WER suchet, der findet [seek, and ye shall find]: I have just come across an editorial in a 1943 issue of the German foreign propaganda magazine Signal, which also ran a headline using the “Iron Curtain” phrase.

On page two of issue 9, published in the first half of May 1943, there is a brief article titled “Hinter dem Eisernen Vorhang” [Behind the Iron Curtain]. The phrase again appears in the text.

Using a common propaganda trick, the article quotes a number of Allied newspapers to make its point of Bolshevism having the most harrowing effects on the Soviet population, so it is not entirely inconceivable the phrase may actually have originated with a British or US periodical.

Though not stated, Giselher Wirsing is a likely author of the piece. From early 1943 he contributed the leading article or an editorial to almost every issue of Signal.

I do not know if the “Signal” editorial precedes the Völkischer Beobachter article that you mentioned. Perhaps you could specify the year the VB ran its “Iron Curtain” headline? Personally I believe that it would absolutely befit the creative genius of Wirsing to have coined the phrase himself.

I would be interested to see if other readers will be able to add further insights.

Alexander Zöller
Oberursel, Germany

 Churchill index

 Ron Kurtz asks, was Goebbels the unlikely source for Churchill’s historic ‘Iron Curtain’ phrase at Fulton?

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