159-530: The Pan-European Picnic ( German : Paneuropäisches Picknick ; Hungarian : Páneurópai piknik ; Slovak : Paneurópsky piknik ; Czech : Panevropský piknik ) was a peace demonstration held on the Austrian - Hungarian border near Sopron, Hungary on 19 August 1989. The opening of the border gate between Austria and Hungary at the Pan-European Picnic was an event in the chain reaction, at
318-596: A European Green Belt nature preserve area along the Iron Curtain's former route. In fact, a long-distance cycling route along the length of the former border called the Iron Curtain Trail (ICT) exists as a project of the European Union and other associated nations. The trail is 6,800 km (4,200 mi) long and spans from Finland to Greece . The term "Iron Curtain" was only used for
477-465: A de facto official language of Namibia after the end of German colonial rule alongside English and Afrikaans , and had de jure co-official status from 1984 until its independence from South Africa in 1990. However, the Namibian government perceived Afrikaans and German as symbols of apartheid and colonialism, and decided English would be the sole official language upon independence, stating that it
636-402: A second language , and 75–100 million as a foreign language . This would imply the existence of approximately 175–220 million German speakers worldwide. German sociolinguist Ulrich Ammon estimated a number of 289 million German foreign language speakers without clarifying the criteria by which he classified a speaker. As of 2012 , about 90 million people, or 16% of
795-612: A "commonly used" language and the Pan South African Language Board is obligated to promote and ensure respect for it. Cameroon was also a colony of the German Empire from the same period (1884 to 1916). However, German was replaced by French and English, the languages of the two successor colonial powers, after its loss in World War I . Nevertheless, since the 21st century, German has become
954-425: A 12 May 1945 telegram he sent to U.S. President Harry S. Truman regarding his concern about Soviet actions, stating "[a]n iron curtain is drawn down upon their front. We do not know what is going on behind". He repeated it in another telegram to Truman on June 4, mentioning "...the descent of an iron curtain between us and everything to the eastward", and in a House of Commons speech on 16 August 1945, stating "it
1113-518: A barbed wire fence, along with guard towers and a sand strip to track border violations. Regular patrols sought to prevent escape attempts. They included cars and mounted units. Guards and dog patrol units watched the border 24/7 and were authorised to use their weapons to stop escapees. The wire fence nearest the actual border was irregularly displaced from the actual border, which was marked only by stones. Anyone attempting to escape would have to cross up to 400 metres (1,300 ft) before they could cross
1272-691: A bilateral agreement to return the refugees to Romania, Hungary signed the United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees (CRSR) in 1989. The financial situation was difficult in Hungary. Prime Minister Miklós Németh decided that his government could not afford to maintain automated border control along the border with Austria; spare parts would come from the West and were paid for in hard currency. Németh believed it
1431-552: A bomb on their table": Esteemed Chancellor, an important decision has been made in Budapest. Returning the refugees to East Germany is out of the question. We shall open the border, and by mid-September, all East Germans should be able to leave our country... I will never forget his eyes. Kohl, the big boy, was moved to tears. Németh assured Kohl that the Hungarians would handle the border situation, and permission from Gorbachev
1590-604: A brake on this ongoing phenomenon, the commanding force of and strong unity between the UK and the US was necessary. Stalin took note of Churchill's speech and responded in Pravda in mid-March 1946. He accused Churchill of warmongering, and defended Soviet "friendship" with eastern-European states as a necessary safeguard against another invasion. Stalin further accused Churchill of hoping to install right-wing governments in eastern Europe with
1749-506: A fence along the entire border towards Norway and Finland . It is located one or a few kilometres from the border, and has automatic alarms detecting if someone climbs over it. Historian Juha Pohjonen stated in a 2005 study that people who escaped the USSR to Finland were sent back, based on a policy that was implemented unilaterally by Urho Kekkonen when he took office in 1956. The Soviets initially attempted to apply mare clausum to
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#17327655471241908-559: A greater need for regularity in written conventions. While the major changes of the MHG period were socio-cultural, High German was still undergoing significant linguistic changes in syntax, phonetics, and morphology as well (e.g. diphthongization of certain vowel sounds: hus (OHG & MHG "house") → haus (regionally in later MHG)→ Haus (NHG), and weakening of unstressed short vowels to schwa [ə]: taga (OHG "days")→ tage (MHG)). A great wealth of texts survives from
2067-458: A native tongue today, mostly descendants of German colonial settlers . The period of German colonialism in Namibia also led to the evolution of a Standard German-based pidgin language called " Namibian Black German ", which became a second language for parts of the indigenous population. Although it is nearly extinct today, some older Namibians still have some knowledge of it. German remained
2226-696: A popular foreign language among pupils and students, with 300,000 people learning or speaking German in Cameroon in 2010 and over 230,000 in 2020. Today Cameroon is one of the African countries outside Namibia with the highest number of people learning German. In the United States, German is the fifth most spoken language in terms of native and second language speakers after English, Spanish , French , and Chinese (with figures for Cantonese and Mandarin combined), with over 1 million total speakers. In
2385-483: A result, the surviving texts are written in highly disparate regional dialects and exhibit significant Latin influence, particularly in vocabulary. At this point monasteries, where most written works were produced, were dominated by Latin, and German saw only occasional use in official and ecclesiastical writing. While there is no complete agreement over the dates of the Middle High German (MHG) period, it
2544-480: A vast system of barriers that divides the entire continent of Europe. From the Baltic, south, those barriers cut across Germany in a gash of barbed wire, concrete, dog runs, and guard towers. Farther south, there may be no visible, no obvious wall. But there remain armed guards and checkpoints all the same – still a restriction on the right to travel, still an instrument to impose upon ordinary men and women
2703-609: A very good thing. I think it would be good if some of the East Germans used this opportunity and fled." "Fled?" "Yes. And we would not interfere with it." "I see." Németh explained in the documentary: This was really a great opportunity to us to assess the Russians' reactions, to test the tolerance of the Soviet Union. So we sent out an order to the border troops: "Please instruct your guards, if you see any East Germans on
2862-417: A white marble monument in memory of those who risked their lives to cross the Iron Curtain, and Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt said: "We must remain an open Europe of open societies and open minds, open to others beyond our present boundaries". In August 2019, Chancellor Merkel and Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orbán recalled the Pan-European Picnic that took place 30 years ago and its importance for
3021-601: Is a recognized minority language in the following countries: In France, the High German varieties of Alsatian and Moselle Franconian are identified as " regional languages ", but the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages of 1998 has not yet been ratified by the government. Namibia also was a colony of the German Empire, from 1884 to 1915. About 30,000 people still speak German as
3180-430: Is a very risky business now, Miklos, do you know what this means? It means that from now on every single murder will be your fault. Do you understand?" I felt ashamed that it had happened. I made the conclusion in one sentence: "We are opening up". On 22 August Németh flew by helicopter to Bonn to meet with West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl and Kohl's foreign secretary, Hans-Dietrich Genscher . There, Németh "dropped
3339-612: Is also notable for its broad spectrum of dialects , with many varieties existing in Europe and other parts of the world. Some of these non-standard varieties have become recognized and protected by regional or national governments. Since 2004, heads of state of the German-speaking countries have met every year, and the Council for German Orthography has been the main international body regulating German orthography . German
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#17327655471243498-558: Is an Indo-European language that belongs to the West Germanic group of the Germanic languages . The Germanic languages are traditionally subdivided into three branches: North Germanic , East Germanic , and West Germanic . The first of these branches survives in modern Danish , Swedish , Norwegian , Faroese , and Icelandic , all of which are descended from Old Norse . The East Germanic languages are now extinct, and Gothic
3657-651: Is assumed that in addition to the local organizers and the Pan-European Organization , the West German secret service BND and the Order of Malta , which is close to the Habsburgs, were also involved in the decisive distribution of the leaflets to the East Germans. The Pan-European Picnic is now referred to as a "great moment of mankind (German: Sternstunde der Menschheit)". It was only through
3816-531: Is at work", "The GDR is the tower in battle", "We must further counter the underhand attacks of the GDR's enemies", "We mustn't be hypnotized by the western media. The enemy has a big concept, he wants to smash everything of ours. We have to attack the enemy. This is imperialism in the FRG. Those are the real culprits." But no action was taken. In Budapest and around Lake Balaton , thousands of East Germans hesitated to cross
3975-478: Is called the "German Sprachraum ". German is the official language of the following countries: German is a co-official language of the following countries: Although expulsions and (forced) assimilation after the two World wars greatly diminished them, minority communities of mostly bilingual German native speakers exist in areas both adjacent to and detached from the Sprachraum. Within Europe, German
4134-430: Is complicated by the existence of several varieties whose status as separate "languages" or "dialects" is disputed for political and linguistic reasons, including quantitatively strong varieties like certain forms of Alemannic and Low German . With the inclusion or exclusion of certain varieties, it is estimated that approximately 90–95 million people speak German as a first language , 10–25 million speak it as
4293-535: Is generally seen as ending when the 1346–53 Black Death decimated Europe's population. Modern High German begins with the Early New High German (ENHG) period, which Wilhelm Scherer dates 1350–1650, terminating with the end of the Thirty Years' War . This period saw the further displacement of Latin by German as the primary language of courtly proceedings and, increasingly, of literature in
4452-611: Is generally seen as lasting from 1050 to 1350. This was a period of significant expansion of the geographical territory occupied by Germanic tribes, and consequently of the number of German speakers. Whereas during the Old High German period the Germanic tribes extended only as far east as the Elbe and Saale rivers, the MHG period saw a number of these tribes expanding beyond this eastern boundary into Slavic territory (known as
4611-565: Is less closely related to languages based on Low Franconian dialects (e.g., Dutch and Afrikaans), Low German or Low Saxon dialects (spoken in northern Germany and southern Denmark ), neither of which underwent the High German consonant shift. As has been noted, the former of these dialect types is Istvaeonic and the latter Ingvaeonic, whereas the High German dialects are all Irminonic; the differences between these languages and standard German are therefore considerable. Also related to German are
4770-438: Is not impossible that tragedy on a prodigious scale is unfolding itself behind the iron curtain which at the moment divides Europe in twain". The antagonism between the Soviet Union and the West that came to be described as the "iron curtain" had various origins. During the summer of 1939, after conducting negotiations both with a British-French group and with Nazi Germany regarding potential military and political agreements,
4929-435: Is one of the major languages of the world . German is the second-most widely spoken Germanic language , after English, both as a first and as a second language . German is also widely taught as a foreign language , especially in continental Europe (where it is the third most taught foreign language after English and French), and in the United States. Overall, German is the fourth most commonly learned second language, and
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5088-597: Is one of the three biggest newspapers in Namibia and the only German-language daily in Africa. An estimated 12,000 people speak German or a German variety as a first language in South Africa, mostly originating from different waves of immigration during the 19th and 20th centuries. One of the largest communities consists of the speakers of "Nataler Deutsch", a variety of Low German concentrated in and around Wartburg . The South African constitution identifies German as
5247-401: Is partly derived from Latin and Greek , along with fewer words borrowed from French and Modern English . English, however, is the main source of more recent loanwords . German is a pluricentric language ; the three standardized variants are German , Austrian , and Swiss Standard German . Standard German is sometimes called High German , which refers to its regional origin. German
5406-525: Is the Sachsenspiegel , the first book of laws written in Middle Low German ( c. 1220 ). The abundance and especially the secular character of the literature of the MHG period demonstrate the beginnings of a standardized written form of German, as well as the desire of poets and authors to be understood by individuals on supra-dialectal terms. The Middle High German period
5565-578: Is the only language in this branch which survives in written texts. The West Germanic languages, however, have undergone extensive dialectal subdivision and are now represented in modern languages such as English, German, Dutch , Yiddish , Afrikaans , and others. Within the West Germanic language dialect continuum, the Benrath and Uerdingen lines (running through Düsseldorf - Benrath and Krefeld - Uerdingen , respectively) serve to distinguish
5724-485: Is understood in all areas where German is spoken. Approximate distribution of native German speakers (assuming a rounded total of 95 million) worldwide: As a result of the German diaspora , as well as the popularity of German taught as a foreign language , the geographical distribution of German speakers (or "Germanophones") spans all inhabited continents. However, an exact, global number of native German speakers
5883-689: The Ostsiedlung ). With the increasing wealth and geographic spread of the Germanic groups came greater use of German in the courts of nobles as the standard language of official proceedings and literature. A clear example of this is the mittelhochdeutsche Dichtersprache employed in the Hohenstaufen court in Swabia as a standardized supra-dialectal written language. While these efforts were still regionally bound, German began to be used in place of Latin for certain official purposes, leading to
6042-639: The Alamanni , Bavarian, and Thuringian groups, all belonging to the Elbe Germanic group ( Irminones ), which had settled in what is now southern-central Germany and Austria between the second and sixth centuries, during the great migration. In general, the surviving texts of Old High German (OHG) show a wide range of dialectal diversity with very little written uniformity. The early written tradition of OHG survived mostly through monasteries and scriptoria as local translations of Latin originals; as
6201-637: The Austrian State Treaty in 1955) – found themselves under the hegemony of the Soviet Union which had annexed Estonia , Latvia , and Lithuania as Soviet Socialist Republics . Germany effectively gave Moscow a free hand in much of these territories in the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact of 1939, signed before Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941. Other Soviet-annexed territories included: Between 1945 and 1949
6360-528: The Berlin Blockade , which cut off all non-Soviet food, water and other supplies for the citizens of the non-Soviet sectors of Berlin. Because Berlin was located within the Soviet-occupied zone of Germany, the only available methods of supplying the city were three limited air corridors. A massive aerial supply campaign was initiated by the United States, Britain, France, and other countries,
6519-568: The Czech Republic ( North Bohemia ), Poland ( Upper Silesia ), Slovakia ( Košice Region , Spiš , and Hauerland ), Denmark ( North Schleswig ), Romania and Hungary ( Sopron ). Overseas, sizeable communities of German-speakers are found in Brazil ( Blumenau and Pomerode ), South Africa ( Kroondal ), Namibia , among others, some communities have decidedly Austrian German or Swiss German characters (e.g. Pozuzo , Peru). German
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6678-537: The Early Middle Ages . German is an inflected language , with four cases for nouns, pronouns, and adjectives (nominative, accusative, genitive, dative); three genders (masculine, feminine, neuter) and two numbers (singular, plural). It has strong and weak verbs . The majority of its vocabulary derives from the ancient Germanic branch of the Indo-European language family, while a smaller share
6837-613: The European Community (EC) and the European Free Trade Association represented Western counterparts to COMECON . Most of the nominally neutral states were economically closer to the United States than they were to the Warsaw Pact . In January 1947, Harry Truman appointed General George Marshall as Secretary of State, scrapped Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) directive 1067 (which embodied
6996-480: The European Union 's population, spoke German as their mother tongue, making it the second most widely spoken language on the continent after Russian and the second biggest language in terms of overall speakers (after English), as well as the most spoken native language. The area in central Europe where the majority of the population speaks German as a first language and has German as a (co-)official language
7155-671: The European Union . It is the most widely spoken and official (or co-official) language in Germany , Austria , Switzerland , Liechtenstein , and the Italian autonomous province of South Tyrol . It is also an official language of Luxembourg , Belgium and the Italian autonomous region of Friuli-Venezia Giulia , as well as a recognized national language in Namibia . There are also notable German-speaking communities in France ( Alsace ),
7314-616: The Geneva Convention of 1951. Most Soviets allowed to leave during this time period were ethnic Jews permitted to emigrate to Israel after a series of embarrassing defections in 1970 caused the Soviets to open very limited ethnic emigrations. The fall of the Iron Curtain was accompanied by a massive rise in European East-West migration. “Behind me stands a wall that encircles the free sectors of this city, part of
7473-522: The German states . While these states were still part of the Holy Roman Empire , and far from any form of unification, the desire for a cohesive written language that would be understandable across the many German-speaking principalities and kingdoms was stronger than ever. As a spoken language German remained highly fractured throughout this period, with a vast number of often mutually incomprehensible regional dialects being spoken throughout
7632-746: The Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I , and the other being Meißner Deutsch , used in the Electorate of Saxony in the Duchy of Saxe-Wittenberg . Alongside these courtly written standards, the invention of the printing press led to the development of a number of printers' languages ( Druckersprachen ) aimed at making printed material readable and understandable across as many diverse dialects of German as possible. The greater ease of production and increased availability of written texts brought about increased standardisation in
7791-579: The Hungarian Socialist Workers' Party (MSzMP) and Minister of State, as patrons of the event. Former Prime Minister Miklós Németh explained in 1989 , a 2014 documentary, that the picnic offered the Hungarian government a way out of a situation which had arisen with East German tourists holidaying in Hungary that summer: No one of us forecast it that during the summer [of 1989] we will have another hot potato in our hands, namely
7950-453: The Kremlin , leading to a coup d'état against Gorbachev. During the night of 21–22 August Kurt-Werner Schulz [ de ] , a 36-year-old East German from Weimar , was killed. Németh said later: We decided to get back to the rule books on the border control, but at the same time, we, or I, created a trap for myself [...] One of the advisers quite clearly told me, "Look, this
8109-477: The Morgenthau Plan ), and supplanted it with JCS 1779, which decreed that an orderly and prosperous Europe requires the economic contributions of a stable and productive Germany." Officials met with Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov and others to press for an economically self-sufficient Germany, including a detailed accounting of the industrial plants, goods and infrastructure already removed by
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#17327655471248268-666: The Old High German language in several Elder Futhark inscriptions from as early as the sixth century AD (such as the Pforzen buckle ), the Old High German period is generally seen as beginning with the Abrogans (written c. 765–775 ), a Latin-German glossary supplying over 3,000 Old High German words with their Latin equivalents. After the Abrogans , the first coherent works written in Old High German appear in
8427-584: The Pan-Europa-Union had the pan-European picnic on the border between Hungary and Austria on August 19, 1989 in Sopron. Hundreds of them came. It was stupid that people from the GDR should cross the border via Hungary and Austria, if there was a border crossing right by them." After the East German regime tried to block the Hungarian route, thousands fled to the West via Czechoslovakia and there
8586-817: The Paneuropean Union . The idea was brought up by them to Miklós Németh , then the Hungarian Prime Minister, who also promoted the idea. The Pan-European Picnic itself developed further from a meeting between Otto von Habsburg and Ferenc Mészáros in June 1989. The local organisation in Sopron took over the Hungarian Democratic Forum, and the other contacts were made via Habsburg and the Hungarian Minister of State Imre Pozsgay . The Austrian Paneuropean Union and
8745-537: The Polish Round Table Agreement was signed, legalising Solidarity and scheduling parliamentary elections for 4 June. Solidarity's victory surpassed all expectations. In this context, there were individual organisations in the west that were constantly trying to get in touch with the people in the east or to find ways to weaken the communist system, like the Austrian branch of the Paneuropean Union , whose president Karl von Habsburg had been since 1986. Under his responsibility, attempts were made to sustainably support
8904-427: The Sprachraum in Europe. German is used in a wide variety of spheres throughout the country, especially in business, tourism, and public signage, as well as in education, churches (most notably the German-speaking Evangelical Lutheran Church in Namibia (GELK) ), other cultural spheres such as music, and media (such as German language radio programs by the Namibian Broadcasting Corporation ). The Allgemeine Zeitung
9063-422: The Standard German language in its written form, and the Duden Handbook was declared its standard definition. Punctuation and compound spelling (joined or isolated compounds) were not standardized in the process. The Deutsche Bühnensprache ( lit. ' German stage language ' ) by Theodor Siebs had established conventions for German pronunciation in theatres , three years earlier; however, this
9222-460: The U.S. State Department also published a collection of documents titled Nazi-Soviet Relations, 1939–1941: Documents from the Archives of The German Foreign Office , which contained documents recovered from the Foreign Office of Nazi Germany revealing Soviet conversations with Germany regarding the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact , including its secret protocol dividing eastern Europe, the 1939 German-Soviet Commercial Agreement , and discussions of
9381-400: The Upper German dialects spoken in the southern German-speaking countries , such as Swiss German ( Alemannic dialects ) and the various Germanic dialects spoken in the French region of Grand Est , such as Alsatian (mainly Alemannic, but also Central–and Upper Franconian dialects) and Lorraine Franconian (Central Franconian). After these High German dialects, standard German
9540-429: The Warsaw Pact . To the west of the Iron Curtain, the countries of Western Europe, Northern Europe, and Southern Europe — along with Austria, West Germany, Liechtenstein and Switzerland — operated Market Economies . With the exception of a period of Fascism in Spain (until 1975 ) and Portugal (until 1974 ) and a military dictatorship in Greece (1967–1974) , democratic governments ruled these countries. Most of
9699-437: The Western public still regarded the Soviet Union as a close ally in the context of the 1945 defeat of Nazi Germany and of Imperial Japan . Although not well received at the time, the phrase iron curtain gained popularity as a shorthand reference to the division of Europe as the Cold War progressed. The Iron Curtain served to keep people in, and information out. People throughout the West eventually came to accept and use
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#17327655471249858-407: The Yalta Conference (February 1945) and the subsequent Potsdam Conference (July–August 1945). People in the West expressed opposition to Soviet domination over the buffer states, and the fear grew that the Soviets were building an empire that might be a threat to them and their interests. Nonetheless, at the Potsdam Conference , the Allies assigned parts of Poland, Finland, Romania, Germany, and
10017-408: The pagan Germanic tradition. Of particular interest to scholars, however, has been the Hildebrandslied , a secular epic poem telling the tale of an estranged father and son unknowingly meeting each other in battle. Linguistically, this text is highly interesting due to the mixed use of Old Saxon and Old High German dialects in its composition. The written works of this period stem mainly from
10176-423: The university of Debrecen about Europe without borders and the European Parliament elections' effect on Central Europe. His speech was followed by a dinner, at which two representatives of the conservative Hungarian Democratic Forum (MDF) party ( Mária Filep and Ferenc Mészáros) suggested a picnic for local residents at the Austro-Hungarian border to celebrate the bonds between Austrians and Hungarians. Although
10335-401: The "peaceful picnic on the Austro-Hungarian border near Sopron", which "helped to change the course of European history". This event led to the "iron curtain briefly opening" and thus contributed to its "final fall and the reunification of Germany". This marks the beginning of the end of the division of Europe through the Cold War. The Pan-European Picnic is considered a significant milestone on
10494-499: The Balkans to Soviet control or influence. In return, Stalin promised the Western Allies that he would allow those territories the right to National Self-Determination . Despite Soviet cooperation during the war, these concessions left many in the West uneasy. In particular, Churchill feared that the United States might return to its pre-war Isolationism , leaving the exhausted European states unable to resist Soviet demands. (President Franklin D. Roosevelt had announced at Yalta that after
10653-413: The Baltic Sea, stopping any ships that were not of countries immediately around the sea. This was never accepted in international law, and was constantly opposed by Western Powers. By 1946, “all islands in the Baltic Sea belonging to the Soviet Union” and 36 village soviets along Estonia’s northern and north-western coast were defined as belonging to the "border belt," a naval boundary surrounding
10812-399: The East German ambassador in Budapest on August 11, 1989, about the planned picnic and the opening of the border, but no countermeasures were taken. In a symbolic gesture agreed to by both Austria and Hungary, a border gate on the road from Sankt Margarethen im Burgenland , Austria to Sopronkőhida , Hungary was to be opened for three hours on 19 August. Otto von Habsburg was represented at
10971-614: The Empire. Its use indicated that the speaker was a merchant or someone from an urban area, regardless of nationality. Prague (German: Prag ) and Budapest ( Buda , German: Ofen ), to name two examples, were gradually Germanized in the years after their incorporation into the Habsburg domain; others, like Pressburg ( Pozsony , now Bratislava), were originally settled during the Habsburg period and were primarily German at that time. Prague, Budapest, Bratislava, and cities like Zagreb (German: Agram ) or Ljubljana (German: Laibach ), contained significant German minorities. In
11130-414: The Frisian languages— North Frisian (spoken in Nordfriesland ), Saterland Frisian (spoken in Saterland ), and West Frisian (spoken in Friesland )—as well as the Anglic languages of English and Scots. These Anglo-Frisian dialects did not take part in the High German consonant shift, and the Anglic languages also adopted much vocabulary from both Old Norse and the Norman language . The history of
11289-417: The German language begins with the High German consonant shift during the Migration Period , which separated Old High German dialects from Old Saxon . This sound shift involved a drastic change in the pronunciation of both voiced and voiceless stop consonants ( b , d , g , and p , t , k , respectively). The primary effects of the shift were the following below. While there is written evidence of
11448-606: The German refugee problem. I got the first news that, interestingly, after the 2–3 weeks long holiday, some of the GDR citizens decided to stay, and it was clear to me, that this is now very, very serious. In Budapest , around the Lake Balaton, all the camping sites were fully, fully packed, even along the road, without any facilities around them, of course. End of September, and the cold weather arrives, we did not have facilities to provide, these people will die here, frozen, during
11607-451: The German states; the invention of the printing press c. 1440 and the publication of Luther's vernacular translation of the Bible in 1534, however, had an immense effect on standardizing German as a supra-dialectal written language. The ENHG period saw the rise of several important cross-regional forms of chancery German, one being gemeine tiutsch , used in the court of
11766-681: The Germanic dialects that were affected by the High German consonant shift (south of Benrath) from those that were not (north of Uerdingen). The various regional dialects spoken south of these lines are grouped as High German dialects, while those spoken to the north comprise the Low German and Low Franconian dialects. As members of the West Germanic language family, High German, Low German, and Low Franconian have been proposed to be further distinguished historically as Irminonic , Ingvaeonic , and Istvaeonic , respectively. This classification indicates their historical descent from dialects spoken by
11925-619: The Hungarian Democratic Forum (MDF). "To arrange a so-called" bacon roast "at the Austro-Hungarian border in August or September 1989 and then repeat it every month." "The MDF accepted Otto von Habsburg 's suggestion and the Presidium commissioned a member to organize the event." The Hungarian Defense Against Internal Reaction, informed on July 31, 1989, informed their superiors about the pan-European picnic in Sopron. The MDF took on
12084-738: The Hungarian Democratic Forum, the Alliance of Free Democrats , Fidesz, and the Independent Smallholders, Agrarian Workers and Civic Party . Its patrons were Christian Social Union in Bavaria , Otto von Habsburg , and Hungarian Minister of State and reformer Imre Pozsgay . The Hungarian government restored normal border controls after the picnic. In August 6,923 people were arrested at the border; of those, 5,527 or eighty percent were East Germans. The Hungarian government feared that laxness would lead to hard-liners assuming control in
12243-706: The Hungarian State Security Service had known since 10 July 1989 that an event was planned at the border on the basis of a suggestion from Otto Habsburg. He informed the Hungarian domestic secret service on 31 July 1989, about preparations for this event. The operational group of the Ministry for State Security of the GDR (the presence of the Stasi in Hungary) had information about the Pan-European Picnic, but their officers did not react either and
12402-655: The Irminones (also known as the Elbe group), Ingvaeones (or North Sea Germanic group), and Istvaeones (or Weser–Rhine group). Standard German is based on a combination of Thuringian - Upper Saxon and Upper Franconian dialects, which are Central German and Upper German dialects belonging to the High German dialect group. German is therefore closely related to the other languages based on High German dialects, such as Luxembourgish (based on Central Franconian dialects ) and Yiddish . Also closely related to Standard German are
12561-655: The Iron Curtain had partially broken open, that the Soviet Union was not intervening, and that the governments in the East were increasingly losing power due to indecisive action. East Germany's Erich Honecker told the Daily Mirror about the picnic, "Habsburg distributed pamphlets right up to the Polish border, inviting East German holiday-makers to a picnic. When they came to the picnic, they were given presents, food, and Deutsche Marks , before being persuaded to go over to
12720-518: The Iron Curtain started with peaceful opposition in Poland , and continued into Hungary , East Germany , Bulgaria , and Czechoslovakia . Romania became the only socialist state in Europe to overthrow its government with violence . The use of the term "Iron Curtain" as a metaphor for strict separation goes back at least as far as the early 19th century. It originally referred to fireproof curtains in theaters. The author Alexander Campbell used
12879-693: The Iron Curtain, except under limited circumstances, was effectively halted after 1950. Before 1950, over 15 million people (mainly ethnic Germans) emigrated from Soviet-occupied eastern European countries to the west in the five years immediately following World War II . However, restrictions implemented during the Cold War stopped most east–west migration, with only 13.3 million migrations westward between 1950 and 1990. More than 75% of those emigrating from Eastern Bloc countries between 1950 and 1990 did so under bilateral agreements for "ethnic migration." About 10% were refugees permitted to emigrate under
13038-493: The MDF took care of advertising the event with leaflets that were distributed in Hungary. The patrons of the picnic, Habsburg and Pozsgay, who were not present at the event, saw the planned event as an opportunity to test Mikhail Gorbachev 's reaction to an opening of the border on the Iron Curtain. The official emblem of the picnic was a pigeon breaking through the barbed wire. At the picnic several hundred East German citizens overran
13197-518: The MHG period. Significantly, these texts include a number of impressive secular works, such as the Nibelungenlied , an epic poem telling the story of the dragon -slayer Siegfried ( c. thirteenth century ), and the Iwein , an Arthurian verse poem by Hartmann von Aue ( c. 1203 ), lyric poems , and courtly romances such as Parzival and Tristan . Also noteworthy
13356-528: The Soviet Union and Nazi Germany signed the German–Soviet Commercial Agreement (which provided for the trade of certain German military and civilian equipment in exchange for Soviet raw materials) and the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact (signed in late August 1939), named after the foreign secretaries of the two countries ( Vyacheslav Molotov and Joachim von Ribbentrop ), which included a secret agreement to split Poland and Eastern Europe between
13515-563: The Soviet Union and those of Eastern Europe, called the Marshall Plan. Stalin opposed the Marshall Plan. He had built up the Eastern Bloc protective belt of Soviet-controlled nations on his Western border, and wanted to maintain this buffer zone of states combined with a weakened Germany under Soviet control. Fearing American political, cultural and economic penetration, Stalin eventually forbade Soviet Eastern bloc countries of
13674-463: The Soviet Union potentially becoming the fourth Axis Power . In response, one month later, the Soviet Union published Falsifiers of History , a Stalin-edited and partially rewritten book attacking the West. After the Marshall Plan, the introduction of a new currency to Western Germany to replace the debased Reichsmark and massive electoral losses for communist parties, in June 1948, the Soviet Union cut off surface road access to Berlin , initiating
13833-590: The Soviet Union sent Germany vital oil, rubber, manganese and other materials in exchange for German weapons, manufacturing machinery and technology. Nazi–Soviet trade ended in June 1941 when Germany broke the Pact and invaded the Soviet Union in Operation Barbarossa . In the course of World War II, Stalin determined to acquire a buffer area against Germany, with pro-Soviet states on its border in an Eastern bloc . Stalin's aims led to strained relations at
13992-557: The Soviet Union's opinion on the German problem in the Stuttgart Council , and then followed the announcement by US President Harry S. Truman of a hard line anti-Soviet, anticommunist policy. After that the phrase iron curtain became more widely used as an anti-Soviet term in the West. Additionally, Churchill mentioned in his speech that regions under the Soviet Union's control were expanding their leverage and Power without any restriction. He asserted that in order to put
14151-642: The Soviet border. A May 1943 article in Signal , a German propaganda periodical, discussed "the iron curtain that more than ever before separates the world from the Soviet Union". Joseph Goebbels commented in Das Reich , on 25 February 1945, that if Germany should lose the war, "An iron curtain would fall over this enormous territory controlled by the Soviet Union, behind which nations would be slaughtered". English-language Nazi propagandist William Joyce used
14310-617: The Soviets converted the following areas into satellite states : Soviet-installed governments ruled the Eastern Bloc countries, with the exception of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia , which changed its orientation away from the Soviet Union in the late 1940s to a progressively independent worldview . The majority of European states to the east of the Iron Curtain developed their own international economic and military alliances, such as Comecon and
14469-493: The Soviets. After five and a half weeks of negotiations, Molotov refused the demands and the talks were adjourned. Marshall was particularly discouraged after personally meeting with Stalin, who expressed little interest in a solution to German economic problems. The United States concluded that a solution could not wait any longer. In a 5 June 1947 speech, Marshall announced a comprehensive program of American assistance to all European countries wanting to participate, including
14628-560: The Stasi had no choice but to organise the return transport of the abandoned vehicles. Beginning in 1989, the Hungarian government claimed that it opened refugee camps for Romanian citizens that supposedly crossed the Hungarian-Romanian border near Debrecen . The government further claimed that in the early summer of 1989, thirty to forty thousand people sought asylum in Hungary. Although the Hungarian government had been bound by
14787-518: The USSR; however, East Germany , Czechoslovakia , and the USSR have since ceased to exist. Countries that made up the USSR were the Russian SFSR , Byelorussian SSR , Latvian SSR , Ukrainian SSR , Estonian SSR , Moldavian SSR , Armenian SSR , Azerbaijan SSR , Georgian SSR , Uzbek SSR , Kirghiz SSR , Tajik SSR , Lithuanian SSR , Turkmen SSR , and Kazakh SSR . The events that demolished
14946-553: 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 physical barriers of fences, walls, minefields, and watchtowers that were built up along some of its sections, with the Berlin Wall being the most significant of these. The nations to the east of the Iron Curtain were Poland , East Germany , Czechoslovakia , Hungary , Romania , Bulgaria , Albania , and
15105-493: The West." Through this statement, the astonished public became even more aware of the powerlessness of the hitherto brutal rulers in their own area. In the GDR Politburo (Honecker was absent due to his illness – Günter Mittag was the chairman), Habsburg's and Pozsgay's Paneuropean Picnic was one of the rare topics of discussion. Slogans were made such as: "The enemy's counterrevolution and its front-line reporting
15264-401: The actual border. Several escape attempts failed when the escapees were stopped after crossing the outer fence. The creation of these highly militarised no-man's lands led to de facto nature reserves and created a wildlife corridor across Europe; this helped the spread of several species to new territories. Since the fall of the Iron Curtain, several initiatives are pursuing the creation of
15423-406: The area within 5 kilometres (3.1 mi) of the border. The area was very difficult to approach and heavily fortified. In the 1950s and 1960s, a double barbed-wire fence was installed 50 metres (160 ft) from the border. The space between the two fences was laden with land mines . The minefield was later replaced with an electric signal fence (about 1 kilometre (0.62 mi) from the border) and
15582-465: The border between West and East, the defence works resembled those on the intra-German border. During the Cold War, the border zone in Hungary started 15 kilometres (9.3 mi) from the border. Citizens could only enter the area if they lived in the zone or had a passport valid for traveling out. Traffic control points and patrols enforced this regulation. Those who lived within the 15 kilometres (9.3 mi) border-zone needed special permission to enter
15741-500: The border gate, which was still guarded by armed forces. The gate was torn open and the mostly young GDR citizens ran to the Austrian side, where some journalists and a camera team from an Austrian broadcaster were waiting. During the picnic and the "symbolic" opening of the border, the refugees crossed the Iron Curtain in three waves. It was the largest refugee movement from East Germany since the Berlin Wall had been built. The news of
15900-469: The border that day. Prime Minister Németh said in 1989 , "I was in my office all day, I was nervous, very nervous. Luckily, there was no knocking on my door by the Soviet ambassador, no telephone calls from Moscow." More than six hundred East Germans fled to the West, many leaving their cars at the border. The very extensive media coverage made it clear to the Eastern European population that
16059-486: The border, let them pass. Do not intervene." The first information about the pan-European picnic appears on July 10, 1989, in the files of the Hungarian State Security Service . The Hajdú-Bihar District State Security Service informed headquarters that the thought was raised during a visit by Otto von Habsburg to Debrecen on June 20, 1989 – in the middle of a discussion with local leaders of
16218-442: The border. Over the next few days, the Hungarian government increased the number of guards patrolling its western border and a relatively small number of refugees reached the West. Another picnic spontaneously planned by an employee of the West German television station ZDF for August 23, 1989 was forcibly prevented by Hungarian security forces at the border. The Pan-European Picnic was organised by four Hungarian opposition parties:
16377-403: The capitals of the ancient states of Central and Eastern Europe. Warsaw, Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Budapest, Belgrade, Bucharest and Sofia; all these famous cities and the populations around them lie in what I must call the Soviet sphere , and all are subject, in one form or another, not only to Soviet influence but to a very high and in some cases increasing measure of control from Moscow. Much of
16536-569: The city of Debrecen, a pagoda from the Association of Japanese–Hungarian Friendship , and a wooden monument unveiled by the organisers in 1991. In 1996 a 10-metre-high (33 ft) stainless steel sculpture by the sculptor Gabriela von Habsburg was erected in Fertőrákos near Sopron. It symbolizes a set up piece of barbed wire, which from a distance has the shape of a cross. In 2009, EU Commission President José Manuel Barroso paid tribute to
16695-438: The culture of remembrance that the pan-European picnic became a symbol for the entire flight movement of the summer of 1989. The important role played by the Hungarian opposition movement was increasingly concealed, while the role of the Habsburgs was emphasized. The memorial site was constructed by politicians and the media for their own purposes, and the importance of the collapse of the Eastern Bloc and Austria's active role in it
16854-646: The defeat of Germany, U.S. forces would withdraw from Europe within two years.) Winston Churchill's "Sinews of Peace" address of 5 March 1946, at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri , publicly used the term "iron curtain" in the context of Soviet-dominated Eastern Europe: From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic , an iron curtain has descended across the Continent. Behind that line lie all
17013-430: The development of non-local forms of language and exposed all speakers to forms of German from outside their own area. With Luther's rendering of the Bible in the vernacular, German asserted itself against the dominance of Latin as a legitimate language for courtly, literary, and now ecclesiastical subject-matter. His Bible was ubiquitous in the German states: nearly every household possessed a copy. Nevertheless, even with
17172-456: The dialect so as to make the work as natural and accessible to German speakers as possible. Copies of Luther's Bible featured a long list of glosses for each region, translating words which were unknown in the region into the regional dialect. Luther said the following concerning his translation method: One who would talk German does not ask the Latin how he shall do it; he must ask the mother in
17331-519: The eastern provinces of Banat , Bukovina , and Transylvania (German: Banat, Buchenland, Siebenbürgen ), German was the predominant language not only in the larger towns—like Temeschburg ( Timișoara ), Hermannstadt ( Sibiu ), and Kronstadt ( Brașov )—but also in many smaller localities in the surrounding areas. In 1901, the Second Orthographic Conference ended with a (nearly) complete standardization of
17490-418: 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
17649-658: The end of which Germany reunified , the Iron Curtain fell apart, and the Eastern Bloc disintegrated. The communist governments and the Warsaw Pact subsequently dissolved, ending the Cold War . The idea of opening the border at a ceremony and testing the Soviet Union 's response came from Ferenc Mészáros of the Hungarian Democratic Forum (MDF) and Otto von Habsburg , then the President of
17808-533: The fortified borders in Europe; it was not used for similar borders in Asia between socialist and capitalist states (these were, for a time, dubbed the Bamboo Curtain ). The border between North Korea and South Korea is very comparable to the former inner German border, particularly in its degree of militarisation, but it has never conventionally been considered part of any Iron Curtain. The Soviet Union built
17967-399: The genuine growth and scope of Soviet culture, all their efforts are foredoomed to failure. While the Iron Curtain remained in place, much of Eastern Europe and many parts of Central Europe – except West Germany , Liechtenstein , Switzerland , and most of Austria (all of Austria after the withdrawal of occupying Allied forces and the declaration of Austria's neutrality that resulted from
18126-453: The goal of agitating those states against the Soviet Union. Andrei Zhdanov , Stalin's chief propagandist, used the term against the West in an August 1946 speech: Hard as bourgeois politicians and writers may strive to conceal the truth of the achievements of the Soviet order and Soviet culture, hard as they may strive to erect an iron curtain to keep the truth about the Soviet Union from penetrating abroad, hard as they may strive to belittle
18285-435: The home, the children on the streets, the common man in the market-place and note carefully how they talk, then translate accordingly. They will then understand what is said to them because it is German. When Christ says ' ex abundantia cordis os loquitur ,' I would translate, if I followed the papists, aus dem Überflusz des Herzens redet der Mund . But tell me is this talking German? What German understands such stuff? No,
18444-481: The influence of Luther's Bible as an unofficial written standard, a widely accepted standard for written German did not appear until the middle of the eighteenth century. German was the language of commerce and government in the Habsburg Empire , which encompassed a large area of Central and Eastern Europe . Until the mid-nineteenth century, it was essentially the language of townspeople throughout most of
18603-463: The largest concentrations of German speakers are in the states of Rio Grande do Sul (where Riograndenser Hunsrückisch developed), Santa Catarina , and Espírito Santo . Iron Curtain During the Cold War , the Iron Curtain was a political metaphor used to describe the political and later physical boundary dividing Europe into two separate areas from the end of World War II in 1945 until
18762-539: The local organization (local permits, benches and stage, food) and designed leaflets. For those interested, it also provided a sketch of how to get to the border and the place of the picnic. The MDF then distributed Hungarian-language leaflets in Hungary and German-language leaflets in Austria. For the later success, however, the spread of the German-language text in Hungary among the East Germans vacationing there
18921-430: The mass exodus spread very quickly. The Hungarian border guards reacted calmly to the emerging mass exodus and did not intervene. The leading border officer at the time, Árpád Bella contributed significantly to this. In addition, thousands of GDR citizens waited a little further away for a chance to cross the border, because they were not confident that the border really had been opened. As a result, only 661 people crossed
19080-601: The metaphor. Churchill's "Sinews of Peace" address strongly criticized the Soviet Union's exclusive and secretive tension policies along with the Eastern Europe's state form, the Police Government ( German : Polizeistaat ). He expressed the western Allied nations' distrust of the Soviet Union after the World War II. In September 1946, US-Soviet cooperation would collapse due to the US disavowal of
19239-402: The mother in the home and the plain man would say, Wesz das Herz voll ist, des gehet der Mund über . Luther's translation of the Bible into High German was also decisive for the German language and its evolution from Early New High German to modern Standard German. The publication of Luther's Bible was a decisive moment in the spread of literacy in early modern Germany , and promoted
19398-484: The national leadership of the MDF had reservations, Filep (supported by local Fidesz and MDF groups) recruited participants and searched for a suitable location. She wanted to include guests at the "common destiny camp", a gathering of intellectuals and opposition activists from Central and Eastern European countries in Martonvásár (not far from Lake Balaton) scheduled to end date on 20 August. The site chosen for
19557-563: The newly formed Cominform from accepting Marshall Plan aid. In Czechoslovakia , that required a Soviet-backed Czechoslovak coup d'état of 1948, the brutality of which shocked Western powers more than any event so far and set in a motion a brief scare that war would occur and swept away the last vestiges of opposition to the Marshall Plan in the United States Congress. Relations further deteriorated when, in January 1948,
19716-653: The ninth century, chief among them being the Muspilli , Merseburg charms , and Hildebrandslied , and other religious texts (the Georgslied , Ludwigslied , Evangelienbuch , and translated hymns and prayers). The Muspilli is a Christian poem written in a Bavarian dialect offering an account of the soul after the Last Judgment , and the Merseburg charms are transcriptions of spells and charms from
19875-599: The old wooden gate, reaching Austria unhindered by the border guards around Árpád Bella. It was the largest mass exodus since the Berlin Wall was built in 1961. The Hungarian borders were opened on 11 September, and the Berlin Wall fell on 9 November. The Warsaw Pact disintegrated in 1991. In 1989, the situation in Central Europe was tense. Ruled by dictatorial governments, the people in Eastern Bloc countries demanded democratic elections, freedom of speech, and
20034-714: The opposition and freedom movements in Central and Eastern Europe, and the Paneuropa Union participated intensively in political events in what was then Czechoslovakia, Hungary, then Yugoslavia, and the Baltic States. But in public opinion in the West, as well as in the East, nobody thought of the possibility of a quick dissolution of the communist structures in the East. The Iron Curtain was strictly guarded and fully intact until August 1989, even if individual technical systems were dismantled. According to its files,
20193-448: The picnic by his daughter Walburga von Habsburg , who gave his greetings. The Hungarian writer and dissident György Konrád also spoke, who until 1988 was only allowed to publish his critical texts abroad. Music was played and speeches made on a wooden stage; there was wine, beer, grilled food, and goulash. Many of the participants also cut about a kilometer (1100 yards) from the fence of the old border system. This symbolic demolition party
20352-460: The picnic was on Bratislava Road in Sopron , a border crossing since 1922. The gathering was intended as an informal meeting of Austrians and Hungarians at the border meadow. Permission to open the border station for three hours was granted, so pedestrians from both countries could experience Europe without borders. Its organisers recruited Otto von Habsburg and Imre Pozsgay , a reformist member of
20511-568: The power blocs and, on the other hand, natural biotopes were formed here, as the European Green Belt shows today. In the 19th century, iron safety curtains were installed on theater stages to slow the spread of fire. Perhaps the first recorded application of the term "iron curtain" to Soviet Russia was in Vasily Rozanov 's 1918 polemic The Apocalypse of Our Time . It is possible that Churchill read it there following
20670-462: The pronunciation of the ending -ig as [ɪk] instead of [ɪç]. In Northern Germany, High German was a foreign language to most inhabitants, whose native dialects were subsets of Low German. It was usually encountered only in writing or formal speech; in fact, most of High German was a written language, not identical to any spoken dialect, throughout the German-speaking area until well into the 19th century. However, wider standardization of pronunciation
20829-419: The publication of the book's English translation in 1920. The passage runs: With clanging, creaking, and squeaking, an iron curtain is lowering over Russian History. "The performance is over." The audience got up. "Time to put on your fur coats and go home." We looked around, but the fur coats and homes were missing. In 1920, Ethel Snowden , in her book Through Bolshevik Russia , used the term in reference to
20988-493: The reformist Communist countries' leadership accepted the necessity for change ( Perestroika ). Non-governmental organisations and new political parties played a sizable role in the movement towards a democratic, multiparty system. That year, round-table discussions were held in several Central European countries to develop a consensus on changing the political system. In February formal discussions began in Warsaw , and on 4 April
21147-531: The road to German reunification , and commemorative ceremonies are held annually on 19 August at the border. In 2009, Angela Merkel (who grew up in East Germany ) attended festivities commemorating the picnic's 20th anniversary, thanking the Hungarians for their courage and foresight: "Two enslaved nations together broke down the walls of enslavement... and Hungarians gave wings to East Germans' desire for freedom." Hungarian President László Sólyom unveiled
21306-546: The states of North Dakota and South Dakota , German is the most common language spoken at home after English. As a legacy of significant German immigration to the country , German geographical names can be found throughout the Midwest region , such as New Ulm and Bismarck (North Dakota's state capital), plus many other regions. A number of German varieties have developed in the country and are still spoken today, such as Pennsylvania Dutch and Texas German . In Brazil,
21465-585: The states of Europe to the west of the Iron Curtain — with the exception of neutral Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Austria, Sweden , Finland , Malta and Ireland — allied themselves with Canada , the United Kingdom and the United States within NATO . Spain was a unique anomaly in that it stayed neutral and non-aligned until 1982, when, following democracy's return, it joined NATO. Economically,
21624-518: The subsequent fall of the Berlin Wall. On the northeast corner of the Reichstag building in Berlin, a memorial plaque commemorates the pan-European picnic. There are still some ambiguities about the exact sequence of the picnic, in particular the agreements between Otto von Habsburg, Miklos Nemeth , Imre Pozsgay and Helmut Kohl . Kohl is said to have remarked "It was all agreed beforehand." It
21783-616: The success of which caused the Soviets to lift their blockade in May 1949. One of the conclusions of the Yalta Conference was that the western Allies would return all Soviet citizens who found themselves in their zones to the Soviet Union. This affected the liberated Soviet prisoners of war (branded as traitors), forced laborers, anti-Soviet collaborators with the Germans, and anti-communist refugees. Migration from east to west of
21942-673: The summer of 1989. In the spring of 1989, the GDR Interior Minister Friedrich Dickel asked for travel opportunities to Hungary to be restricted because of the inadequate border security in Hungary, but the Stasi head Erich Mielke had refused to do so in view of the situation in the GDR. On 20 June Otto von Habsburg , heir apparent of the House of Habsburg and member of the European Parliament from 1979 to 1999, addressed an audience at
22101-415: The term in his last propaganda broadcast on 30 April 1945, declaring that "the Iron Curtain of Bolshevism has come down across Europe." German leading minister Lutz von Krosigk broadcast 2 May 1945: "In the East the iron curtain behind which, unseen by the eyes of the world, the work of destruction goes on, is moving steadily forward". Churchill's first recorded use of the term "iron curtain" came in
22260-480: The term metaphorically in his 1945 book It's Your Empire , describing "an iron curtain of silence and censorship [which] has descended since the Japanese conquests of 1942". Its popularity as a Cold War symbol is attributed to its use in a speech Winston Churchill gave on 5 March 1946, in Fulton , Missouri , soon after the end of World War II . On the one hand, the Iron Curtain was a separating barrier between
22419-500: The third most commonly learned second language in the United States in K-12 education. The language has been influential in the fields of philosophy, theology, science, and technology. It is the second most commonly used language in science and the third most widely used language on websites . The German-speaking countries are ranked fifth in terms of annual publication of new books, with one-tenth of all books (including e-books) in
22578-434: The two states. The Soviets thereafter occupied Eastern Poland (September 1939), Latvia (June 1940), Lithuania (1940), northern Romania ( Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina , late June 1940), Estonia (1940) and eastern Finland (March 1940). From August 1939, relations between the West and the Soviets deteriorated further when the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany engaged in an extensive economic relationship by which
22737-477: The urgent need to find a suitable way out. The East German rulers, planning to celebrate the 40th birthday of East Germany on 7 October 1989, were keen to hide the problems and were silent about the mass exodus of their own people. In a re-enacted scene in Anders Østergaard [ da ] 's documentary 1989 [ da ] , Prime Minister Németh tells an aide, "Gyuri, I think this could actually be
22896-528: The will of a totalitarian state.” – Ronald Reagan at the Tear down this wall! speech in 1987, which was written by Peter Robinson The Iron Curtain took physical shape in the form of border defences between the countries of western and eastern Europe. There were some of the most heavily militarised areas in the world, particularly the so-called " inner German border " – commonly known as die Grenze in German – between East and West Germany. Elsewhere along
23055-428: The winter. So, why didn't I just send them home? For years we were obliged to pick up East Germans and send them [home] on special airplanes, organised by the infamous Stasi , to take them home, in many cases to prison or serious harassment. We couldn't keep doing that, certainly not with 100,000 people. We had to find a clear solution. We could not keep them here, and we could not send them back. The only remaining option
23214-558: The withdrawal of Soviet troops. The Iron Curtain and its physical manifestations in heavily guarded border fences and crossings, as seen in Czechoslovakia and in East Germany , were a dominant factor in the movement to unite Europe. Although some countries, such as East Germany, had a hard-line Communist power structure, others, such as Hungary, took a reform-oriented approach. Supported by Mikhail Gorbachev 's new policies,
23373-438: The world being published in German. German is most closely related to other West Germanic languages, namely Afrikaans , Dutch , English , the Frisian languages , and Scots . It also contains close similarities in vocabulary to some languages in the North Germanic group , such as Danish , Norwegian , and Swedish . Modern German gradually developed from Old High German , which in turn developed from Proto-Germanic during
23532-415: The written form of German. One of the central events in the development of ENHG was the publication of Luther's translation of the Bible into High German (the New Testament was published in 1522; the Old Testament was published in parts and completed in 1534). Luther based his translation primarily on the Meißner Deutsch of Saxony , spending much time among the population of Saxony researching
23691-429: Was a "neutral" language as there were virtually no English native speakers in Namibia at that time. German, Afrikaans, and several indigenous languages thus became "national languages" by law, identifying them as elements of the cultural heritage of the nation and ensuring that the state acknowledged and supported their presence in the country. Today, Namibia is considered to be the only German-speaking country outside of
23850-399: Was a massive popular uprising. On 17 October Honecker was relieved of his position as head of state, and on 9 November the gates to West Berlin were opened. After his fall, Honecker said of Otto von Habsburg in relation to the summer of 1989, "this Habsburg drove the nail into my coffin." The picnic site is commemorated with a monument by Miklós Melocco [ hu ] , a bell from
24009-403: Was allowed to cut off a piece of the barbed wire and take it with them. According to a Stasi spy, leaflets were also attached to parked cars at the Formula 1 Grand Prix near Budapest in early August. It is unclear who distributed all the leaflets up to Lake Balaton, and in some cases it is assumed that the West German BND was involved. The East German secret service Stasi was warned by a report by
24168-407: Was an artificial standard that did not correspond to any traditional spoken dialect. Rather, it was based on the pronunciation of German in Northern Germany, although it was subsequently regarded often as a general prescriptive norm, despite differing pronunciation traditions especially in the Upper-German-speaking regions that still characterise the dialect of the area today – especially
24327-424: Was decisive. The Austria Paneuropa Union, which was under the leadership of Karl von Habsburg , distributed thousands of German language leaflets in Hungary inviting people to a picnic near the border near Sopron. Radio Freies Europa also drew attention to the event. Many of the GDR citizens understood the message and came there. The advertised motto of the event was also "Dismantle and take with you", so every visitor
24486-427: Was established on the basis of public speaking in theatres and the media during the 20th century and documented in pronouncing dictionaries. Official revisions of some of the rules from 1901 were not issued until the controversial German orthography reform of 1996 was made the official standard by governments of all German-speaking countries. Media and written works are now almost all produced in Standard German which
24645-401: Was exaggerated. 47°45′26″N 16°37′20″E / 47.75722°N 16.62222°E / 47.75722; 16.62222 German language German (German: Deutsch , pronounced [dɔʏtʃ] ) is a West Germanic language in the Indo-European language family , mainly spoken in Western and Central Europe . It is the most spoken native language within
24804-577: Was no longer necessary to secure the borders; Hungarians were allowed to travel freely, and the government did not intend to continue fortifying the country's western borders. On 27 June Austrian Foreign Minister Alois Mock and his Hungarian counterpart, Gyula Horn , cut the border fence in a symbolic ceremony highlighting Hungary's decision to dismantle its border surveillance, which had begun on 2 May. East Germans, who often spent their summer holidays on Lake Balaton (where they could meet relatives and friends from West Germany ), remained in Hungary during
24963-414: Was officially approved. The fence area in question at Sopronpuszta was just not dismantled because it was supposed to be used for a planned game reserve. Aside from Walburga von Habsburg and the officials of the MDF, very few Hungarians and Austrians were present at the picnic, but television teams and journalists were there. Shortly before 3 p.m., the first twenty or thirty East German citizens arrived at
25122-481: Was the unthinkable: to somehow send them to the west, but this was bound to provoke not only Honecker and his regime in East Germany , but also the hard-liners in Moscow , so what to do, what to do? Under East German law , citizens were required to request permission to travel to the West; they saw the picnic as an opportunity to act. The destiny of these approximately 100,000 people was the top news story in prime-time news broadcasts for several months, showing Europe
25281-447: Was unnecessary. Kohl telephoned Gorbachev, informing him of Németh's decision, and Gorbachev assured Kohl that the Hungarian premier "was a good man". On 11 September the border was opened, and 30,000 East Germans fled to the West. Walter Momper , mayor of West Berlin in 1989, expected the Berlin Wall to open and said: "We expected that one day the storm would come across the border from behind, actually, since Otto von Habsburg and
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