4 ms·

Perhaps the iron curtain, I think was not such a great barrier as portrayed by the Western Media, people could mail things across it, and travel across it wasn'

Perhaps the iron curtain, I think was not such a great barrier as portrayed by the Western Media, people could mail things across it, and travel across it wasn't much different from crossing international borders now, I think there was even regular passenger ferry between FRG and USSR. Between East Berlin and west Berlin, there seems to have been much daily movement of people, like people living in West Berlin but working in East Berlin, etc.

muro 8y ago
I grew up living next to the iron curtain, literally <100m away. It was multiple tall fences, guard towers every 100m or so, a road, electric fences, detection mechanisms, barbed wire. To travel across from East to West, you needed a special permit, that was given or held back depending how much "risk" you were (of fleeing, not to the regime). My parents could travel only if they left me there, I stayed with grandparents for 2 weeks. There were regular known cases of people getting killed or jailed trying to cross.
- close04 8y ago
  The security tended to get tighter and tighter as time went by and more... "permeations" were discovered. So I expect security around the iron curtain in the '60s was a bit more lax than in the '80s. If the Berlin wall is any example, it was.
mikeash 8y ago
Certainly you could cross if you had permission. One difference is that it was much harder to get that permission, especially for people on the Communist side to get permission to leave. (How many countries have you heard of today where that’s a thing?) Another difference is that the penalty for crossing illegally was often instant death, which tends not to be the case on most international borders today.
tivert 8y ago
That's false. The guy who wrote this book (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear_No_Evil_(book) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear_No_Evil_(book)) spent more than a decade in the Gulag because he was denied permission to emigrate across the Iron Curtain and was a human rights activist agitating for emigration rights.
- billfruit 8y ago
  I do think there were tourists from USSR visiting other countries including the western Europe. Political dissidents may have been subject to measures not applicable to the general public.
  - tivert 8y ago
    > Political dissidents may have been subject to measures not applicable to the general public. He wasn't refused permission to emigrate because he was a dissident. IIRC, the refusal he received and those received by others are what lead him on the path to becoming a dissident.

muro 8y ago

I grew up living next to the iron curtain, literally <100m away. It was multiple tall fences, guard towers every 100m or so, a road, electric fences, detection mechanisms, barbed wire. To travel across from East to West, you needed a special permit, that was given or held back depending how much "risk" you were (of fleeing, not to the regime). My parents could travel only if they left me there, I stayed with grandparents for 2 weeks. There were regular known cases of people getting killed or jailed trying to cross.

close04 8y ago
The security tended to get tighter and tighter as time went by and more... "permeations" were discovered. So I expect security around the iron curtain in the '60s was a bit more lax than in the '80s. If the Berlin wall is any example, it was.

mikeash 8y ago

Certainly you could cross if you had permission. One difference is that it was much harder to get that permission, especially for people on the Communist side to get permission to leave. (How many countries have you heard of today where that’s a thing?) Another difference is that the penalty for crossing illegally was often instant death, which tends not to be the case on most international borders today.

tivert 8y ago

That's false. The guy who wrote this book (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear_No_Evil_(book) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear_No_Evil_(book)) spent more than a decade in the Gulag because he was denied permission to emigrate across the Iron Curtain and was a human rights activist agitating for emigration rights.

billfruit 8y ago
I do think there were tourists from USSR visiting other countries including the western Europe. Political dissidents may have been subject to measures not applicable to the general public.
- tivert 8y ago
  > Political dissidents may have been subject to measures not applicable to the general public. He wasn't refused permission to emigrate because he was a dissident. IIRC, the refusal he received and those received by others are what lead him on the path to becoming a dissident.