ABSTRACT
Starting the investigation from the eastern or the western side already affords a supposition of what has to be included in the considerations when speaking of the Iron Curtain. The border fortifications of the Iron Curtain went beyond the responsibility of the individual governments of those states bordering the West. The border fortifications referred to as Iron Curtain were one main element of a complex set of measurements of active severing which was imposed on all countries belonging to the Soviet bloc—whether they liked it or not. The Marshall Plan and its counterpart, the embargo against Eastern Europe, were contributing to the rise of an Iron Curtain before the Soviet Bloc was enclosing itself with a metal fence. Marshall Plan aid for the West was inseparably linked with the embargo policy the United States exercised against the East. By connecting aid with trade embargo, the Marshall Plan was the instrument to make the receipient states follow the United States’ directions.
