[A-List] Source of Iron Curtain Phrase

[Douglas Chalmers]

Sorry to post such an unpalatable character as Goebbels here, but Henry 
asked the exact source of the cold war phrase "Iron Curtain".  Here it 
is in a speech by Goebbels - it's in the third paragraph.

I got the speech from Calvin University Archive(?)  found at:

http://www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/goeb49.htm

Henry - I will try to post this fact to the Asia Times

Douglas



Background: Here Goebbels takes on the role of prophet, imaging the 
world two generations after German victory. In this essay, he also uses 
the phrase "Iron Curtain" to describe the results of the Soviet 
incursion into Europe. The war was nearing its end, but Goebbels seeks 
to persuade his fellow citizens that victory is still possible.Goebbels 
uses the phrase "an iron curtain" to describe the results of the Soviet 
Union's an advance into Europe, a phrase later made famous by Winston 
Churchill.

The source: "Das Jahr 2000," Das Reich,  25 February 1945, pp. 1-2.

The Year 2000

by Joseph Goebbels

The three enemy war leaders, American sources report, have  agreed at 
the Yalta Conference to Roosevelt's proposal for an  occupation program 
that will destroy and exterminate the German  people up until the year 
2000. One must grant the somewhat grandiose  nature of the proposal. It 
reminds one of the skyscrapers in  New York that soar high into the 
sky, and whose upper stories  sway in the wind. What will the world 
look like in the year 2000?  Stalin, Churchill and Roosevelt have 
determined it, at least  insofar as the German people are concerned. 
One may however doubt  if they and we will act in the predicted manner.

No one can predict the distant future, but there are some facts and 
possibilities that are clear over the coming fifty years. For example, 
none of the three enemy statesmen who developed this brilliant plan 
will still be alive, England will have at most 20 million inhabitants, 
our children's children will have had children, and that the events of 
this war will have sunk into myth. One can also predict with a high 
degree of certainty that Europe will be a united continent in the year 
2000. One will fly from Berlin to Paris for breakfast in fifteen 
minutes, and our most modern weapons will be seen as antiques, and much 
more. Germany, however, will still be under military occupation 
according to the plans of the Yalta Conference, and the English and 
Americans will be training its people in democracy. How empty the 
brains of these three charlatans must be — at least in the case of two 
of them!

The third, Stalin, follows much more far-reaching goals than  his two 
comrades. He certainly does not plan to announce them  publicly, but he 
and his 200 million slaves will fight bitterly  and toughly for them. 
He sees the world differently than do those  plutocratic brains. He 
sees a future in which the entire world  is subjected to the 
dictatorship of the Moscow Internationale,  which means the Kremlin. 
His dream may seem fantastic and absurd,  but if we Germans do not stop 
him, it will undoubtedly become  reality. That will happen as follows: 
If the German people lay  down their weapons, the Soviets, according to 
the agreement between  Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin, would occupy 
all of East and  Southeast Europe along with the greater part of the 
Reich. An  iron curtain would fall over this enormous territory 
controlled  by the Soviet Union, behind which nations would be 
slaughtered. The Jewish press in London and New York would probably 
still  be applauding. All that would be left is human raw material,  a 
stupid, fermenting mass of millions of desperate proletarianized  
working animals who would only know what the Kremlin wanted them  to 
know about the rest of the world. Without leadership, they  would fall 
helplessly into the hands of the Soviet blood dictatorship.  The 
remainder of Europe would fall into chaotic political and  social 
confusion that would prepare the way for the Bolshevization  that will 
follow. Life and existence in these nations would become  hell, which 
was after all the point of the exercise.


On 8 Sep 2004, at 13:17, Douglas Chalmers wrote:

> Will try and post the details here as soon as possible
>
> Douglas
>
> On 7 Sep 2004, at 18:47, Henry C.K. Liu wrote:
>
>> Thanks for the info.  You should write a letter to Asia Times and let 
>> all its reader know that interesting fact.
>>
>> Can you post the relevant section from Goebels' speech?
>>
>> Thanks,
>>
>> Henry C.K. Liu
>>
>> Douglas Chalmers wrote:
>>
>>> Great articles by Henry. One point however, Churchill didn't 
>>> actually invent the concept of the Iron Curtain, he lifted the 
>>> phrase intact from a broadcast speech by Nazi propagandist Joseph 
>>> Goebels a year earlier.  Churchill tried to deny this, but 
>>> eventually had to concede it when it was raised in the House of 
>>> Commons by then Communist MP William Gallacher.
>>>
>>> Douglas
>>>
>>> On 7 Sep 2004, at 05:49, Michael Keaney wrote:
>>>
>>>> Having been rejected by voters at home even before World War II 
>>>> completely
>>>> ended in the Far East part of the British Empire, Churchill, out of 
>>>> office
>>>> at home, worked on the US by inventing the concept of an Iron 
>>>> Curtain in his
>>>> famous speech on March 5, 1946 in little-known Westminster College 
>>>> in Fulton
>>>> Missouri, president Harry Truman's home state, and convinced an 
>>>> insecure and
>>>> paranoid Truman to launch the Cold War.
>>>>
>>> Dr. Douglas Chalmers
>>> Division of Economics and Enterprise
>>> Glasgow Caledonian University
>>> 70 Cowcaddens Road
>>> Glasgow G4 OBA
>>> Scotland
>>>
>>> Tel     0141 331 3350
>>> Fax     0141 331 3293
>>>
>>> http://www.cbs.gcal.ac.uk/content/eae/eae_staff_dchalmers.asp
>>>
>>> This email is confidential, may be legally privileged, and is for 
>>> the intended recipient only.  Access, disclosure, copying, 
>>> distribution, or reliance on any of it by anyone outside the 
>>> intended recipient organisation is prohibited and may be a criminal 
>>> offence.  Please delete if obtained in error and email confirmation 
>>> to the sender
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>>
> Dr. Douglas Chalmers
> Division of Economics and Enterprise
> Glasgow Caledonian University
> 70 Cowcaddens Road
> Glasgow G4 OBA
> Scotland
>
> Tel 	0141 331 3350
> Fax 	0141 331 3293
>
> http://www.cbs.gcal.ac.uk/content/eae/eae_staff_dchalmers.asp
>
> This email is confidential, may be legally privileged, and is for the 
> intended recipient only.  Access, disclosure, copying, distribution, 
> or reliance on any of it by anyone outside the intended recipient 
> organisation is prohibited and may be a criminal offence.  Please 
> delete if obtained in error and email confirmation to the sender
>
>
>
Dr. Douglas Chalmers
Division of Economics and Enterprise
Glasgow Caledonian University
70 Cowcaddens Road
Glasgow G4 OBA
Scotland

Tel 	0141 331 3350
Fax 	0141 331 3293

http://www.cbs.gcal.ac.uk/content/eae/eae_staff_dchalmers.asp

This email is confidential, may be legally privileged, and is for the 
intended recipient only.  Access, disclosure, copying, distribution, or 
reliance on any of it by anyone outside the intended recipient 
organisation is prohibited and may be a criminal offence.  Please 
delete if obtained in error and email confirmation to the sender
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