images.app.goo.gl/w7XgYe8Hd6pQ The Iron Curtain is a Western term made famous by Winston Churchill referring to the boundary which symbolically, ideologically, and physically divided Europe into two separate areas from the end of World War II, until the end of the Cold War, roughly 1945 to 1990. After the end of the Cold War and the spheres of influence were determined by the Allied powers at Potsdam and Yalta, the divisions between the wartime allies soon reappeared as the struggle between capitalism and communism heated up. These tensions were felt as, one by one, communist governments were installed in the Eastern European states under the Soviet sphere of influence. The “iron curtain” became the symbol of the division between two competing ideologies and systems as the competition for world dominance of these two systems dominated the last half of the twentieth century. The fall of the Berlin Wall signaled the end of the iron curtain, as communism collapsed and freedom and democracy came to the Eastern bloc. The West finally prevailed, demonstrating that ideals cannot be artificially kept behind walls and boundaries.

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The Iron Curtain