Originally the word for the fire-proof curtain in a theatre, Winston Churchill coined the phrase 'Iron Curtain' for this new barrier between the two political and military systems in his famous speech "Sinews of peace" in Missouri 1946.
The Iron Curtain became an almost impermeable physical barrier: Metal fences, walls, bunkers, barbed wire, guard towers, spring guns, land mines and watch dogs created a death zone crossing the countries that separated families for decades and caused the death or injuries of hundreds of people trying to cross the border. With a weakened economy at the border, many residents moved out of the area.
The border between Hungary and neutral Austria became the first part of the Iron Curtain to be dismantled in 1989: On 19th August 1989 a meeting (Pan-European Picnic) was organized near Sopron, mainly by the Hungarian Democratic Forum, to celebrate the foundation of the Hungarian state. The opening of the border for Hungarians was a good opportunity for almost 600 tourists from the GDR to escape to Austria and led to a first crack in the Iron Curtain. Later in summer 1989, the foreign ministers of Austria and Hungary, Alois Mock and Gyula Horn, ceremonially cut the border defenses separating their countries.
Images: 1,2 Wikimedia commons, 3 BN Archiv, 4 Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic