During the Cold War, the Iron Curtain was a political metaphor used to describe the political boundary dividing Europe into two separate areas from the end of World War II in 1945 until the end of the Cold War in 1991. The term symbolizes the efforts by the Soviet Union (USSR) to block itself and its satellite states from open contact with the West, its allies and neutral states. On the east side of the Iron Curtain were the countries that were connected to or influenced by the Soviet Union, while on the west side were the countries that were NATO members, or connected to or influenced by the United States; or nominally neutral. Separate international economic and military alliances were developed on each side of the Iron Curtain. It later became a term for the 7,000-kilometre-long (4,300 mi) physical barrier of fences, walls, minefields, and watchtowers that divided the "east" and "west". The Berlin Wall was also part of this physical barrier.
Swedish book "Behind Russia's iron curtain" from 1923
Remains of the "iron curtain" in Devínska Nová Ves, Bratislava (Slovakia)
Preserved part of "iron curtain" in the Czech Republic. A watchtower, dragon's teeth and electric security fence are visible.
Fence along the east–west border in Germany (near Witzenhausen-Heiligenstadt)
The Cold War was a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc, that started in 1947, two years after the end of World War II and lasted to 1991, the fall of the Soviet Union.
Allied troops in Vladivostok, August 1918, during the Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War
American Relief Administration operations in Russia, 1922
Lenin, Trotsky and Kamenev celebrating the second anniversary of the October Revolution
The Battle of Stalingrad, considered by many historians as a decisive turning point of World War II