Cold War Europe

From the end of World War II in 1945 until the Eastern European revolutions of 1989, Europe was divided between two political blocs: east and west. The border was figuratively called the Iron Curtain. It is to some extent visible today, through former military and border security installations across the continent.

Understand
"From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the Continent."

- Winston Churchill, 5 March 1946



While World War II by necessity had bound the Soviet Union, the United States, the United Kingdom and later free France into an uneasy alliance, the lack of a common enemy after the war and different ideologies triggered a break between the Soviet Union on one side and the "Western allies" on the other. This break not only affected the politics between those countries, but also the treatment of the defeated Axis members and some neutral countries who had held sympathy for either side. While all four allies initially agreed to try the main war criminals in Nuremberg and "jointly" administer occupied Germany and Austria, the facade of a joint administration began crumbling as early as 1948, when Stalin decided to blockade West Berlin and the British and Americans organized an airlift to break the blockade. Eventually, the former Axis nations were absorbed into the Western bloc and NATO (West Germany, Italy, Japan) or the Warsaw pact (East Germany, Hungary, Romania, etc). The United States and the Soviet Union emerged as the two superpowers of the era, and often challenged each other for world domination in a variety of areas such as military power and technological innovation. Although the two superpowers never actually went to war with each other, both sides often supported various proxy wars between their respective allies in an effort to spread their influence.

One of the most notable events of the early years of the Cold War besides the airlift was the Marshall Plan that was supposed to provide aid in the rebuilding of Europe and was soundly rejected by the Eastern Bloc countries. Much of the architecture of the 1950s (now mostly regarded as rather ugly) was built with funds from the Marshall Plan, whereas the Soviet Union popularized its own style that can still be seen in cities like East Berlin (especially Karl Marx Allee), Eisenhüttenstadt, Warsaw or Budapest.

The 1950s and 1960s saw unprecedented economic growth in most of Western Europe, especially West Germany, where the period came to be known as the Wirtschaftswunder ("economic miracle"). From the 1970s, relationships across the Iron Curtain improved, partly through the Helsinki Process (resulting in the OSCE, Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe), with Ostpolitik implemented by West German chancellor Willy Brandt.

Starting around the 1970s, the need for cheap housing led to a construction boom of a particular type of mass produced pre-fabricated housing. While those residential buildings got a different name in almost every country they were built in (Plattenbau being the German term), they were mostly the same everywhere and were also built in the West to a certain extent. Even though they were regarded as ultimately modern and innovations like central heating or direct road and public transport access made them popular at the time of their building, they have become negatively associated with socialism since 1990 and entered a decline in both perceived value and prestige. However, in some places efforts by local government to revitalize those neighbourhoods show some signs of success and even early signs of gentrification can be observed in certain such neighbourhoods.

Finland had an unusual history during the Cold War, as – in the words of a political cartoonist – they needed to "bow to the East without mooning the West". Amazingly, they managed to maintain a democratic, multi-party free market economy on good terms with the West without offending the East. All that despite the fact that Finland had fought two separate wars against the Soviet Union between 1939 and 1945 and had been a de facto ally of Nazi Germany in one of them.

The Soviet Union and Eastern Europe had become weakened by the 1980s, and civil rights protests brought down many Communist governments. Since then, most European nations east of the Iron Curtain have become democratic market economies – although the democracy in some of them is weak, threatened or even arguably demolished. The Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, and fragmented into 15 different countries, of which Russia is the largest and most influential. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the United States has been the world's sole superpower, though in the 21st century, its hegemony is increasingly being challenged by a resurgent China.

Throughout the Cold War, the great powers had to prepare for a future conflict, prospectively named the third World War. Especially along the Iron Curtain, bunkers, bomb shelters and missile sites can be found.

This war never happened, and post-1945 Europe was remarkably peaceful, with the exception of regional conflicts in the Basque Country, Corsica and Northern Ireland. Peace was broken in Yugoslavia in 1991, where a lengthy series of wars went on until 1999. The collapse of the Soviet Union also reignited ethnic and religious conflicts, resulting in civil wars, ethnic cleansings, genocides, separatist movements and disputed borders, some of which have never been resolved.

Heritage


"The end of the Cold War is our common victory."

- Mikhail Gorbachev, last leader of the Soviet Union

The German word Ostalgie describes the nostalgia for East Germany and other socialist states. Some icons, such as the Ampelmännchen pedestrian signal, have a cult following. In the Balkans there is a certain amount of "Yugo-nostalgia" for things associated with former Yugoslavia. Today many products that used to be available in the eastern bloc are once again available, though they are not always 100% authentic and may be produced by companies that have nothing to do with their erstwhile manufacturers. Ironically sometimes what used to be cost cutting measures to avoid using too much hard currency is now sometimes used as a selling point. For instance Nudossi, the erstwhile East German hazelnut-chocolate spread has a lot more nuts and less cacao than its western counterparts – today this is not hidden somewhere on the ingredient label but proudly displayed in advertising as a feature of quality.

Destinations

 * See Soviet Union for eastern destinations.

Croatia
What was then Yugoslavia emerged as a communist country after World War II in which Tito and his communists were one, but by no means the only force fighting the Nazis in the Balkans. Stalin provided support to Tito and the two considered each other allies, but by the end of the 1940s a rift had occurred, mostly over foreign policy.

Stalin and other leaders denounced Tito while Tito had Stalinists imprisoned at of the Coast of what's now Croatia. Later on, when tensions subsided the prison island increasingly came to house "normal" prisoners.

Denmark
Denmark was relatively unharmed by the war. The country was a founding member of NATO and the United Nations, and integrated quickly into the Western Bloc.





Finland
Between 1944 and 1956 the Porkkala peninsula with surroundings (in Uusimaa, Southern Finland) were leased to the Soviet Union as a naval base, as part of the peace treaty. The original Soviet lease for Porkkala had been for 50 years, but in 1955 an agreement was reached to return it earlier. There are still traces of the Soviet lease period to be seen in Ingå and Kirkkonummi. A natural start of the exploration can be the Igor Museum in Degerby.

Finland had a key role in the 1975 Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe (the "Helsinki process"), which later developed into OSCE. The conference was important in allowing talks and reducing tension across the Iron Curtain. At the time, the Helsinki accords were seen as a significant win for the Eastern Bloc, as the existing borders and societal systems were practically agreed to as inviolable by both sides – something which had been a sticking point with regards to many post-war borders and attempts at "rollback" by the US. However, as it turned out over the years, the sections about human rights, dismissed as mere window dressing at the time, proved incredibly important, and there was nary an oppositional group in the USSR's sphere of influence that didn't invoke the word "Helsinki" or raise a fuzz in Western media when repression came down too hard upon them.

Many of the coastal forts have been opened for tourism after the end of the Cold War (replaced with facilities for more mobile defence). Notable sites are Örö and Jussarö by the south coast, and Katanpää and Kuuskajaskari by the Bothnian Sea.

Germany


The Allies divided Germany between them, initially forming four occupation zones (Soviet, French, American and British) and later establishing the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany; on the territory of the French, British and American occupation zones), and the German Democratic Republic (East Germany; on the territory of the Soviet occupation zone and the Soviet sector of Berlin). Berlin was de jure under the "joint administration" of all four allies, but de facto an enclave within East Germany (American, French and British sectors) and the capital of the GDR (Soviet sector) respectively


 * Glienicker-Bruecke-msu-2023-0I9A-4355-.jpg
 * The Ruhr area was the industrial powerhouse of West Germany. Though damaged during World War II, and partly dismantled after the war, the Ruhr fuelled the West German economic miracle, until the manufacturing crisis of the 1970s. Many closed mines and industries remain as museums.
 * The Ruhr area was the industrial powerhouse of West Germany. Though damaged during World War II, and partly dismantled after the war, the Ruhr fuelled the West German economic miracle, until the manufacturing crisis of the 1970s. Many closed mines and industries remain as museums.
 * The Ruhr area was the industrial powerhouse of West Germany. Though damaged during World War II, and partly dismantled after the war, the Ruhr fuelled the West German economic miracle, until the manufacturing crisis of the 1970s. Many closed mines and industries remain as museums.

Former inner-German border


Few border installation survive to this day, but there are two extensive memorials with original border wall in situ. One is near in Saxony Anhalt, which is run in conjunction with a museum in Marienborn, which used to serve as a border crossing point. Marienborn was the eastern side, while Helmstedt was the Western side. The other is at the village, which is partly in Franconia and partly in Thuringia, therefore divided by a wall and nicknamed "Little Berlin".

Lithuania






Poland




Sweden
Sweden managed to stay out of both world wars, and formally had a non-alignment policy. While Sweden had plans to align with NATO in case of Soviet aggression, Prime Minister Olof Palme was a loud critic of both superpowers.

Throughout the Cold War, Sweden had a world-class air force, extensive conscription, and even a nuclear weapons programme which was just a few ounces of plutonium short from a functional bomb.



Itineraries
The Iron Curtain Trail (EuroVelo 13) is a projected, 7650 km long themed cycle route, leading along the former border between Eastern and Western blocs from Kirkenes on the northernmost point of the Norwegian-Russian border to the Bulgarian-Turkish border at the Black Sea, passing many Cold War-era memorials and other points of interest.

Stay safe
The display of communist symbols is now illegal in many countries east of the Iron Curtain as a result of decommunization laws enacted after the fall of communism.