The Berlin wall did not divide East from West Germany. Wow !!!

Like the ‘Iron Curtain’. Which, it turns out, wasn’t actually a curtain at all!

I always thought that the Iron Curtain was a euphemism rather than an actual thing. Like, “behind the iron curtain” meant an insight into communism, or something. To this day I have no clue what it actually is.

I always thought that the Iron Curtain was a euphemism rather than an actual thing.

Yep. It was coined by Churchill.

The wall came down just before I was born.

the wall (Berlin Airlift as mentioned) was taught, but not the end of it/wall coming down. Cuban missile crisis, Vietnam, all covered in History lessons at my comprehensive school. (AQA from memory)

GCSE History though, so an optional subject. Can’t say its ever really come up in my life to date, although the general East/West, Iron curtain etc comes up frequently.

Picking different exams I could easily have been oblivious.

I am surprised how many folk did not know this – but then i am 62yr old and lived right thru this and read some history and geography

Lots of other weirdness in the post WW2 settlements as well.  Did you know Poland moved several hundred miles west?  What is now the western part of Poland was Germany prewar and what was the eastern part of Poland is now Ukraine and Belarus.

Austria was supposed to be split as well like Germany with Vienna under control of the allies and Russia ( gross oversimplification)

Various other borders got moved around as well and lets not start on the Schleswig–Holstein question ( much earlier and resolved between the wars)

because the UK is an island this moving around of European borders has really not effected us and barely made it into our consciousness but all over Europe are disputed or movable borders.

I always thought that the Iron Curtain was a euphemism rather than an actual thing.

“Churchill’s famous words “From Stettin in the Baltic, to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the continent,””

I had no idea. I suppose it should be obvious, if it was just a line then you could walk round the end of it.

I can’t say as I ever gave it a great deal of thought, History and/or Geography are not my forté. I’m wildly ignorant of a lot of things that “everyone” supposedly knows.

Cougar has pretty much explained my thoughts on it too. I will have been 12 or 13 when it came down. I have more interest in ancient history as opposed to recent and my geography is shocking. People have vastly different interests so I’m not surprised that there are a fair few who didn’t know.

I honestly thought the Iron Curtain was a description of the border with the USSR.

Yeah was always under the impression the iron curtain just meant the Soviet’s being secretive and protective of their country.

Yeah was always under the impression the iron curtain just meant the Soviet’s being secretive and protective of their country.

It wasn’t “their country” (i.e. Russia), it was across Eastern Europe so basically dividing the Warsaw Pact from NATO. Hungary tried to leave in 1956 but Russia sent in tanks to crush the revolution. The east was controlled by Moscow, the west was free to choose its own path.

I didn’t take history as a GCSE opinion, and prior to that it was all much older stuff like Greeks, Romans, Middle Ages etc.

I did take Geography to GCSE and we covered nearby stuff like BeNeLux, Ruhr heavy industries , coal mining, agriculture etc but never much on East / West borders.

I think this was probably something that could sometimes fall in a hole between history and geography and never get covered. Not everyone is a history buff – I was busy making things on my dad’s lathe at age 13 🙂

Another person here who assumed that the East/West divide went right though the middle of Berlin and the wall was just a particularly strongly enforced part of the border due to the high popultion humbers in Berlin.

Every day is a school day.

It wasn’t “their country” (i.e. Russia), it was across Eastern Europe so basically dividing the Warsaw Pact from NATO. Hungary tried to leave in 1956 but Russia sent in tanks to crush the revolution. The east was controlled by Moscow, the west was free to choose its own path.

Yeah I should have used republic.

Yeah I should have used republic empire.

FTFY.

I’m not surprised that many people’s knowledge in this area is vague. Being born in what was West Germany I’ve taken more interest than others, otherwise I doubt my education/memory would have been much good on this either. In England, we seemed to almost embrace our ignorance for recent history and focus on English (and Scottish) kings and queens long since passed instead. It was interesting how when debating European politics around the time of the EU referendum that the significance of Strasbourg in a union with France and German at its heart was just completely lost on so many Brits.

Yeah was always under the impression the iron curtain just meant the Soviet’s being secretive and protective of their country.

Same, I thought it was USSR being secretive. It never crossed my mind at all that it may have anything to with Germany.

I didn’t take history as a GCSE opinion

My third year History exam – so the year we took our Options and I could drop it – was probably the worst exam mark I ever landed. The reasons were twofold.

First, I didn’t give the remotest of shits about the Roundheads and Cavaliers et al, our History teacher was charismatic and likeable but it all seemed to be about wars and I couldn’t have been more disinterested in people being horrible to each other several hundred years ago. It all seemed so pointless.

Second, I smashed out the paper in record time and pulled out a book. I was a swot who actually enjoyed exams so having more than half the exam time left wasn’t unusual. Time ticked on, I’m enjoying the comedic antics of Garfield, Odie and Jon, kids were scribbling away, hands were going up asking for more paper, I was confused. What the hell was everyone doing? With maybe 15 minutes left in the exam, I suddenly realised that the question sheet was double-sided.

I take a slight solace in the fact that I came second from last in that class’s exam – someone did worse than I did.

The corridor between West Germany and Berlin also extended to airspace. I visited in 1985 and on the flight the pilot announced we would be descending to 10,000 feet to fly through the airspace corridor. And only 3 western airlines were allowed to fly in – BA, PanAM, Air France but not Lufthansa.

Iron curtain? Don’t even consider the bamboo curtain, that moves all over the shop 😉

Same, I thought it was USSR being secretive. It never crossed my mind at all that it may have anything to with Germany.

I was including that in the Republic, I’ll put it 80’s movies rather than being taught at school.

Same, I thought it was USSR being secretive. It never crossed my mind at all that it may have anything to with Germany.

I was including that in the Republic

The USSR wasn’t a republic, it was (on paper anyway) a union of multiple republics (hence the “s” at the end of “Union of Soviet Republics”). In practice, it was just the old Russian empire dressed up in new garb pretending that it wasn’t ruled from Moscow.

The Iron Curtain wasn’t about the USSR though, it was the border of NATO and the Warsaw Pact. The Warsaw Pact included multiple socialist republics that were satellites of the USSR. So, it wasn’t “the Republic”, it was multiple republics acting under the dictates of Moscow.

That video’s fascinating @mick_r. The guide to West Berlin in broad Lancastrian is worth the price of admission alone!

Coincidentally, I was in the local library this morning and saw a book called The Curtain and the Wall: A modern journey along Europe’s cold war border. A Guardian book of the year, no less. Gonna do me some learnin’.

I wonder if you stopped 100 people in the street in Britain, how many would know that Russia has an enclave entirely surrounded by the EU, for instance?

Another one who didn’t understand this until my 20s, and didn’t truly grasp it until visiting Berlin in my 30s. No history gcse!

I even remember being told Berlin was in E Germany and thinking that’s obviously wrong – they must mean it was on the border. Otherwise people would have to drive or get the train through E Germany to get to W Berlin and how could that work in the cold war? It would be madness. But that was exactly the situation.

@thenorthwind – I hadn’t noticed the change in narrator near the end – sounds like my brother in law 🙂

I wonder if you stopped 100 people in the street in Britain, how many would know that Russia has an enclave entirely surrounded by the EU, for instance?

Might be boosted by England playing a World Cup game there in 2018

@thenorthwind The does sound like an interesting book…

I wonder if you stopped 100 people in the street in Britain, how many would know that Russia has an enclave entirely surrounded by the EU, for instance?

Exclave ?  (or semi-exclave, technically, if it is reachable by sea)

@tjagain – yes the borders thing is very forgotten yet also still present in many people’s lives. The flows of people during and post ww2 were incredible but submerged in the general awfulness of the time.

I have a friend who has no family memorabilia at all. One parent was a German from Pomerania – fled there as it reverted to Poland. The other Sudetenland German had to leave what is now the Czech Republic.

The divide between East and West Germany is still very present and noticeable. Apart from the soviet architecture, East German towns are generally a lot shabbier than their western counterparts. You’ll see whole towns decked out with NPD, now AfD posters.

When I had my first job in Germany I was told the coming Monday, or whatever it was, was a bank holiday…. Tag der Deutsche Einheit. When i Alex what it was it was explained to me that it was the day that the Ossis (Ostdeutschen) celebrated and the Wessis (Westdeutschen) cried.

Even now, more government money is spent per capita in the east than in the west. Childcare is till this day free in the east, whereas you’ll pay upwards of 600€ in Munich or other western cities for childcare.

(Hope this works….)

Lasting difference between East and West ??????? pic.twitter.com/fbuSqlpMvr

— Epic Maps ?️ (@Locati0ns) February 16, 2024

What is now the western part of Poland was Germany prewar

Had a job in the Polish countryside for some car parts supplier. Drive for ages through fields and then into a village that was based around the Prussian country house/estate. Big grand place surrounded by ramshackle houses.

The USSR wasn’t a republic, it was (on paper anyway) a union of multiple republics

Painful as ever aren’t you.

After the wall went down, my dad moved back to the east of Germany. I would far rather live in Erfurt or Leipzig than a UK city. They have functioning public transport, historic centres, thriving cultural scenes. The west German money was well-spent.

The AFD is a massive problem in semi-rural areas. There are weird legacies from the old east in the way history was processed. West Germany went through a huge communal guilt and grieving process that affected everything including how history was taught in schools. I’m sure it was imperfect but it was different in timbre to the way that the East Germans dealt with its Nazi history. There was more ‘that’s not us now, we’re socialists’, it was as though by moving into the Soviet block the history was eradicated or absolved according to my dad and family. Also there was a fair amount of pointing at the ‘corrupt west’ whenever anyone who could be seen as part of the Nazi administration was allowed back into any part in civil life. And whilst they may have had a point there was very little soul-searching done or general comprehension of the enormity and profundity of the holocaust and the roles that East Germans must have played.

Couple this with the willingness that many people had to go along with the East German state. Which was utterly nuts (my dad’s Stasi file is massive). There were lots of people who got used to living in the mirror world in which everyone spied on everyone else. There were others that liked it and joined the Party. My mum has a friend who is left-wing, nostalgic, and is totally amazed and can’t really get her head round how much time my dad spent in jail for crimes like ‘writing to the BBC’.

So 40 years of communism, reunion and the inevitable economic disparities between east and west (which are greater out of the cooler cities) has fed into disaffection, the tenor of which is nasty and scary.

I’m not sure how to fix it. Sometimes people just don’t know what they’ve got.

This has turned into such an interesting thread.

Those maps are eye-opening @alpin.

Fascinating personal insight from @Clover too.

Also, I learnt the difference between an enclave and an exclave. Some further interesting map nerdery here: https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/e927741a6a1c4157a1e3a91a2645f3f8

When I was still working, one of my favourite things was to visit our teams in Poland, based in Wroclaw. Nice people, fun city, great beer, several excellent vegan restaurants. This is what Wikipedia says about Wroclaw:

Wrocław is the historical capital of Silesia and Lower Silesia. Today, it is the capital of the Lower Silesian Voivodeship. The history of the city dates back over 1,000 years;[6] at various times, it has been part of the Kingdom of Poland, the Kingdom of Bohemia, the Kingdom of Hungary, the Habsburg monarchy of Austria, the Kingdom of Prussia and Germany, and has been German-speaking since the Middle Ages, until the town became part of Poland in 1945 as the result of territorial changes of Poland immediately after World War II.

Our history is so simple compared to that.

Our history is so simple compared to that.

I think England and Scotland share one of the oldest defined borders in the world. I guess being an island helps somewhat.

The AFD is a massive problem in semi-rural areas.

The AFD is a massive problem, full stop. Even in western cities they have made massive gains.

I remember driving to a job in Berlin and we pulled off the Autobahn somewhere south of Berlin, I think to smoke a joint, but still…. Drove through this town and it was plastered with NPD posters (the forerunner of the AFD). At the time you didn’t see that kinda shit elsewhere. Now you see AFD posters in Munich…… The crazy thing is, it’s illegal to deface any political postersor placards in Germany!

I think England and Scotland share one of the oldest defined borders in the world. I guess being an island helps somewhat.

This I have paid more attention to, living within riding distance. Ok, it hasn’t moved massively, but until relatively recently (in historical terms) the whole area was known as “the debatable lands”. Should tell you all you need to know.

Some interesting facts I’ve already learnt from The Curtain and The Wall:

Churchill wasn’t the first to use the term “Iron Curtain”, though his speech certainly seems to have popularised it. Other people, including Goebbels, used it prior to that.

In his 1991 Nobel lecture, Gorbachev said of the challenges of post-Soviet Europe “The people are tired and are easily swayed by populism”. Prescient given the rise of the AfD, etc.

Totally off topic, but I just had another similar wall-related revelation:

I’ve always “known” that Hadrian’s Wall was the most northerly border of the Roman Empire, but have just learned that the Antonine Wall was built further to the north twenty years later.

Yes, I was unaware of that until I went to live in central Scotland an brought an OS map. I guess Hadrian’s wall is the famous one because it is visually more impressive these days with forts and long sections of actual wall.  Whereas the Antonine wall maybe suffered from being in a more densely inhabited part of Scotland – and was built mainly of turf.

Did the OP also believe that Brexit would be a good idea?

I’m not sure how to fix it. Sometimes people just don’t know what they’ve got.

See above…

There was a marvellous German TV series – Deutschland 89

And two others, 83 and 86. Both also brilliant.

Did the OP also believe that Brexit would be a good idea?

. . . because the only people who don’t have perfect knowledge of European geography and history will be those dumb Brexiteers.

#ironyalert

Drove through this town and it was plastered with NPD posters

Many run-down half-empty French towns are plastered with Marie Le Pen posters and equally rural Italy etc etc.

I’ve always “known” that Hadrian’s Wall was the most northerly border of the Roman Empire, but have just learned that the Antonine Wall was built further to the north twenty years later.

You won’t be the only one. Next up is that Hadrian’s wall was most likely used as toll route for trading than an actual defence.