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The Iron Curtain
A Short History of Socialist Borders
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 06 April 2026
Summary
The Iron Curtain remains an iconic representation of the Cold War. But what was it really on the ground? Fortified borders to prevent citizens from leaving emerged first in the interwar USSR and then in socialist post-WW II Europe. Fortifications occurred both at borders between socialist states and at their external boundaries to the non-socialist world, but not in all cases. The most well-known case – the Berlin Wall – was both an extreme example as well as a latecomer. But since 1947, Yugoslavia, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia had fortified their borders to prevent exit. When East Germany started to build walls around West Berlin and at its borders to West Germany in the 1960s, Yugoslavia was already dismantling its border regime and Hungary was granting passports and exit visas to its citizens. Fortified borders also appeared at external borders in northern and southeastern Europe, in the Caucasus, and in Asia.
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- Online ISBN: 9781009712811Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication: 30 April 2026
References
Further Readings
Bencsik, Péter, and György, Nagy. A magyar úti okmányok története 1945–89 [History of Hungarian Travel Documents 1945–1989]. Tipico Design Kft., 2005.Google Scholar
Dullin, Sabine. La frontière épaisse: aux origines des politiques soviétiques (1920–1940) [The Thick Border: The Origins of Soviet Policies (1920–1940)]. EHESS, 2014.Google Scholar
Flemming, Thomas. Die Berliner Mauer: Geschichte eines politischen Bauwerks [The Berlin Wall: History of a Political Edifice]. Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung, 2019.Google Scholar
Frey, Felix. “A Fluid Iron Curtain: Norwegian–Soviet Hydropower Cooperation in the Pasvik Valley, 1955–1965,” Scandinavian Journal of History, 45/4 (2020), pp. 506–26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harrison, Hope M. Driving the Soviets up the Wall: Soviet-East German Relations, 1953–1961. Princeton University Press, 2011.Google Scholar
Heeresgeschichtliches Museum Wien. Der Eiserne Vorhang [The Iron Curtain]. Heeresgeschichtliches Museum, 2001.Google Scholar
Lohr, Eric. Soviet Citizenship: From Empire to Soviet Union. Harvard University Press, 2012.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Meinke, Markus A. Die tschechisch-bayerische Grenze im Kalten Krieg in vergleichender Perspektive [The Czech-Bavarian border in the Cold War in a comparative perspective]. Stadtarchiv Regensburg, 2011.Google Scholar
Nunan, Timothy. “The Violence Curtain: Occupied Afghan Turkestan & the Making of a Central Asian Borderscape,” Transcultural Studies, 8/1 (2017), pp. 224–58.Google Scholar
Rottman, Gordon L., and Taylor, Chris. The Berlin Wall and the Inner-German Border 1961–89. Osprey, 2008.Google Scholar
Rychlík, Jan. Cestování do ciziny v habsburské monarchii a v Ceskoslovensku [Traveling abroad in the Habsburg Monarchy and Czechoslovakia]. Ústav pro soudobé dějiny AV ČR, 2007.Google Scholar
Sälter, Gerhard. Das Grenzregime im Zentrum Berlins [The border regime in the center of Berlin]. Ch. Links, 2018.Google Scholar
Scott, Erik R. Defectors: How the Illicit Flight of Soviet Citizens Built the Borders of the Cold War World. Oxford University Press, 2023.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Technical Museum Brno, ed. Der Eiserne Vorhang, 1948–1989 [The Iron Curtain, 1948–1989]. Technické muzeum, 2019.Google Scholar
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