James G
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Post by James G on Oct 11, 2021 17:58:33 GMT
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lordroel
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Post by lordroel on Oct 11, 2021 17:58:41 GMT
So no Fourth Taiwan Strait Crisis with China taking advantage of how far they can go now the United States is dealing with East Germany. It would be the Third. First in 1955, second in 1958. What happened in OTL 1995-96, and is approaching now ITTL, would be #3. The fear in DC is that China is eyeing up a prize. Well i hope DC is not only worried about that but also what might happen on the Korean peninsula. |
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lordroel
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Post by lordroel on Oct 11, 2021 18:06:38 GMT
Thirty-seven – In the shadowsThe Stasi had gotten into the brothel business in Stuttgart back in the early Seventies. They’d opened an illegal establishment in a rundown part of the city and two more had joined the first in the following decades. There was no sign above the door announcing that it was a front for HVA intelligence operations and most of those who worked there had no idea of that. The trio of brothels turned a profit, with that going back to the ‘specialised projects fund’ in East Berlin. Stuttgart was a military town with the Americans present and there were operations run form there using non-East German girls – West Germans, Austrians, even young French ladies – where they used their particular talents to ease information out of selected targets. Those agents usually didn’t even have a full concept of whom exactly they were working for either. The brothels doubled as safe houses at times due to their unique status: passer-bys didn’t pay attention to the comings & goings of strange men at all hours. The big US military headquarters on the edge of Stuttgart had been twice targeted by East German ballistic missiles during the conflict in July 1995. Those attacks, and the fear of others, had seen many people leave the city while others had spent a lot of time in air raid shelters. Business dried up fast with each brothel shutting down. There were certainly no Americans to pay a visit and also the police were patrolling the streets too. Other businesses had shut their doors and so the close down of ‘entertainment’ offered wasn’t noted as significant. Brothel #1 (the first one opened back in ‘72) had been emptied of its workers and there were new guests there. They hadn’t come for the usual services on offer. Instead, the nine men spent their time doubling-up in the rooms available while staying out of sight. They were East German commandos dispatched to Stuttgart ahead of the shooting starting and needing a place out of sight as a planned base of operations. While wearing civilian attire and also carrying false identity papers, they were in fact paramilitary personnel from the Stasi’s own Felix Dzerzhinsky Guards Division. That huge unit had multiple spezialaufklärungskommando detachments on-strength with them spread across the length & breath of West Germany. None had seen any action including the one hiding in the Stuttgart brothel. The building had been filled with weapons – assault rifles, rocket launchers, satchel charges etc. – for their use and before they had entered West Germany via the Czech Republic they had been briefed upon various contingency plans for possible operations to undertake when in-country. Operations against Patch Barracks were several of those due to it hosting the US European Command HQ but none had taken place. The men had been holed-up where they were... going a bit crazy struck inside. Their leader, an ambitious captain, wanted them to see action, even if the mission for them might be one of great risk. He had faith in himself and his men. To keep them inactive was a crime when his country was under attack. More than that, it ruined their morale. Yet, his orders told him to stay put. Those came from the brothel’s madam. A fierce-looking, unpleasant woman, she’d spent almost twelve years living in West Germany under the false identity of that country. The DDR was what she served yet it had been a long time since she’d been home. Nonetheless, her commitment to the HVA was complete. She kept the captain on a tight leash and made sure that none of his men went outside nor did anything to compromise their security. She waited upon the receipt of instructions to send them off into action. If it wasn’t to be that big American headquarters – where it appeared that US EUCOM operations had departed from –, then it would be somewhere else. Or, if the ceasefire that seemed to have arrived continued, then they’d been going home. Either way, whatever the end result was of the commandos being in Stuttgart, that would come about due to orders from home. There were British special forces soldiers on the ground in East Germany alongside American and French teams likewise operating in the shadows. Several SAS eight-man patrols had crossed over the Inner-German Border – on foot or via low-level helicopter insertion – since the beginning of the conflict. None of them had done any significant in terms of undertaking high risk, high profile operations. To the SAS men sent in, that was considered a wise move. Several were veterans of the fighting in Iraq four years beforehand and were glad that wiser heads had prevailed back in Britain when it came to considering what to have them doing. There was no glory to be won by foolishly losing their lives within the heavily-militarised country which was the DDR. The nation was seemingly rammed full of the uniformed and armed enemy. East Germany had called out almost everyone that they could in that ‘people’s war’ which their leader had declared that her country was ready to fight to defend itself. There were checkpoints, patrols and sweeps taking place without pause where they were looking for the SAS, Green Berets, Navy SEALs and French commandos The western border areas and the northern coastline had seen extensive surveillance where there was a hunt on for infiltrators coming in with one of the American attempts forestalled. Other Americans had gotten in though and so too had the SAS. There were access points that had been exploited and those had generally been in the rough country offered by places such as the Thuringwald and the Harz Mountains. Once inside, using all means possible, the special forces teams had struck deeper while staying out of sight. They conducted silent operations of surveillance, intelligence-gathering and helping to assist in the rescues of downed airmen with as little active involvement of themselves that the East Germans could detect. No recall orders had come their way after several days inside despite all that was being said back home of a possible ceasefire between the DDR and the Coalition. Golf One Zero was one of the SAS patrols. They were up in the Middle Harz, the highest and most isolated parts of that mountain range. Evading contact with the enemy was their mission. The Grenztruppen were active and so too reserve elements of the East German Army, yet those eight Britons did everything to stay out of their way. Killing those they came across wasn’t what they had been sent to do: that would make noise when their task was to do anything but alert the East Germans to their presence. If the worst happened though, they were ready for a fight. They lugged around with them as they kept on moving a good deal of weaponry. Led by a captain from the Parachute Regiment, none of the patrol were inexperienced. One of them had been spooked on the first night in though. He’d thought he’d seen a ‘damn big scary cat’ stalking them. His buddies had joked with him yet they knew he might have been right. A lynx was possible to have been lurking about… maybe. Still, it could have been the shadows playing tricks on him and the banter kept morale up among them. A descending parachute was seen on the second day in-country. Down came not a Coalition friendly but instead an East German pilot shot out of the sky. He landed within a hundred odd yards of their then hidden position. Rifle barrels were trained on him. The MiG pilot saw nothing though and went off looking for friendly lines. Perhaps Golf One Zero could have taken him out, yet perhaps doing so would have ultimately cost them. That wasn’t what they were sent into the DDR to do. Instead, they successfully located a forward-deployed Scud battery with trucks and trailers having come up high into the depths of the forest. With MILAN man-portable missiles, the SAS could have had themselves some fun. That wasn’t done either. What was done was what they were tasked to do: call it in. An air strike later came with the SAS men watching close-by not seeing whom did that but feeling the result from the explosive blasts. Afterwards, Golf One Zero prepared to move onwards to look for further targets to include the SAM battery which had fired upon by failed to hit the attacking aircraft. New orders came though. Once evening fell, the SAS men crawled forward to where the Scud battery had been blown up. The surviving East Germans had long departed and left behind a smashed up weapons battery. Golf One Zero was sent in by someone back to the west wanting to know if the missile unit had in fact been real. The Iraqis had used fake Scuds in the Gulf War and it was known that the East Germans had their own. The captain had been damn confident that he called in that air strike against a real target though. Alas, when his men carefully reached the ruins of the carnage which they had caused, it was discovered that the trickery had worked. The missile launch vehicles, the support vehicles and everything about the entire battery was a damn charade! What a falsehood it was too. Everything looked real, even felt real to the touch. The attacking pilots and the crew in the stand-off surveillance aircraft would have likewise felt that they struck a real target. Nonetheless, they’d shot-up a plastic fake. Golf One Zero confirmed that they had been tricked and moved on towards a broadcast spot for their report and then also a new hiding place. Morale sunk with what had been discovered. They’d all been made fools of. The knowledge that so too had others, superiors back home, did nothing to lessen that slap in the face that it had been plastic blown to bits. So the Special forces belong to the Felix Dzerzhinsky Guards Division, i toughed they belong to the Stasi Arbeitsgruppe des Ministers S |
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James G
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Post by James G on Oct 11, 2021 18:12:42 GMT
It would be the Third. First in 1955, second in 1958. What happened in OTL 1995-96, and is approaching now ITTL, would be #3. The fear in DC is that China is eyeing up a prize. Well i hope DC is not only worried about that but also what might happen on the Korean peninsula. Eyes are watching everywhere. The Stasi has all commando units now under control: better 'political reliability'. |
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lordroel
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Post by lordroel on Oct 11, 2021 18:21:56 GMT
The Stasi has all commando units now under control: better 'political reliability'. So they do not trust the NVA to do certain things. |
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stevep
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Post by stevep on Oct 12, 2021 8:57:20 GMT
James & all
I'm getting a 404 error page doesn't exist message. Is anyone else having problems?
Steve
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lordroel
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Post by lordroel on Oct 12, 2021 9:09:56 GMT
James & all
I'm getting a 404 error page doesn't exist message. Is anyone else having problems? Steve
Same for me as well. |
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stevep
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Post by stevep on Oct 12, 2021 9:23:06 GMT
James & all
I'm getting a 404 error page doesn't exist message. Is anyone else having problems? Steve
Same for me as well.
OK right. Reassures me it's not just some cock-up on my part.  |
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James G
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Post by James G on Oct 12, 2021 9:35:38 GMT
Yeah, that link is crap. I did it on my laptop with my VPN on, and forgot that that screws everything up.
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gillan1220
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Post by gillan1220 on Oct 12, 2021 16:49:26 GMT
So no Fourth Taiwan Strait Crisis with China taking advantage of how far they can go now the United States is dealing with East Germany. It would be the Third. First in 1955, second in 1958. What happened in OTL 1995-96, and is approaching now ITTL, would be #3. The fear in DC is that China is eyeing up a prize. 1996 won't be the perfect time to do it. The PLA did not have the sealift yet. So does the USS Independence and the USS Nimitz still come into the defense of Taiwan? Also keep in mind this was the time there were forgotten skirmishes between the PLA-N and the Philippine Navy over some illegal commerce operations. The outgunned PN managed to sink one Huangfeng-class FAC that was not armed with their Styx anti-ship missiles. |
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James G
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Post by James G on Oct 12, 2021 18:13:55 GMT
It would be the Third. First in 1955, second in 1958. What happened in OTL 1995-96, and is approaching now ITTL, would be #3. The fear in DC is that China is eyeing up a prize. 1996 won't be the perfect time to do it. The PLA did not have the sealift yet. So does the USS Independence and the USS Nimitz still come into the defense of Taiwan? Also keep in mind this was the time there were forgotten skirmishes between the PLA-N and the Philippine Navy over some illegal commerce operations. The outgunned PN managed to sink one Huangfeng-class FAC that was not armed with their Styx anti-ship missiles. I don't play to cover a Taiwan incident. My mention was due to the world policeman role the US was playing at the time. Yep, the military balance was very different in the mid-90s with the Chinese Navy not anything like it is now. |
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James G
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Post by James G on Oct 12, 2021 18:15:36 GMT
Thirty-eight – Friction
No Coalition leader, minister nor governmental spokesman had said that there was a ceasefire underway with regard to the air campaign against East Germany. Statements had been made that there would be a limitation in the opening heaviness seen when Operation Allied Sword had gotten started in regard to how it would continue. The DDR might have too said it was willing to accept the demands imposed upon it, with the West Germans jumping up and down with glee, yet there was no cessation of air activity planned for the fourth night. Into the skies above East Germany and the Czech Republic went Coalition aircraft. There were deep, low-level reconnaissance missions to undertake, defence suppression attacks, CSAR activity and also tactical air missions to be flown to aid the Czech government forces too. Before darkness fell, American satellites also detected East German actions around the bombed nuclear sites, which led to a series of air strikes sent towards them as well. From out in the North Sea, Tomahawks were launched by several US Navy warships & submarines while B-52s flying above the Low Countries shot off ALCMs. Coalition aircraft followed the cruise missiles in.
Ceasefire – what ceasefire?
The Trebbin nuclear site, deep inside East Germany, had already been blasted to ruin by stealth B-2s and then later F-111s. The Americans returned with F-15Es. They flew through extensive SAM fire – taking losses – and dropped a whole load more bombs all over the facility. There were East Germans on the ground, working in the darkness which the Coalition considered could only be up to no good. A massed air strike put pay to their activities. Elsewhere, there were American, British and Dutch air strikes around the former Soviet airbase at Juterbog again where intelligence suggested that the East Germans had hid their best MiGs. Bombs and short-range missiles blasted a wide area of the forests outside of the abandoned base itself to if not kill hidden MiG-29s, then at least keep them on the ground. The Coalition wanted the LSK grounded so all of the reconnaissance activity would carry on unmolested. Specialised jets as well as strike aircraft carrying equipment pods flew all over the place. East German SAMs came up and took out several of them while they did so. Return fire was made from HARM shooters launching missiles in return. The images recovered by the jets which returned home to their various bases was rapidly being analysed, long before the night was out. There was a desire to see what satellites couldn’t so as to be able to tell if all that the first three nights of air strikes had promised to deliver actually had done so. The Canadians got some good images back of East German Army units in the north while the Italians, who sent several Tornado IDS’ pretty deep, had more intelligence delivered of more of that where it was deployed away from garrisons across Saxony. Cruise missiles then later Frisbee drones drew a lot of the enemy SAM fire. Wild Weasel aircraft drove towards targets that highlighted themselves and aircrew reports were confident of kills achieved. The US Air Force had used up a lot of the latter, those target drones being employed as SAM bait, and there was some talk back home of flying to Western Europe further target drones: old QF-106 radio-guided interceptors. To do so would be time consuming and expensive though was under consideration due to the ability of them to do what Frisbees couldn’t in the sky and draw fire. An imaginative major at the Third Air Force HQ at RAF Mildenhall in Britain suggested in a briefing to several generals that those QF-106s be armed too with bombs and, after drawing SAM fire, if still flying, crash in kamikaze fashion into a selected target. It was an idea that was likewise given some consideration due to immense, and continuing, air defence fire that came out of East Germany despite all efforts to silence that.
US Army Europe elements assigned to Task Force Phoenix continued with their day-&-night air missions beside the Inner-German Border. The US Air Force sent A-10s to fly alongside the USAR helicopters with both going over the frontier. Providing support for CSAR missions was a big part of what TF Phoenix did with its Apaches, Cobras & Black Hawks. There were a good number of personnel still not recovered nor in East German custody. With flight missions too dangerous for the longer-ranged yet more exposed HC- / MC-130 aircraft, US Air Force helicopters needed that air support. There were attacks made against defences on the way in and the way out, plus flanking strikes to draw enemy attention, that the USAR helicopters made. That continued to be costly for them. Man-portable missilemen as well as a lot of multi-barrelled anti-aircraft guns ripped into thin-skinned helicopters where possible. When the A-10s came in, racing above the treetops firing their cannons and launching rockets, the response by those on the ground was to drop down, shut up and pray for their lives. Just what the GAU-8 Avenger cannon could do to those who met its anger was just terrible. The aircraft mounting them took punishment, with one knocked down during the night, yet others returned back to their bases in West Germany wounded but still flight-capable. One shot-up returning A-10 also had claimed a kill where it had used a Sidewinder to take down an East German armed helicopter. It was those A-10s, not the USAR helicopters with TF Phoenix, which made all the difference during the successful rescues of several downed Coalition aviators who’d been waiting for a pick-up for some time.
The Americans sent their A-10s – as well as other jets – into action alongside the French over the Czech Republic. The Armée de l'Air hadn’t been alone in attacking East German forces there since the conflict started though it was a French-led semi-independent fight with previously only minimal US support. On Night #4 of the air campaign though, multiple squadrons of A-10s, F-15Es & F-16s joined all of those flying Jaguars, Mirage-2000s & Mirage F-1s. A whirlwind of air intervention against ‘foreign forces’ on Czech soil took place though Czech rebels forces also got some attention as well. Earlier problems with the Poles, where the French had accidently taken down jets of theirs, were resolved by Poland agreeing to keep Czech skies clear of their aircraft that night. Anything that flew was hostile. Two pairs of Czech rebel MiGs came up at different times – the LSK was nowhere to be seen – and each time when crashing back down to earth. F-15Cs remained in West German skies and launched Sparrow missiles at great distance to eliminate them with the killed pilots not having any idea what was going on. Every suspected airbase in rebel-held territory (that was most of the Czech Republic) was worked over by big air strikes including the use of napalm at times and then the dropping of cluster bombs too to cripple recovery efforts. Concentrations of enemy artillery and tactical missiles, plus identified supply centres for ground forces, also drew attention from the air. Immense damage was done to those fighting to maintain the illegal government in the country with the Czech rebels getting it just as hard as the East Germans in-country. The safest place for those in uniform on the ground to be was as near as possible to the front-lines of the civil war though. With Polish and Czech government forces something easily mixed up before with those of the enemy, the air strikes stayed away from the front-lines. To intervene safety there would take ground coordination. The French had some people on the ground but not many: it would take a larger deployment if they and their Coalition partners wanted to ensure that giving close air support in that conflict didn’t see friendly forces killed by accident.
Off in distant Ottawa, what happened above East Germany was called ‘friction’ in an interview conducted by a friendly journalist towards the defence affairs spokesman of the Canadian official opposition.
In Canada, as in all Coalition countries, there was general bipartisan support for the military action being undertaken. The new Reform Party was supporting the Liberal government in the conflict against the DDR due to the belief that Operation Allied Sword was in the best interests of Canada. Button-holed by someone with whom he had good relations with, that shadow minister was questioned about the breaking news being broadcast out of Europe about further air strikes ongoing when there had appeared to have been a pause in that. The question was asked of him due to no one from the government at that time ready to give an official comment. When two capable elements rub together, so the shadow minister put it, you get the heat of war. It was a clumsy analogy, one which the shadow minister thought afterwards that he could have said something more specific. Nonetheless, those words went out and were re-broadcast further afield.
Friction had been what it was called in Ottawa. Betrayal is what the shout of outrage would be from many other quarters. There was meant to have been a ceasefire!
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lordroel
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Post by lordroel on Oct 13, 2021 3:39:31 GMT
Friction had been what it was called in Ottawa. Betrayal is what the shout of outrage would be from many other quarters. There was meant to have been a ceasefire! Across many countries that are part of the Coalition. |
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James G
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Post by James G on Oct 13, 2021 17:38:52 GMT
Friction had been what it was called in Ottawa. Betrayal is what the shout of outrage would be from many other quarters. There was meant to have been a ceasefire! Across many countries that are part of the Coalition. Yes, and further afield too. |
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James G
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Post by James G on Oct 13, 2021 17:39:15 GMT
Thirty-nine – Betrayal
The East Germans had a total of nineteen Coalition aircrew in custody. They were hunting for more known to have been downed over the DDR and on the run, but bagging almost twenty of them was considered by the regime to have been quite a success. The country was full of uniformed military personnel, so many of those reservists, and on a couple of occasions, it had been they who had been instrumental in seeing the aircrew captured. State propaganda played up their role in that: ordinary East Germans, patriots to a man & woman, doing their bit in the people’s war. All of those captives had been offered up to be released as part of an end to the Coalition’s air campaign. The goodwill that setting them free – not from hostile governments, but from the people within them – was regarded as far more important than holding them. The injured ones especially would play a role in what was seen as a savvy political move. Of the nineteen, seven were Americans. There were additionally four Britons, three Frenchmen, two Belgians and one each from Denmark, Italy & the Netherlands. All had been spread out across the country, held at various sites less the Americans make one of their own propaganda moves with a big rescue effort to get them all at once. They’d been taken to East Berlin though and the DDR regime was ready to hand them over to the Russians so Moscow could arrange for them to be gotten out and gain its own goodwill in that. However, the Coalition launched that extensive set of follow-up air attacks across East Germany. There was nothing physically stopping the hand-over but, in response, the regime led by Margot Honecker halted the transfer of those nineteen to the Russians. For their own safety, so said an official statement that came out of East Berlin, there could be no hand over of those aircrew.
Cross-German rail traffic relied extensively on East German participation. Not just through the Inner-German Border but also inside West Berlin too there were rail workers for the DDR regime who kept the trains running. Those links had been shut ahead of Operation Allied Sword getting underway when East Germany fully sealed its borders. Waiting over in West Germany, near to Brunswick and close to Checkpoint Alpha, were several freight trains laden with essential food and medical supplies destined for West Berlin. The government in Bonn had put together the relief convoy and had planned to send the trains direct to that isolated city with a joint West German-DDR cooperation undertaken. The skies were closed, so too the roads, but the East Germans were prepared to see a rail convoy (something which they could fully control) make that journey. Just like the prisoner transfer, the passage of those freight trains was cancelled pretty much at the last minute. It was too dangerous for that convoy of relief supplies to make the trip with the DDR not willing to put its rail workers at risk: such was the reasoning made in another official announcement.
East Germany shut down those two avenues of seeing a return to pre-conflict normality not just because the country was heavily bombed overnight when the widespread belief had been that that had come to an end. Honecker and the Politburo did so also because the United States quite deliberately, openly too, scuppered the peace deal being worked upon in an effort made by both Bonn and Moscow working in unison. When he was running for election the next year, seeking a second term, it would be said during that campaign that President Cuomo acted out of a personal motive against the involvement of Chernomyrdin. The conflict in 1995 with East Germany figured heavily in that presidential race and the revelations which were backed up by leaked internal documents didn’t come as much of a surprise at that stage. Yet, in early July ‘95, when it did happen, there was a significant shock at what was done. Cuomo had his secretary of state go up to New York where the UN was. Chancellor Schäuble and Chernomyrdin had both sent their foreign ministers to there where they were going to use that international body to provide the framework for what they had set up. Those foreign ministers were seeking to bring neutral countries onboard. When the US SecState arrived though, she let it be known that her country was fully opposed to that, would take measures against others who supported it and also veto any UN action. The East Germans couldn’t be trusted, so was the reasoning, and they were trying to take the West German and the Russians, and thus anyone else who they could bring with them, for fools.
Chernomyrdin had agreed to work with Schäuble only through the UN. The latter had wanted for Russia to make use of its victor rights from WW2 where those related to East Germany but his counterpart in Moscow had preferred to see things done under a UN mandate. Nuclear inspections, the sending of peacekeepers into the Czech Republic and the DDR getting rid of its ballistic missile force were considered by Chernomyrdin to be more that Russia alone could handle. Schäuble had gone along with that though not with wholescale naivety. He had known that the Americans would do something… just not do what they did so effectively, so fast and also without care as to who knew that they were prepared to kill all talk of peace. Once the SecState did what she did, following presidential instructions to the letter, that was the end of that. The Russians pulled out of the diplomacy that the West Germans had brought them in to see done. It was pointless to try and carry on. Chernomyrdin himself would later make a statement from Moscow bemoaning the American position where they wanted to continue to see peace in Europe destabilised, but Schäuble was quicker off the mark. He spoke to the media early in the morning after the night of air attacks across in the DDR and linked the two events – what happened in New York and the further bombing – together. Diplomacy had failed once more, he said, as the American-led Coalition was determined to do everything to carry on with its war.
News camera crews based in West Berlin had on the first night of the air campaign shot some excellent footage from vantage points of explosions on the other side of the Berlin Wall when the DDR capital was bombed. There had been no repeat of those images on subsequent nights due to the Coalition not striking in East Berlin again. On the third night though, a CNN team in the American sector of West Berlin had gone to the southwestern corner and recorded footage of what happened outside in the direction of Potsdam. They didn’t get anything of good quality and viewers weren’t really able to see what they were looking at either. Yet there were big fireballs recorded once again. With night #4, Western media teams got nothing from inside West Berlin looking out when seeking to broadcast images of air attacks. The few others inside the DDR itself also weren’t able to gain live footage either that night too. Only the following morning were they escorted out of the ‘protected accommodation’ that they were in and taken by their handlers to various locations across the country did they see the aftermath. Images from bombed-out sites was recorded but it had none of the sex appeal that huge explosions broadcast live did. However, where there were more camera crews outside of airbases being used by the Coalition in West Germany and other European countries, there was footage during the night taken of aircraft lifting off and more of that of them returning too including some daylight images. News that jets were flying and presumably heading eastwards was broadcast in real time. The general public were made aware of what was going on via that medium long ahead of that being confirmed.
It wasn’t until the next morning that official statements were made from Coalition governments. There was confirmation made of what was already known: there had been further air strikes made against East Germany. From out of the MOD in London, a spokesman highlighted the activity on the ground around the nuclear sites and thus explained the reasoning for the heavy targeting of them. It was a concise and accurate statement with solid justification provided for those air attacks and what was deemed the supporting ones to make sure that the mission there wasn’t something that the DDR could defend against. Supporters of Operation Allied Sword were convinced by that, and too by additional remarks made by other spokespeople, ministers and leaders in further countries. As to the opponents of the ongoing military action, they really couldn’t have given a damn about what was said. There was no justification in their eyes, none at all. They only saw betrayal.
In West Germany, the subsequent outpouring of anger that was seen in public followed that belief. There had been a chance for peace, with East Germany willing to go the extra mile, and in reply came first the egregious actions taken at the UN and then those bombs dropped once more upon their fellow Germans. A statement out of East Berlin said that more civilian casualties had been caused – no details given – during the renewed air strikes. That inflamed things more. Protests and demonstrations took place in West Germany with a lot of that directed towards the big Coalition military bases on their soil. The sense of betrayal was wider than just within that one country. The anti-war movement in Coalition countries was just as outraged by what happened. The numbers of people who agreed with them, who had previously been supportive of the air campaign, increased due to defections from that camp too when the loudest voices against the conflict again and again made that claim of betrayal.
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