in stone. Reactions to 31
AN ARCHAEOLOGY OF THE IRON CURTAIN Churchill’s speech demonstrate how the matter was more complex than the then former Prime Minister was making it seem. The Times expressed concerns that portraying Western democracy and Soviet Communism as two opposing sides was unwise and that both types of governments could learn from each other (Wright 2007:46). In the days following Churchill’s speech both Prime Minister Attlee and President Truman distanced themselves from Churchill’s opinions and Stalin made it known that he took this as a ‘call to war’ (Wright 2007: 47, 56). As the Cold War advanced the use of the term Iron Curtain increased and was frequently used in speeches, papers and the media. In the West, Europe was portrayed as two polarised halves of East and West, with the Iron Curtain standing as a barrier between them keeping the captive population of the communist regimes from escaping to the west. In the German Democratic Republic (GDR) the border was referred to as the Antifaschistische Schutzwall (Anti- Fascist Protection Wall) protecting the population from the West. Following the division of Germany into sectors tension soon arose between them, in particular on the border between the zones of what was seen as the Western allies, American, British and French and the East, i.e. the Soviet controlled sectors. In her research into the development of the Inner German Border, looking specifically at how the border developed between the two towns of Sonneberg and Neustadt bei Coburg, historian Edith Sheffer (2008) demonstrates how the confusion and turmoil following World War II helped to justify the development of the border, not only the physical fortifications but also the mental border. She claims: “This mental boundary evolved surprisingly quickly and proved surprisingly powerful, not just reflecting, but itself propelling the growth of the physical border” (Sheffer 2008:599). The chaos that existed in the border areas where illegal crossings, a thriving black market and violence often got out of hand, affecting life in these areas, caused many of the locals to crave stability and clear rules. This in turn was used to justify stricter regulations in the border areas, which were even welcomed. Her research of the border between the two towns of Neustadt, subsequently in Federal Republic of Germany (FDR), and Sonnenberg, in German Democratic Republic (GDR), shows that it was the Americans who first started to demarcate and fortify the border here in the late 1940s. These actions were soon followed by the Soviets erecting their own barriers, making sure they reached higher than the American 1.8 m posts, as well as adding fencing and barbed wire in some places (Sheffer 2008:91). By the time the 1,380 km fence was erected along the entire border between East and West Germany in 1952 the border had already been sufficiently 32
Page 1 and 2: An Archaeology of the Iron Curtain
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Page 8 and 9: Contents Acknowledgements 11 CHAPTE
Page 10: The end of a journey 212 Sammanfatt
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AN ARCHAEOLOGY OF THE IRON CURTAIN
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402 Kojsko Hum 402 THE OSIM
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CHAPTER 5 Case Study 2 The Czech/Au
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5: CASE STUDY 2: THE CZECH/AUSTRIAN
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Figure 55: Bunker near the crossing
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Figure 59: Military map from 1980 o
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Figure 77-78: Painting inside the f
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CHAPTER 6 An archaeology of the Iro
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6: AN ARCHAEOLOGY OF THE IRON CURTA
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Sammanfattning (Summary in Swedish)
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SAMMANFATTNING En fysisk metafor I
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SAMMANFATTNING komst och kunskapsf
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SAMMANFATTNING Fältstudier av läm
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SAMMANFATTNING som försöker ta si
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SAMMANFATTNING mets dilemma”. Han
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Södertörn Doctoral Dissertations
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33. Sofie Bedford, Islamic activism
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67. Anne Kaun, Civic Experiences an
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Stockholm Studies in Archaeology Se
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29. LINDGREN, Christina. 2004. Män
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The Iron Curtain was seen as the di
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