Czechoslovakian border fortifications during the Cold War
Encyclopedia
Czechoslovak Socialist Republic
The Czechoslovak Socialist Republic was the official name of Czechoslovakia from 1960 until end of 1989 , a Soviet satellite state of the Eastern Bloc....
(CSSR) to Western Europe, mainly to NATO-member Federal Republic of Germany
West Germany
West Germany is the common English, but not official, name for the Federal Republic of Germany or FRG in the period between its creation in May 1949 to German reunification on 3 October 1990....
(less so to neutral Austria
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
), was during the Cold War
Cold War
The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...
until 1989 as fortified as the Inner German border of the German Democratic Republic
German Democratic Republic
The German Democratic Republic , informally called East Germany by West Germany and other countries, was a socialist state established in 1949 in the Soviet zone of occupied Germany, including East Berlin of the Allied-occupied capital city...
, to prevent citizens of the Eastern Bloc
Eastern bloc
The term Eastern Bloc or Communist Bloc refers to the former communist states of Eastern and Central Europe, generally the Soviet Union and the countries of the Warsaw Pact...
from escaping to the West, although official reports stated it was for keeping Western Europeans out of the Communist nations. (For example, the East German border fortifications were euphemistically termed an "anti-fascist protection wall" by GDR apparatchiks.)
After World War II and the division of Germany in 1949, the border area of Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia or Czecho-Slovakia was a sovereign state in Central Europe which existed from October 1918, when it declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, until 1992...
was already a restricted area. From 1951 onwards, this area was designated by a signal fence some kilometres inland, while the border itself was secured by a guarded strip with a single barbed wire fence. This fence, originally an electric fence with a voltage of 5000 V, was replaced starting in 1968 by a double wire mesh fence similar to that used for the Inner German border. In addition, the Czechs fitted their border with watch towers. In contrast to the concrete towers of the East Germans, these towers were usually made of wood or steel framework. In some areas various types of land mine were used, notably PP Mi-Ba, PP Mi-D
PP Mi-D mine
The PP Mi-D mine is a Czech copy of the German Second World War Schu-mine 42 anti-personnel mine.It consists of a simple wooden box with a hinged lid that acts as the trigger mechanism. A slot is cut into the side of the lid which rests on the striker retaining pin...
and PP Mi.
The barrier typically lay around 100 metres inland from the actual boundary line. As the fence was not visible from there at some places, it repeatedly occurred that curious or careless West German strollers overlooked border markers and mistakenly entered Czechoslovak territory, which could lead to their arrest.
The Czechs witnessed the drama in the "Prague Embassy" of West Germany, where thousands of East Germans were hiding, wearing down also the patience of the Czechoslovak authorities which gave in eventually, letting all East Germans travel directly to West Germany on 3 November, thus breaking the Iron Curtain
Iron Curtain
The concept of the Iron Curtain symbolized the ideological fighting and physical boundary dividing Europe into two separate areas from the end of World War II in 1945 until the end of the Cold War in 1989...
.
On 17 November 1989, the Velvet Revolution
Velvet Revolution
The Velvet Revolution or Gentle Revolution was a non-violent revolution in Czechoslovakia that took place from November 17 – December 29, 1989...
succeeded. The barbed wire at the borders to East Germany and Austria was removed from 5 December onwards, and from 11th the Czechoslovak fortifications on the West German border were dismantled.
See also
- Czechoslovak border fortificationsCzechoslovak border fortificationsThe Czechoslovak government built a system of border fortifications from 1935 to 1938 as a defensive countermeasure against the rising threat of Nazi Germany that later materialized in the German offensive plan called Fall Grün...
- Velvet Revolution: key events of the following weeks.
External links
- S-175 Gardina (The Curtain), the main type of electonic security barrier on the Soviet borders (in Russian)
- http://www.history.army.mil/documents/BorderOps/ch6.htmModern Border Operations], United States Army Center of Military History
- Czechoslovak Border Barrier System, United States Army Center of Military History
