was the iron curtain a figure of speech, or a real barbed wire steel
'curtain' that stretched the length of eastern europe?
it would be interesting to do 'an anatomy' of the Berlin Wall, in
retrospect. at least from one vantage, 'checkpoint charlie' was
about as much information as was presented to the public in
any regular fashion (popular culture) about this Cold War icon.
believe i heard that there was indeed barbed wire, sniper towers,
and of course, bugs and listening devices all around the place
(perimeter buildings) with things like lasers and other devices
for circumventing the wall and also eavesdropping in this way.
an architectural and archaeological study would be fascinating
if it has not already been done. studies such as businesses that
were zoned around the place, what the 'zone' around the wall
was in meters, where nothing could be built, or if there was only
a sidewalk on one side, and a full-scale military perimeter on the
other. the Stasi files bootlegged to the .US via librarian, it was
thought, would reveal some of the secrets of those, these days.
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