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.
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, 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/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 neighborhoods show some signs of success and even early signs of gentrification can be observed in certain such neighborhoods.
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. 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 has been 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.
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.
See Soviet Union for eastern destinations.
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 Goli Otok 📍 of the Coast of what's now Croatia. Later on, when tensions subsided the prison island increasingly came to house "normal" prisoners.
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.
Stevnsfort Cold War Museum (Koldkrigsmuseum Stevnsfort), 55.26456°, 12.40984°. A coastal fortress dug into the limestone cliff, which played an important role in the Cold War defense of Denmark and NATO.
Museum of the Cold War Langelandsfort, 54.7529°, 10.7159°. Off-the-beaten-path museum in the 1950s fortress of the Danish naval defence offers a great self-guided tour through bunkers, anti-aircraft gun, submarine, minesweeper, fighter planes, and more.
Odense bunker museum, 55.385386°, 10.407611°. A small museum in a bunker, previously a nuclear-secure central command post for Odense. 2017-06-13
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.
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
Berlin, 52.51794°, 13.38873°. Berlin symbolizes the Cold War more than any other city. The Berlin Wall was erected in 1961, and most of it was torn down in the 1989 revolution. Bits and pieces of it have been sold around the world and you can still buy postcards with an "original" piece of Berlin Wall in it. However, some parts were deliberately left standing or re-erected at certain sites to serve as memorials or art installations. The DDR Museum in Berlin/Mitte gives insight into the daily lives of people in the former German Democratic Republic (East Germany). The Tränenpalast (Palace of Tears, former scene of many tearful goodbyes at Friedrichstraße railway station in East Berlin) also became a museum.
Few border installation survive to this day, but there are two extensive memorials with original border wall in situ. One is near Hötensleben 📍 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 Mödlareuth 📍 village, which is partly in Franconia and partly in Thuringia, therefore divided by a wall and nicknamed "Little Berlin".
Plokštinė missile base in Plateliai (Lithuanian: Plokštinės raketų bazė), 56.0275°, 21.909167°. Plokštinė missile base was the first underground missile base of the Soviet Union, constructed in the early 1960s. Today, one of the four existing silos is open for visitors as a Cold War Museum. 2020-08-20
Museum of Occupations and Freedom Fights - KGB museum in Vilnius (Okupacijų ir laisvės kovų muziejus - KGB muziejus), Aukų g. 2A, Vilnius (inside the former KGB building), 54.68796°, 25.27059°, +37052498156, muziejus@genocid.lt. W-Sa 10:00-18:00, Su 10:00-17:00. Visitors can visit the former KGB prison, the premises where death sentences were implemented, modern exhibitions telling about the loss of independence in the middle of the 20th century, repression by the Soviet authorities, and the self-sacrificing and persistent fight for independence. Adults €4, concessions €1 2020-08-20
Atomic bunker in Kaunas and KGB spy museum, Raudondvario Pl. 164, Kaunas, 54.9139°, 23.84192°, +370 677 57736, info@atominisbunkeris.lt. 6 metres under the ground, is the only of this kind in Lithuania. It has more than 1,200 unusual functioning exhibits. You will be surprised by the abundance of radiation meters, civil protection devices, air horns, mobile chemical laboratories, closed-circuit breathing apparatus, diving equipment, civil defence medical devices and instruments, electric generators, air compressors and portable floodlights. 2020-08-20
Gdansk, 54.367°, 18.633°. The Lenin shipyard was the cradle of the Solidarity movement, which challenged and then replaced the Socialist government.
Warsaw, 52.1°, 21.0°. Among the cities ravaged by the war, restored with Stalinist architecture, e.g. the landmark Palace of Culture and Science that was modeled on the Stalinist "Seven Sisters" in Moscow.
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.
Swedish Air Force Museum, 58.4102122°, 15.5237771°. Sweden was officially non-aligned during the Cold War, though it had secret contingency plans with NATO. Though a country with a small population, Sweden maintained a world-leading air force, with many aircraft developed at SAAB in Linköping. The Air Force Museum features many of these planes, as well as an exhibition about the preparations for a war that never came.
Femöre Fort (Femörefortet), 58.6490°, 17.1064°. A coastal fortress with an extensive Cold War museum.
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.
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.