People's War

[lordroel]

Sept 9, 2021 18:23:55 GMT James G said:

Twelve – June 13th


Gorbachev and Reagan had signed the INF Treaty at the end of 1987, one which prohibited the Soviet Union and the United States from both deploying cruise & ballistic missiles of an intermediate-range (defined then as between three hundred and three & a half thousand miles) which were land-based. Air-launched and seaborne weapons weren’t included in that. The Americans set about getting rid of their Pershings and GLCMs – the deployment of what was called ‘Cruise’ in the UK had been very controversial – while the Soviets got rid of six different classes of missiles which had given the West and NATO many worries. That treaty banned those two nations from fielding such weapons though the intention of many of those behind the agreement was that other states would follow suit. West Germany would get rid of its own Pershings soon enough but the French kept their Pluton missiles and also continued work on developing the Hades system too. As to Eastern Bloc countries, almost of the Warsaw Pact nations fielded short-range ballistic missiles before the INF Treaty and then three of them, Bulgaria, East Germany & Czechoslovakia, had to them ‘transferred’ intermediate-range missiles from the Soviets afterwards. The element of independence over those missiles, which were capable of carrying nuclear warheads, was questioned by those invested in the historic arms control treaty. The Soviets hadn’t been playing fair. The trio of countries already operated the notorious Scud missile as well as the Scarab, but the Soviets gave them the OTR-23 (NATO codename: Spider). Those weapons stayed in their hands when the Warsaw Pact fell. East Germany had received almost two thirds of those Spiders transferred and kept them in service throughout the early Nineties while also buying off-the-books half a dozen more from Bulgaria too. No international agreement banned the DDR from operating them. All of West Germany, a portion of Eastern Europe and further places on the Continent was within range of those Spiders which were armed with a non-nuclear warhead.

On the morning of June 13th 1995, half a dozen Spider ballistic missiles were launched from inside East Germany. Missile warning systems operated by NATO, and the Russians too (there was quite some panic there despite the country being out of range), spotted the flurry of launches over a two minute period from isolated dispersal sites but there was little time to react. Up, over and down they went before crashing into their targets. Those were in Poland and Slovakia both. The Polish airbases as Poznan-Krzesniy and Łask, plus Malacky which the Slovaks were making much use of, were where the East German missile strike hit. Each was being used by the two nation’s air forces where they were flying air operations above the Czech Republic to aid government forces against the DDR-backed rebels. The Slovaks had only started doing so the night beforehand, flying defensive ones too, though the Poles had been doing so for almost a week and taken aerial losses while operating in an offensive manner. Where the undeclared conflict had been fought in Czech skies between the sides supporting the competing governments, East Germany moved the conflict outside of that war-torn nation.

Damage was extensive and casualties were high. The Spiders wrought their worst. East Germany had plenty more of those missiles too… along with the clear intent to use them to attack sovereign nations which it wasn’t officially engaged in conflict with.

The missile attacks came alongside increased East German air activity inside the Czech Republic where DDR combat aircraft were flying from Czech airbases in Bohemia. The East Germans kept their aircraft stationed on home soil though began to make use of locations inside rebel-held territory for refuelling and rearming purposes. Faster reaction and turn-around times were available by doing so. The exact same type of aircraft which the East Germans used were flown by the Czech rebels too – and everyone else involved in the fight – and that kept up a veneer of plausible deniability: the missile strikes outside of the Czech Republic had no deniability though. Air missions flown alongside Czech rebels up above aided in the continuation of the ground offensive into Moravia. The Highway-1 corridor southeast of Jihlava was where the main fighting was with that as Czech rebels moved in the direction of Brno. They headed towards the country’s second-largest city and the Slovak border beyond. Czech government aircraft got airborne but there were no Polish nor Slovakian aircraft after the missile attack on their home countries. It mattered what was above. A breakthrough was made by those on the attack and they pushed forward. Government troops near to Velke Mezirici, a small town on the edges of Moravia, were overcome and the rebels also managed to seize the Vysocina Bridge. That crossing over the Oslava River was mined with demolition charges but a night-time commando attack by unknown assailants had seized it while a defence was mounted waiting on Czech tanks to arrive. Those were East German special forces in action there, pretending to be Czechs rather than have their country forced to admit that it had ground troops fighting inside the Czech Republic. With the bridge crossed, Czech rebel forces moved onwards down the highway corridor and carried on with their push towards Brno. Air strikes in support and ahead of them aided the advance though it was noted amongst the rebel commanders, and also the East German advisers in the country too, that the government troops on the ground were faltering. Victory didn’t look that far away with an opponent which was putting up less and less of a fight. Morale appeared rock bottom and there were shortages for government forces of munitions. Without air cover, their defensive situation was only going to get worse.


NATO operated a fleet of AWACS aircraft. They were based in West Germany and had the markings of the Luxembourg Air Force while crewed by a multi-national component. From the beginning of the conflict inside the Czech Republic, those aircraft had been flying airborne patrols over West Germany – far away from where any fighting was – with the airborne crews monitoring airborne traffic above that country. East Germany ground-based radar jamming had been employed to try and limit what the AWACS aircraft could see with their long-range radars. A lot of effort had been put into that and there had been some ‘blind’ periods before a work-around was done each time to re-establish cover. When the attack using Spider ballistic missiles was made against Poland & Slovakia, more jamming had been tried, targeted and powerful stuff too, but that had failed to stop the radars on two of the airborne AWACS (up to three were flying at times, providing significant coverage with redundancy, due to the strength of NATO interest) seeing the attack for what it was. Satellites and other ground-based radars operated by NATO countries watched those missile launches in real time but so too did the AWACS aircraft. They were flying to monitor conventional air activity though. All that East Germany was doing was watched and understood for what it was. There was no plausible deniability in East German air operations over the Czech Republic that fooled NATO, just like any notion that the DDR wasn’t the one behind the use of ballistic missiles inside Europe.

There were sixteen member states of NATO in 1995: Belgium, Britain, Canada, Denmark, France, Greece, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Turkey, the United States and West Germany. The Soviet Union, the reason for the organisations decades-old formation, had imploded four years beforehand though Russia was still there. It was said that without the Soviets, NATO was without a mission in the Nineties. East Germany remained active and hostile though so there was still a defensive mission of West Germany against an – admittedly unlikely – attack from that country into Western Europe. Those AWACS aircraft were flying because NATO countries had grown more and more worried throughout May and into June at to what the DDR was doing with regard to its neighbours. The positions of the various governments were that they didn’t want war despite the outrage at what was being done by East Germany. An attack against one of them would change things but even with the DDR heavily-involved in the Czech civil war, instigating that in fact, there would be no conflict launched by NATO as long as what happened wasn’t directed westwards. The East Germans struck eastwards with their missile attack, hitting non-NATO countries. Poland and Slovakia, as the pre-conflict Czech Republic too had been, were ‘partnership for peace’ countries were NATO had an informal agreement with that over working towards membership of the Atlantic Alliance. NATO wasn’t committed to defending them with no official policy on that either organisation-wide nor among individual NATO countries. Hypothetical plans existed should Russia make an attack into Eastern Europe yet that wasn’t something considered likely under either Yeltsin nor his successor Chernomyrdin. East German hostility had been also considered but, again, that wasn’t thought before mid-’95 to be likely.

June 13th changed everything though.

The regime led by Margot Honecker, where she had inherited from her husband the last bastion of communist autocracy in Europe, had gone through red lines that NATO countries had drawn themselves several times beforehand. The use of those Spider missiles was just too much though. To do such a thing, without a justification that Western countries could see as worth it, upended all previous positions. No more could it all be ignored. The Americans, the British and the French all knew about the DDR nuclear bomb project. They were aware too of the joint East German-Iraqi-Libyan missile project to gain a weapon system with a far greater range than the Spider (those could fly three hundred plus miles). Other countries were made aware of all of that in the aftermath of the attacks against Poland and Slovakia with all NATO members told. Combined, all of that, saw a sea-change arrive in how East Germany was regarded among the sixteen member alliance. There were a few who didn’t agree, but the vast majority did: something had to be done.

What was that to be though? Presidents Cuomo & Fabius, Prime Minister Heseltine, Chancellor Schäuble and other leaders had for a good amount of time refused to consider doing something. There were members of their governments, and also those outsiders who had been trying to force them into action, who had some ideas on that but no clear policy, even a real notion, had been on their mind. Contact was made between heads of state where shared outrage and determination to act was made clear. Again though, what to do and how was not only not agreed but not yet thought through. An emergency summit was suggested by the Dutch and approved rapidly. Setting that up was something worked on fast and ahead of that, leaders considered their options. They wanted to stop East German aggression, end their nuclear ambitions and restore peace to Europe. By how, and who would be all in for that with a readiness to take it all the way, were the areas of contention ahead of proper talks.

There were those governments which favoured diplomatic demands and further sanctions. Others looked for a limited air intervention over the Czech republic. There were some who were even so angered by East German actions that they were of mind to see a full-scale aerial conflict against the DDR. There was only one course of action which none were seriously considering at that time though: no one was looking for a ground war. The DDR had done wrong, was behaving like an international outlaw where it threatened world peace, but anything like an invasion of their country was just regarded as beyond comprehension for NATO countries.

And so East Germany makes the final step to total war in Europe.

[stevep]

Sept 9, 2021 18:50:59 GMT lordroel said:

Sept 9, 2021 18:23:55 GMT James G said:

Twelve – June 13th


Gorbachev and Reagan had signed the INF Treaty at the end of 1987, one which prohibited the Soviet Union and the United States from both deploying cruise & ballistic missiles of an intermediate-range (defined then as between three hundred and three & a half thousand miles) which were land-based. Air-launched and seaborne weapons weren’t included in that. The Americans set about getting rid of their Pershings and GLCMs – the deployment of what was called ‘Cruise’ in the UK had been very controversial – while the Soviets got rid of six different classes of missiles which had given the West and NATO many worries. That treaty banned those two nations from fielding such weapons though the intention of many of those behind the agreement was that other states would follow suit. West Germany would get rid of its own Pershings soon enough but the French kept their Pluton missiles and also continued work on developing the Hades system too. As to Eastern Bloc countries, almost of the Warsaw Pact nations fielded short-range ballistic missiles before the INF Treaty and then three of them, Bulgaria, East Germany & Czechoslovakia, had to them ‘transferred’ intermediate-range missiles from the Soviets afterwards. The element of independence over those missiles, which were capable of carrying nuclear warheads, was questioned by those invested in the historic arms control treaty. The Soviets hadn’t been playing fair. The trio of countries already operated the notorious Scud missile as well as the Scarab, but the Soviets gave them the OTR-23 (NATO codename: Spider). Those weapons stayed in their hands when the Warsaw Pact fell. East Germany had received almost two thirds of those Spiders transferred and kept them in service throughout the early Nineties while also buying off-the-books half a dozen more from Bulgaria too. No international agreement banned the DDR from operating them. All of West Germany, a portion of Eastern Europe and further places on the Continent was within range of those Spiders which were armed with a non-nuclear warhead.

On the morning of June 13th 1995, half a dozen Spider ballistic missiles were launched from inside East Germany. Missile warning systems operated by NATO, and the Russians too (there was quite some panic there despite the country being out of range), spotted the flurry of launches over a two minute period from isolated dispersal sites but there was little time to react. Up, over and down they went before crashing into their targets. Those were in Poland and Slovakia both. The Polish airbases as Poznan-Krzesniy and Łask, plus Malacky which the Slovaks were making much use of, were where the East German missile strike hit. Each was being used by the two nation’s air forces where they were flying air operations above the Czech Republic to aid government forces against the DDR-backed rebels. The Slovaks had only started doing so the night beforehand, flying defensive ones too, though the Poles had been doing so for almost a week and taken aerial losses while operating in an offensive manner. Where the undeclared conflict had been fought in Czech skies between the sides supporting the competing governments, East Germany moved the conflict outside of that war-torn nation.

Damage was extensive and casualties were high. The Spiders wrought their worst. East Germany had plenty more of those missiles too… along with the clear intent to use them to attack sovereign nations which it wasn’t officially engaged in conflict with.

The missile attacks came alongside increased East German air activity inside the Czech Republic where DDR combat aircraft were flying from Czech airbases in Bohemia. The East Germans kept their aircraft stationed on home soil though began to make use of locations inside rebel-held territory for refuelling and rearming purposes. Faster reaction and turn-around times were available by doing so. The exact same type of aircraft which the East Germans used were flown by the Czech rebels too – and everyone else involved in the fight – and that kept up a veneer of plausible deniability: the missile strikes outside of the Czech Republic had no deniability though. Air missions flown alongside Czech rebels up above aided in the continuation of the ground offensive into Moravia. The Highway-1 corridor southeast of Jihlava was where the main fighting was with that as Czech rebels moved in the direction of Brno. They headed towards the country’s second-largest city and the Slovak border beyond. Czech government aircraft got airborne but there were no Polish nor Slovakian aircraft after the missile attack on their home countries. It mattered what was above. A breakthrough was made by those on the attack and they pushed forward. Government troops near to Velke Mezirici, a small town on the edges of Moravia, were overcome and the rebels also managed to seize the Vysocina Bridge. That crossing over the Oslava River was mined with demolition charges but a night-time commando attack by unknown assailants had seized it while a defence was mounted waiting on Czech tanks to arrive. Those were East German special forces in action there, pretending to be Czechs rather than have their country forced to admit that it had ground troops fighting inside the Czech Republic. With the bridge crossed, Czech rebel forces moved onwards down the highway corridor and carried on with their push towards Brno. Air strikes in support and ahead of them aided the advance though it was noted amongst the rebel commanders, and also the East German advisers in the country too, that the government troops on the ground were faltering. Victory didn’t look that far away with an opponent which was putting up less and less of a fight. Morale appeared rock bottom and there were shortages for government forces of munitions. Without air cover, their defensive situation was only going to get worse.


NATO operated a fleet of AWACS aircraft. They were based in West Germany and had the markings of the Luxembourg Air Force while crewed by a multi-national component. From the beginning of the conflict inside the Czech Republic, those aircraft had been flying airborne patrols over West Germany – far away from where any fighting was – with the airborne crews monitoring airborne traffic above that country. East Germany ground-based radar jamming had been employed to try and limit what the AWACS aircraft could see with their long-range radars. A lot of effort had been put into that and there had been some ‘blind’ periods before a work-around was done each time to re-establish cover. When the attack using Spider ballistic missiles was made against Poland & Slovakia, more jamming had been tried, targeted and powerful stuff too, but that had failed to stop the radars on two of the airborne AWACS (up to three were flying at times, providing significant coverage with redundancy, due to the strength of NATO interest) seeing the attack for what it was. Satellites and other ground-based radars operated by NATO countries watched those missile launches in real time but so too did the AWACS aircraft. They were flying to monitor conventional air activity though. All that East Germany was doing was watched and understood for what it was. There was no plausible deniability in East German air operations over the Czech Republic that fooled NATO, just like any notion that the DDR wasn’t the one behind the use of ballistic missiles inside Europe.

There were sixteen member states of NATO in 1995: Belgium, Britain, Canada, Denmark, France, Greece, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Turkey, the United States and West Germany. The Soviet Union, the reason for the organisations decades-old formation, had imploded four years beforehand though Russia was still there. It was said that without the Soviets, NATO was without a mission in the Nineties. East Germany remained active and hostile though so there was still a defensive mission of West Germany against an – admittedly unlikely – attack from that country into Western Europe. Those AWACS aircraft were flying because NATO countries had grown more and more worried throughout May and into June at to what the DDR was doing with regard to its neighbours. The positions of the various governments were that they didn’t want war despite the outrage at what was being done by East Germany. An attack against one of them would change things but even with the DDR heavily-involved in the Czech civil war, instigating that in fact, there would be no conflict launched by NATO as long as what happened wasn’t directed westwards. The East Germans struck eastwards with their missile attack, hitting non-NATO countries. Poland and Slovakia, as the pre-conflict Czech Republic too had been, were ‘partnership for peace’ countries were NATO had an informal agreement with that over working towards membership of the Atlantic Alliance. NATO wasn’t committed to defending them with no official policy on that either organisation-wide nor among individual NATO countries. Hypothetical plans existed should Russia make an attack into Eastern Europe yet that wasn’t something considered likely under either Yeltsin nor his successor Chernomyrdin. East German hostility had been also considered but, again, that wasn’t thought before mid-’95 to be likely.

June 13th changed everything though.

The regime led by Margot Honecker, where she had inherited from her husband the last bastion of communist autocracy in Europe, had gone through red lines that NATO countries had drawn themselves several times beforehand. The use of those Spider missiles was just too much though. To do such a thing, without a justification that Western countries could see as worth it, upended all previous positions. No more could it all be ignored. The Americans, the British and the French all knew about the DDR nuclear bomb project. They were aware too of the joint East German-Iraqi-Libyan missile project to gain a weapon system with a far greater range than the Spider (those could fly three hundred plus miles). Other countries were made aware of all of that in the aftermath of the attacks against Poland and Slovakia with all NATO members told. Combined, all of that, saw a sea-change arrive in how East Germany was regarded among the sixteen member alliance. There were a few who didn’t agree, but the vast majority did: something had to be done.

What was that to be though? Presidents Cuomo & Fabius, Prime Minister Heseltine, Chancellor Schäuble and other leaders had for a good amount of time refused to consider doing something. There were members of their governments, and also those outsiders who had been trying to force them into action, who had some ideas on that but no clear policy, even a real notion, had been on their mind. Contact was made between heads of state where shared outrage and determination to act was made clear. Again though, what to do and how was not only not agreed but not yet thought through. An emergency summit was suggested by the Dutch and approved rapidly. Setting that up was something worked on fast and ahead of that, leaders considered their options. They wanted to stop East German aggression, end their nuclear ambitions and restore peace to Europe. By how, and who would be all in for that with a readiness to take it all the way, were the areas of contention ahead of proper talks.

There were those governments which favoured diplomatic demands and further sanctions. Others looked for a limited air intervention over the Czech republic. There were some who were even so angered by East German actions that they were of mind to see a full-scale aerial conflict against the DDR. There was only one course of action which none were seriously considering at that time though: no one was looking for a ground war. The DDR had done wrong, was behaving like an international outlaw where it threatened world peace, but anything like an invasion of their country was just regarded as beyond comprehension for NATO countries.

And so East Germany makes the final step to total war in Europe.

  Not quite yet as the NATO powers are still thinking things can be handled without major effort by them, let alone ground force action.  Plus total war might be very nasty given the E German nuclear project so close to completion.

[James G]

Sept 9, 2021 18:50:59 GMT lordroel said:

Sept 9, 2021 18:23:55 GMT James G said:

Twelve – June 13th


Gorbachev and Reagan had signed the INF Treaty at the end of 1987, one which prohibited the Soviet Union and the United States from both deploying cruise & ballistic missiles of an intermediate-range (defined then as between three hundred and three & a half thousand miles) which were land-based. Air-launched and seaborne weapons weren’t included in that. The Americans set about getting rid of their Pershings and GLCMs – the deployment of what was called ‘Cruise’ in the UK had been very controversial – while the Soviets got rid of six different classes of missiles which had given the West and NATO many worries. That treaty banned those two nations from fielding such weapons though the intention of many of those behind the agreement was that other states would follow suit. West Germany would get rid of its own Pershings soon enough but the French kept their Pluton missiles and also continued work on developing the Hades system too. As to Eastern Bloc countries, almost of the Warsaw Pact nations fielded short-range ballistic missiles before the INF Treaty and then three of them, Bulgaria, East Germany & Czechoslovakia, had to them ‘transferred’ intermediate-range missiles from the Soviets afterwards. The element of independence over those missiles, which were capable of carrying nuclear warheads, was questioned by those invested in the historic arms control treaty. The Soviets hadn’t been playing fair. The trio of countries already operated the notorious Scud missile as well as the Scarab, but the Soviets gave them the OTR-23 (NATO codename: Spider). Those weapons stayed in their hands when the Warsaw Pact fell. East Germany had received almost two thirds of those Spiders transferred and kept them in service throughout the early Nineties while also buying off-the-books half a dozen more from Bulgaria too. No international agreement banned the DDR from operating them. All of West Germany, a portion of Eastern Europe and further places on the Continent was within range of those Spiders which were armed with a non-nuclear warhead.

On the morning of June 13th 1995, half a dozen Spider ballistic missiles were launched from inside East Germany. Missile warning systems operated by NATO, and the Russians too (there was quite some panic there despite the country being out of range), spotted the flurry of launches over a two minute period from isolated dispersal sites but there was little time to react. Up, over and down they went before crashing into their targets. Those were in Poland and Slovakia both. The Polish airbases as Poznan-Krzesniy and Łask, plus Malacky which the Slovaks were making much use of, were where the East German missile strike hit. Each was being used by the two nation’s air forces where they were flying air operations above the Czech Republic to aid government forces against the DDR-backed rebels. The Slovaks had only started doing so the night beforehand, flying defensive ones too, though the Poles had been doing so for almost a week and taken aerial losses while operating in an offensive manner. Where the undeclared conflict had been fought in Czech skies between the sides supporting the competing governments, East Germany moved the conflict outside of that war-torn nation.

Damage was extensive and casualties were high. The Spiders wrought their worst. East Germany had plenty more of those missiles too… along with the clear intent to use them to attack sovereign nations which it wasn’t officially engaged in conflict with.

The missile attacks came alongside increased East German air activity inside the Czech Republic where DDR combat aircraft were flying from Czech airbases in Bohemia. The East Germans kept their aircraft stationed on home soil though began to make use of locations inside rebel-held territory for refuelling and rearming purposes. Faster reaction and turn-around times were available by doing so. The exact same type of aircraft which the East Germans used were flown by the Czech rebels too – and everyone else involved in the fight – and that kept up a veneer of plausible deniability: the missile strikes outside of the Czech Republic had no deniability though. Air missions flown alongside Czech rebels up above aided in the continuation of the ground offensive into Moravia. The Highway-1 corridor southeast of Jihlava was where the main fighting was with that as Czech rebels moved in the direction of Brno. They headed towards the country’s second-largest city and the Slovak border beyond. Czech government aircraft got airborne but there were no Polish nor Slovakian aircraft after the missile attack on their home countries. It mattered what was above. A breakthrough was made by those on the attack and they pushed forward. Government troops near to Velke Mezirici, a small town on the edges of Moravia, were overcome and the rebels also managed to seize the Vysocina Bridge. That crossing over the Oslava River was mined with demolition charges but a night-time commando attack by unknown assailants had seized it while a defence was mounted waiting on Czech tanks to arrive. Those were East German special forces in action there, pretending to be Czechs rather than have their country forced to admit that it had ground troops fighting inside the Czech Republic. With the bridge crossed, Czech rebel forces moved onwards down the highway corridor and carried on with their push towards Brno. Air strikes in support and ahead of them aided the advance though it was noted amongst the rebel commanders, and also the East German advisers in the country too, that the government troops on the ground were faltering. Victory didn’t look that far away with an opponent which was putting up less and less of a fight. Morale appeared rock bottom and there were shortages for government forces of munitions. Without air cover, their defensive situation was only going to get worse.


NATO operated a fleet of AWACS aircraft. They were based in West Germany and had the markings of the Luxembourg Air Force while crewed by a multi-national component. From the beginning of the conflict inside the Czech Republic, those aircraft had been flying airborne patrols over West Germany – far away from where any fighting was – with the airborne crews monitoring airborne traffic above that country. East Germany ground-based radar jamming had been employed to try and limit what the AWACS aircraft could see with their long-range radars. A lot of effort had been put into that and there had been some ‘blind’ periods before a work-around was done each time to re-establish cover. When the attack using Spider ballistic missiles was made against Poland & Slovakia, more jamming had been tried, targeted and powerful stuff too, but that had failed to stop the radars on two of the airborne AWACS (up to three were flying at times, providing significant coverage with redundancy, due to the strength of NATO interest) seeing the attack for what it was. Satellites and other ground-based radars operated by NATO countries watched those missile launches in real time but so too did the AWACS aircraft. They were flying to monitor conventional air activity though. All that East Germany was doing was watched and understood for what it was. There was no plausible deniability in East German air operations over the Czech Republic that fooled NATO, just like any notion that the DDR wasn’t the one behind the use of ballistic missiles inside Europe.

There were sixteen member states of NATO in 1995: Belgium, Britain, Canada, Denmark, France, Greece, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Turkey, the United States and West Germany. The Soviet Union, the reason for the organisations decades-old formation, had imploded four years beforehand though Russia was still there. It was said that without the Soviets, NATO was without a mission in the Nineties. East Germany remained active and hostile though so there was still a defensive mission of West Germany against an – admittedly unlikely – attack from that country into Western Europe. Those AWACS aircraft were flying because NATO countries had grown more and more worried throughout May and into June at to what the DDR was doing with regard to its neighbours. The positions of the various governments were that they didn’t want war despite the outrage at what was being done by East Germany. An attack against one of them would change things but even with the DDR heavily-involved in the Czech civil war, instigating that in fact, there would be no conflict launched by NATO as long as what happened wasn’t directed westwards. The East Germans struck eastwards with their missile attack, hitting non-NATO countries. Poland and Slovakia, as the pre-conflict Czech Republic too had been, were ‘partnership for peace’ countries were NATO had an informal agreement with that over working towards membership of the Atlantic Alliance. NATO wasn’t committed to defending them with no official policy on that either organisation-wide nor among individual NATO countries. Hypothetical plans existed should Russia make an attack into Eastern Europe yet that wasn’t something considered likely under either Yeltsin nor his successor Chernomyrdin. East German hostility had been also considered but, again, that wasn’t thought before mid-’95 to be likely.

June 13th changed everything though.

The regime led by Margot Honecker, where she had inherited from her husband the last bastion of communist autocracy in Europe, had gone through red lines that NATO countries had drawn themselves several times beforehand. The use of those Spider missiles was just too much though. To do such a thing, without a justification that Western countries could see as worth it, upended all previous positions. No more could it all be ignored. The Americans, the British and the French all knew about the DDR nuclear bomb project. They were aware too of the joint East German-Iraqi-Libyan missile project to gain a weapon system with a far greater range than the Spider (those could fly three hundred plus miles). Other countries were made aware of all of that in the aftermath of the attacks against Poland and Slovakia with all NATO members told. Combined, all of that, saw a sea-change arrive in how East Germany was regarded among the sixteen member alliance. There were a few who didn’t agree, but the vast majority did: something had to be done.

What was that to be though? Presidents Cuomo & Fabius, Prime Minister Heseltine, Chancellor Schäuble and other leaders had for a good amount of time refused to consider doing something. There were members of their governments, and also those outsiders who had been trying to force them into action, who had some ideas on that but no clear policy, even a real notion, had been on their mind. Contact was made between heads of state where shared outrage and determination to act was made clear. Again though, what to do and how was not only not agreed but not yet thought through. An emergency summit was suggested by the Dutch and approved rapidly. Setting that up was something worked on fast and ahead of that, leaders considered their options. They wanted to stop East German aggression, end their nuclear ambitions and restore peace to Europe. By how, and who would be all in for that with a readiness to take it all the way, were the areas of contention ahead of proper talks.

There were those governments which favoured diplomatic demands and further sanctions. Others looked for a limited air intervention over the Czech republic. There were some who were even so angered by East German actions that they were of mind to see a full-scale aerial conflict against the DDR. There was only one course of action which none were seriously considering at that time though: no one was looking for a ground war. The DDR had done wrong, was behaving like an international outlaw where it threatened world peace, but anything like an invasion of their country was just regarded as beyond comprehension for NATO countries.

And so East Germany makes the final step to total war in Europe.

Almost... almost.

Sept 10, 2021 9:41:42 GMT stevep said:

  Not quite yet as the NATO powers are still thinking things can be handled without major effort by them, let alone ground force action.  Plus total war might be very nasty given the E German nuclear project so close to completion.

Yep, they still seek to resolve the issue. Maybe they have to run a few fighter patrols, drop a few bombs etc.: that's the worst case scenario that is foreseen.
Others are still making the decisions though and setting the stage.

[James G]

Thirteen – Way out


East German ballistic missiles weren’t fired again at distant targets, not in mid-June 1995 anyway. The point had been made and the strike appeared to have worked. Poland and Slovakia both at once ceased air operations over the Czech Republic to leave the skies clear for Czech–vs.–Czech engagements with some East German air support too. The dominance in the skies where the DDR regime supported the rebels continued to pay off through the middle of that month. Brno was reached. That city was in the far east of the country and not too distant from the Slovak border. It didn’t fall at once to the rebels though. Government troops, who had made a poor show of defending the offensive towards it, fell back inside there and did look capable of making a last stand. In Prague, Candidate X wanted to see Brno taken like Plzen had been – without a fight – and was willing to see it surrounded with those inside eventually ‘seeing sense’. A battle would be costly for everyone involved and didn’t seem worth it. Elsewhere inside Moravia, a forward column went down towards the Slovak border to shut off access there while more of the rebel forces made a left turn away from Brno. Olomouc (where Klaus’ government had set themselves up), the city of Ostrava and Czech Silesia remained to be taken. There was more fighting as the rebel forces continued onwards.

Rebel forces, still claiming a legitimacy that was only recognised in East Germany, had control of close to three-quarters of the Czech Republic. There was still a war raging yet away from where the front-lines had moved to, there was peace elsewhere despite the country being involved in a civil war. Repression was minimal and there were no mass killings taking place after an initial flurry of uncomfortable scenes. With Prague fully under his control, along with so many more Czech cities, Candidate X had established a near victory. It didn’t look long until the last of the government forces were either defeated or surrendered. The latter happened ahead of Brno and afterwards among many government units. They saw the writing on the wall and gave in. It wasn’t like they surrendered to a foreign invader hellbent on the destruction of their nation. It was fellow Czechs taking over, those who claimed to be acting for the good of the whole country. To fight over whom the president was had been what the war was about for so many Czechs and one side had seemed to win out with that. In many places, things got back to normal: especially far away from where the fighting was. There were still many shortages and a lot of people had made themselves internal refugees, but the Czech Republic was still there. A new parliament had been assembled in the capital. Figures from the old regime were among its number though there were still a lot of new faces. Again though, there really weren’t that many changes. A lot of Czechs got back to their lives as they tried to make the best of a bad situation.

From Bratislava, the Slovak Government offered Klaus and his government a way out. They were packing up and leaving from Olomouc to go to Ostrava but a foreign refuge was presented as an alternative. Slovakia meant safety from falling into rebel hands. East German military support in the devastating manner it had come meant that the Slovaks regarded the civil war as lost inside the Czech Republic for the government which they supported. That offer was one made out of genuine concern for the safety of people who only a few years beforehand had been their fellow brothers when the two countries were united as Czechoslovakia. A response of a polite decline was made to Bratislava though. Klaus moved to Ostrava, close to the Polish border, and declared to the Slovaks that he intended to see the war through to the end where his side would prevail. Prague would eventually be retaken and all those who had betrayed their country on behalf of the DDR would be punished. Yeah… those in Bratislava wondered just what they were drinking there in Ostrava with such a notion. The conflict was almost at an end and there was no way that they could see the situation turning around as Klaus said it would.


The Stasi controlled East Germany’s foreign intelligence service, the HVA. That organisation had always been competent with a far reach though had excelled itself in the years since the Eastern Bloc collapsed leaving the DDR all alone. HVA operations overseas had been a major part of the reason why the country continued to exist. It wasn’t just the traditional intelligence agency it appeared to be though. Officially sanctioned criminality was committed by HVA agents, all supposedly for the benefit of East Germany. President Havel had been murdered by East German spies and they had people – either national agents or foreign operatives – spread out all across Europe. Like any similar organisation, there were dullards within it who managed to stay in-place because of personal connections and bureaucratic mistakes. The HVA had had successes and failures in its time. It was just that the former outweighed the latter that made their work count for something to keep their country afloat.

Down in the Slovak capital, the small HVA presence there was one of the effective ones. They had managed to pass on in timely fashion the news that the Slovaks were finally going to test the water by putting aircraft in Czech skies. That information was put to good use with East German aircraft engaging them when they did that and then the well-targeted missile strike on the airbase back in Slovak from where they had flown from. Gold-plated intelligence continued to come out of Bratislava afterwards with confirmation that the Slovaks were backing out of further interference in the Czech civil war and then also that offer made to Klaus for a way out of the country which control over he had lost. Even the initial hosting site for a government-in-exile based in Bratislava – the very rooms in a selected building – were known about. All of that hard work was appreciated back in East Berlin and Schwanitz would reward those involved. His Politburo colleagues had little time for all of that Slovak work though. They were focused on Poland and what Borusewicz was up to. The Stasi head was asked while his people in that country couldn’t do their jobs properly.

The set-up across in Poland was a mess. Schwanitz knew the reasons why. There were ‘connected’ operatives there who had ties to the deceased Mielke and had never had to do a real job before. The Poles had been cracking down hard too on those who were useful for the HVA in terms of natives as well as making a real effort to target East German officers. They had help doing what they were doing. It wasn’t a case of the Polish security services suddenly getting their act together as well as having unbelievable luck in breaking up networks. Instead, Schwanitz suspected yet couldn’t prove, that a third party intelligence service was active there to help the Poles. It could be the Americans, the British or the Israelis. One of them, maybe even two. Whomever it was, they had helped the Poles significantly. The result was little useful information coming out of Poland that could be made use of to support his country’s national objectives in seeing the conflict in the Czech Republic brought to a successful conclusion without further Polish interference. They had sent munitions convoys into that country and then fighters into Czech skies too. Politburo members worried over the entry into the fight of Polish troops. The defence & foreign ministers each said that that wouldn’t happen because the Poles weren’t ‘so foolish’ as to try that. Those from the finance and interior ministries – who had provided much vocal opposition to DDR activities in the Czech Republic from the start – disagreed on that. Margot Honecker had turned to Schwanitz whose position leading the Stasi made him the nation’s security minister.

Would the Poles put ground troops into the Czech Republic? He had wanted to say that they wouldn’t but didn’t commit himself. That brought about her displeasure. However, to give an answer one way or the other would have been a mistake. Schwanitz had been behind the whole Czech ‘adventure’ and things hadn’t gone to plan. Success hadn’t been elusive just not the way it was supposed to be. He was thankful that he didn’t commit to an answer come June 16th. HVA agents were that day active in Rotterdam where, at Dutch invitation, NATO heads of government gathered for an emergency summit: their task was to spy on that event and gather as much intel as possible without being caught or duped. Of more importance than that though was the entry of Polish soldiers into the Czech Republic. At Klaus’ invitation, Borusewicz made a bigger commitment that even Honecker was doing to the Czech civil war. It came as a surprise and wasn’t in any form of a small scale either.

Tens of thousands of Poles entered the Czech Republic following their president not being cowed as he was supposed to be by East German missile attacks on his country. He upped the ante instead.

[lordroel]

Sept 11, 2021 17:28:50 GMT James G said:

Thirteen – Way out

Tens of thousands of Poles entered the Czech Republic following their president not being cowed as he was supposed to be by East German missile attacks on his country. He upped the ante instead.

So what force are we speaking of that the Polish are sending.

Also i assume that with East Germany still in being and Belarus sharing its border, the polish armed forces are still at the same level as they where in 1989 when the Cold War ended.

If the Polish are sending troops into the Czech Republic they most likely will be the once from the Silesian Military District

[James G]

Sept 12, 2021 17:27:08 GMT lordroel said:

Sept 11, 2021 17:28:50 GMT James G said:

Thirteen – Way out

Tens of thousands of Poles entered the Czech Republic following their president not being cowed as he was supposed to be by East German missile attacks on his country. He upped the ante instead.

So what force are we speaking of that the Polish are sending.

Also i assume that with East Germany still in being and Belarus sharing its border, the polish armed forces are still at the same level as they where in 1989 when the Cold War ended.

If the Polish are sending troops into the Czech Republic they most likely will be the once from the Silesian Military District

A strong force will be sent.
The Poles have a big army in this ATL 1995, just not as large as 1989. Belarus only became a worry in '94, about when Russia started to emerge from its mess.
Yep. I spent a while looking at the Polish Army in the mid-Nineties and those sent into the Czech Republic will come out of the Silesian MD.

[James G]

Fourteen – Coalition


Air Force One flew into Valkenburg Naval Airbase in the Netherlands with President Cuomo aboard. The facility was used by the Dutch for VIP flights as well as their naval aviation aircraft and so security there was to the American’s liking. From Valkenburg, the 42nd President went in a ground convoy – he was inside ‘the beast’ – into nearby Rotterdam. The US Intelligence Community had a concern about Islamist extremists targeting Cuomo yet, while the Dutch took security very seriously indeed, there was less worry about that on the European end of things. Other flights bringing heads of government to the Netherlands went into Rotterdam Airport instead. Police officers and soldiers patrolled the travel routes and the conference site for where NATO leaders gathered in the middle of June 1995. There were a couple of issues here and there but nothing of any significance: just some foolish civilians or photojournalists trying to go where they weren’t allowed. As the host, the Dutch PM chaired the urgent meeting where he brought together fifteen other leaders from Europe and North America to discuss what was deemed the ‘German crisis’… which the West Germans were uneasy about calling the matter. Nonetheless, sensitivities like that aside, no one shied away from the matter at hand where East German activities in Eastern Europe were what they had come together to talk about. A course of action hadn’t been agreed beforehand but it was one which they went to Rotterdam to thrash out.

President Fabius was first to lay on the table his view that only military intervention by NATO was the only course of action that he felt would be able to bring the DDR regime to heel. This position of France was supported by the Belgians, the Danes and the Dutch too. East Germany’s abhorrent military adventurism wasn’t going to be stopped by a strongly worded diplomatic note nor even the threat of military action. There instead had to be armed action taken where NATO would put aircraft in the skies over the Czech Republic and enforce a no-fly zone for East German and Czech aircraft. Missile batteries, whether they launch SAMs or ballistic missiles would have to be targeted and that included those inside East Germany firing outwards. There was some surprise from others, especially the Americans and British, at such a strong position. Previous French and Western European opposition against any such actions against the Bosnian-Serbs stood in stark contrast to how Fabius and the trio of prime ministers he spoke for saw the required action with regard to the DDR. It was the outrage that was the assassination of Havel, the launching of ballistic missiles into Poland & Slovakia and also the information about East Germany building nuclear weapons that led them to that though. There needed to be firm action taken and that included force employed. A no-fly zone and bomb runs against missile installations was deemed by them to be what it would take to stop the DDR before it went even further than it already had.

Southern European countries (Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain) and Turkey too made clear a belief that a course of action like that would only be an open ended disaster which would spin out of control down the line. East Germany would lash out, striking into West Germany in reply. Chancellor Schäuble fully agreed with them on that. He was opposed too to offensive military action with the fear that his country would face that direct military response. Alongside the Canadians and the Norwegians, the West Germans were willing to see a demand made on East Germany to cease military actions in the Czech Republic and elsewhere, but not supportive of an air campaign against them should they not. Their European allies made clear that the DDR would continue to do what it wanted when they saw NATO inaction beyond diplomatic activity and carry on escalating as they had been right since the start of the crisis. Cuomo and British PM Heseltine then gave the opinion of their governments on the matter, a position which they had agreed before they came to the meeting.

Neither personally wanted to see military action take place. It was beyond the desires of each man to have that done. However, the East Germans had gone way too far. They argued that there had to be a forceful NATO response because the DDR had broken the peace that had held across Europe for the previous forty years. The nuclear issue concerned them the most, more than anything else done in the Czech Republic and into other Eastern European countries. An air campaign against East Germany was proposed, a bigger one that already laid out. It would be one to hit DDR nuclear facilities involved in the late stages of that bomb project and also against their home-based missile forces ahead of them firing, not in response to launches. The fighting inside the Czech Republic was getting too messy to intervene directly in – the Poles had entered that country starting that very morning of the Rotterdam meeting – but there was support for the French-led proposal to enforce a no-fly zone over that country. Heseltine spoke of stopping everyone from doing that, the Poles included, though Cuomo was unsure on whether that would be the best approach. Still, those two leaders were otherwise in concert on how they saw a response to East Germany being done. They wanted to bomb the DDR bomb project more than anything else with each informing their allies that, if need be, they would go it alone without other NATO allies to do that. Their thinking was that if they didn’t, the next time East Germany got involved in a conflict, which it seemed intent on continuing to do, ballistic missiles out of their country could be nuclear-armed.

If what Fabius had said had enraged Schäuble, then Cuomo & Heseltine sent him over the edge! No, no, no. West Germany couldn’t support any NATO action, nor non-NATO action either, against East Germany. To bomb targets in that country would bring about a response with his country right in the firing line. The DDR would launch missiles and undertake air action above his country. It would be full-scale war. Support for that position came from other attendees in Rotterdam. Heseltine and Fabius both tried to ‘work’ the Canadian PM to bring him onside but he was of the belief that Schäuble was correct. The Danish PM was brought into the UK-US camp though when he was shown more evidence than previously revealed about the East Germans and their nuclear ambitions. Spy work by their own people, including the latest Israeli activity on that front too, revealed an even greater level of DDR progress. Already willing to see Denmark involved in an air campaign over the Czech Republic, he shifted to the position that wider action was needed. Fabius as well as the Belgians and Dutch were worked on too with the same evidence presented and justification made. Opinions from them changed with those latest facts.

A coalition was built at the emergency NATO summit.

Cuomo and Heseltine gave frank admissions to their fellow leaders that the previous significant hesitancy of both of them for intervention had been a mistake. It had allowed East Germany to escalate and escalate. Too many red lines had been crossed and things were only going to get worse now that the Poles had moved troops into the Czech Republic. More were won over. Fabius as well as his fellow leaders from the Low Countries (Luxembourg’s PM also) came around in the end. There was no other way of resolving the German crisis before it went completely out of control. East Germany could be forced into ceasing what it was doing, its nuclear project included, when faced with an air campaign that it wouldn’t be able to stand up in opposition to. American air power, supported by a coalition of those willing to act for the greater good of continent-wide security, would do the job of restoring peace by a limited fight.

Nonetheless, Schäuble refused to accept that that was what needed doing. He had half of the other NATO countries with him. More than that, an air campaign against the East Germans would need West German bases and assistance to take place. Fabius openly pondered over it being done with or without West German agreement – quite a thing considering Franco-German long-standing ties – though other leaders believed that Schäuble would change his mind. Cuomo, Heseltine and those with them in the coalition formed were sure that the West Germans and the remaining countries opposed to action, would soon reverse course. They didn’t have to agree to take part but their active opposition would be damaging to what was on the cards when it came to dealing with East Germany. It wasn’t arrogant belief in their own powers of convincing argument that that was all about. Instead, it was raw geo-political cynicism.

The East Germans were sure to clash with the Poles inside the Czech Republic and the DDR regime would be counted upon to do something further outrageous on that front. That was what they were all about: forcing everyone to turn fully against them by going completely over the top.

[lordroel]

Sept 12, 2021 17:35:54 GMT James G said:

Sept 12, 2021 17:27:08 GMT lordroel said:

So what force are we speaking of that the Polish are sending.

Also i assume that with East Germany still in being and Belarus sharing its border, the polish armed forces are still at the same level as they where in 1989 when the Cold War ended.

If the Polish are sending troops into the Czech Republic they most likely will be the once from the Silesian Military District

A strong force will be sent.
The Poles have a big army in this ATL 1995, just not as large as 1989. Belarus only became a worry in '94, about when Russia started to emerge from its mess.
Yep. I spent a while looking at the Polish Army in the mid-Nineties and those sent into the Czech Republic will come out of the Silesian MD.

I can assume Poland wants some revenge, this is the third time the Germans have done something to Poland.

[James G]

Sept 12, 2021 17:37:31 GMT lordroel said:

Sept 12, 2021 17:35:54 GMT James G said:

A strong force will be sent.
The Poles have a big army in this ATL 1995, just not as large as 1989. Belarus only became a worry in '94, about when Russia started to emerge from its mess.
Yep. I spent a while looking at the Polish Army in the mid-Nineties and those sent into the Czech Republic will come out of the Silesian MD.

I can assume Poland wants some revenge, this is the third time the Germans have done something to Poland.

Possibly, but they also don't want the East Germans taking over the Czech Republic as that will not be in their national interest at all.

[James G]

Fifteen – An invasion


It was an invasion. East German-backed Candidate X, in power in Prague, declared that the entry of Polish troops into the Czech Republic was an illegal violation of Czech soil by a foreign power. President Borusewicz in Warsaw was in fact seeking to seize portions of the Czech Republic and so it was the duty of all Czechs to fight against that invasion. A state of war existed between the two countries, so he deemed, and he called upon friends & allies of his regime to help defend the war-torn Czech Republic. East Germany would answer that call. As to the ‘invasion’ itself, it was no easy affair. The Polish Armed Forces weren’t in the best of states in terms of organisation, ability and manpower. Post-’89 cutbacks had diminished the size of what was available to deploy into combat. There was a still a strong force on paper but the Polish Army was best suited for defence on home soil if called upon to see action. The task allotted to a portion of it though was to move into the Czech Republic while at the same time another portion was to secure the country’s western border with the DDR. Mobilisation of reservists was only started when the deployment of forces outside of the country began rather than ahead of that. Borusewicz had wanted to surprise the East Germans and that he did. However, he also made sure that the deployments undertaken were even slower and clumsier than they would have been with proper time to prepare.

Polish paratroopers were the first to enter the Czech Republic. There wasn’t enough airlift immediately on-hand to fly all of the men and their equipment even the short distance into the country, not in a fashion deemed adequate to ensure that those sent far ahead wouldn’t be best positioned to fight off an attack against them. Only a quarter of the 6th Airborne Brigade, a reinforced battalion in the end, was flown into the Czech Republic. They went via an airlift towards an airbase base in ‘friendly’ hands in that neighbouring country where Czech government forces had control. That lift was to get them deep inside the Czech Republic and ready to repel an assault to shut down further entry for follow-on supporting units. The rest of that brigade went by road in a fleet of trucks. They crossed the border into Czech Silesia and moved into Moravia as well. The cities of Ostrava and Olomouc were in friendly hands though with Czech PM Klaus increasingly worried about whether they would continue to fight for him. If they didn’t, he now had Polish troops ready to do just that. The paratroopers all travelled light with only man-portable weapons. Should they later on have faced a well-armed opponent, Czech rebel forces who were inside Moravia, they would certainly be fast in trouble despite their abilities. It wasn’t just them though who went over the border ready to see action.

The 4th & 10th Mechanised Divisions were reorganised, slimmed-down combat formations of the Polish Army who were the successors of two similar Eighties-era Warsaw Pact units. Neither division was as well regarded as the brigade of paratroopers but they certainly weren’t anything to be disregarded either. Tanks, tracked & wheeled infantry fighting vehicles, heavy artillery, rocket launchers and air defence systems were fielded by them. Getting everyone and everything moving took time when they deployed out of their barracks and across the various border access points. Road and rail links were made use of to begin that. Estimates in Warsaw said that it would take five to seven days to achieve the mission of completing a full movement of each division into the Czech Republic… Borusewicz did worry that it would take longer than that. The Polish Army thus had orders to move elements of the two divisions over as fast as possible: there wouldn’t be a wait for everyone to be ready. Detachments were sent out first so that there would be a presence established with haste. Recon units, supported by tank and armoured infantry columns, went out ahead. Multiple axis’ of advance were used with speed urged by commanders to subordinates. As could be expected, things went wrong. One of those recon units with scout cars followed by tanks and tracked vehicles, went completely off-course and crossed first into the Czech Republic at the wrong location before then continuing onwards into Slovakia too where the major in-command made an inexpiable left turn instead of going right. When entering Slovakia, invading that country by accident, that caused quite the stir indeed. Elsewhere, there were unfortunate clashes between Polish and Czech government troops. Not everyone got the word in time that the Poles were coming to their aid while some Polish units misidentified those in front of them and started shooting friends when the orders were for them to only open fire if they were attacked first. Breakdowns, communications issues and navigation mistakes saw the Poles stumble over the border. Borusewicz would have liked to have seen a tidal wave of armour make the crossing, so as to make quite the impression upon Czech rebel forces, but the whole things looked unprofessional and not very threatening.

As per their ROE, the Poles were supposed to wait until fired upon to engage an enemy. Units charging out ahead, going further than they were supposed to, came into contact with rebel Czech forces by the afternoon of their first day inside the neighbouring country. They fired first more often than not too. Clashes erupted across Moravia where Polish armoured columns began to fight Czech rebels. Borusewicz had browbeaten Klaus into accepting Polish military aid though the Czech leader had a notion that the first thing which would be done would be the Poles establishing a ‘safe zone’ with a military stand-off on its edges. That wasn’t to be. Soldiers met each other on the field of battle and started fighting. Those engagements saw each side achieve tactical victories and defeats aplenty depending upon where they took place. Czech rebel forces weren’t prepared to face what they did but the Poles weren’t in the best shape either. That gave the advantage to those who had the best terrain to fight upon either on the attack or the defence. Additionally, the winners of each engagement were those who had access to effective air support. The airbases at Poznan-Krzesniy and Łask had been extensively bashed-up by that East German ballistic missile strike several days beforehand. Damage had been done and aircraft knocked out of action. Yet, the Poles were still capable of conducting air operations, in strength too, over the Czech Republic and several days were taken gather strength while at the same time undertaking nationwide dispersal operations. Back into Czech skies Polish aircraft were sent and they provided air cover for their comrades on the ground below them. There wasn’t much Czech government air power left operational and the rebels had limited availability as well after a month of fighting. It was East German aircraft which were soon in the skies either engaging Polish fighters or flying ground attack missions against Poland’s soldiers. As the first day of the Polish ground intervention got later, and then night arrived, DDR-Polish clashes occurred with greater frequency.

Night-time also brought with it another East German missile attack against Poland. Only a pair of the Spiders were used in the second attack launched with instead the majority of those ballistic missiles fired being Scuds. Two missile failures occurred though the other fourteen crashed into Poland. Four airbases, including Poznan-Krzesniy and Łask again, plus Powidz and Swidwin too, were the targets. Half of the Scuds failed to provide accurate hits due to long-standing reliability issues with such a weapon. One of those off-course struck the town of Ploty – more than a dozen miles away from Swidwin Airbase – where five civilian deaths were caused when a family home was demolished. The city of Poznan was struck by a Scud that missed its target on the edge of that urban area. Thirteen civilians were killed there too in a serious loss of life within an apartment building. Polish air operations were disrupted but not brought to an end by such a strike on the airbases. At the same time, following the invitation from Prague to help repel that ‘Polish invasion’, East German troops prepared to deploy into that country as well where the DDR’s own paratroopers (the 40th Air Assault Brigade) started moving towards the border from nearby pre-deployment locations.

NATO heads of government were still in Rotterdam. News filtered through to them from military and intelligence sources of the latest East German outrage. A huge ballistic missile strike had been made, there were civilian casualties inside a city struck and now the regime in East Berlin was deploying troops into the Czech Republic too. Those with quite the cynical outlook on the matter who had been sure that an East German overreaction to the Polish deployment would occur hadn’t been disappointed. At once, those leaders at the emergency gathering in the Netherlands who had been against launching military action were button-holed by those pushing for it who sought to use the DDR action as justification for what they were planning.

[lordroel]

Sept 13, 2021 17:42:45 GMT James G said:

NATO heads of government were still in Rotterdam. News filtered through to them from military and intelligence sources of the latest East German outrage. A huge ballistic missile strike had been made, there were civilian casualties inside a city struck and now the regime in East Berlin was deploying troops into the Czech Republic too. Those with quite the cynical outlook on the matter who had been sure that an East German overreaction to the Polish deployment would occur hadn’t been disappointed. At once, those leaders at the emergency gathering in the Netherlands who had been against launching military action were button-holed by those pushing for it who sought to use the DDR action as justification for what they were planning.

Will the launch a invasion before ore wait until East Germany strikes at a NATO member.

[kyuzoaoi]

Frankfurt is next on their rocket attack?

[stevep]

Sept 13, 2021 18:57:54 GMT lordroel said:

Sept 13, 2021 17:42:45 GMT James G said:

NATO heads of government were still in Rotterdam. News filtered through to them from military and intelligence sources of the latest East German outrage. A huge ballistic missile strike had been made, there were civilian casualties inside a city struck and now the regime in East Berlin was deploying troops into the Czech Republic too. Those with quite the cynical outlook on the matter who had been sure that an East German overreaction to the Polish deployment would occur hadn’t been disappointed. At once, those leaders at the emergency gathering in the Netherlands who had been against launching military action were button-holed by those pushing for it who sought to use the DDR action as justification for what they were planning.

Will the launch a invasion before ore wait until East Germany strikes at a NATO member.

  I don't think even the regime in charge would attack a NATO member because they know that would be a step too far and would have the entire organisation on their back.  Depending on their spy network, possibly especially in W Germany they probably have some information on how a lot of states, especially the US, UK and France are willing to take military action against them and are only being held back by others, especially W Germany.  As such they won't want to push things too far and an attack on W Germany especially would be suicidal to them.

  However if they have nukes and a delivery system, or think they can make the west believe they do I can well see them doing a N Korea and threatening "leave us alone [militarily] regardless of how we behave outside NATO or we will launch nukes against you".

[James G]

Sept 13, 2021 18:57:54 GMT lordroel said:

Sept 13, 2021 17:42:45 GMT James G said:

NATO heads of government were still in Rotterdam. News filtered through to them from military and intelligence sources of the latest East German outrage. A huge ballistic missile strike had been made, there were civilian casualties inside a city struck and now the regime in East Berlin was deploying troops into the Czech Republic too. Those with quite the cynical outlook on the matter who had been sure that an East German overreaction to the Polish deployment would occur hadn’t been disappointed. At once, those leaders at the emergency gathering in the Netherlands who had been against launching military action were button-holed by those pushing for it who sought to use the DDR action as justification for what they were planning.

Will the launch a invasion before ore wait until East Germany strikes at a NATO member.

They are thinking pre-emptive action less that happen in the future. An air campaign, like what was done OTL in 1999 to Yugoslavia.
An invasion, causing a people's war, isn't actually really considered. East Germany is pretty strong though and it will take that form down the line.

Sept 13, 2021 20:06:39 GMT kyuzoaoi said:

Frankfurt is next on their rocket attack?

What was right next to Frankfurt at the time? Rhein-Main Airbase, a big USAF facility.
The West Germans fear that, thus Frankfurt with off-course Scuds, would be a target.

Sept 14, 2021 10:41:36 GMT stevep said:

  I don't think even the regime in charge would attack a NATO member because they know that would be a step too far and would have the entire organisation on their back.  Depending on their spy network, possibly especially in W Germany they probably have some information on how a lot of states, especially the US, UK and France are willing to take military action against them and are only being held back by others, especially W Germany.  As such they won't want to push things too far and an attack on W Germany especially would be suicidal to them.

  However if they have nukes and a delivery system, or think they can make the west believe they do I can well see them doing a N Korea and threatening "leave us alone [militarily] regardless of how we behave outside NATO or we will launch nukes against you".

Yep, that would be crazy. Only defensive action would be taken and even then limited.
So much is happening in the open so even without spies, Western media is telling the Politburo everything.
West Germany is that deciding factor.

BTW... great idea for a different story at the end there with the DDR acting like NK! I won't be going down that route as the nuke project isn't at that stage but I like the idea.

[James G]

Sixteen – Ultimatum


In light of what East Germany had recently done, though on the back of all that they had done previously too, a coalition of NATO countries issued an ultimatum to the DDR. They spoke as ‘the Coalition’ rather than the forty-plus year-old Atlantic Alliance. Not everyone who had come to Rotterdam could agree to that, West Germany and most of the Southern European countries foremost. West German opposition to the consequences of East Germany refusing to accede to the demands issued upon it remained immensely strong though Chancellor Schäuble couldn’t stop his allies doing what they intended to do. The tide from non-intervention to intervention had turned so dramatically and those governments seeking to strike against the regime in East Berlin had committed themselves to a position where Schäuble was completely out-manoeuvred. Military action by the Coalition would be launched from their soil too yet with assurances made that Schäuble’s country would be protected in that from a counterstrike. He left the Netherlands before the ultimatum was made though, refusing to give any sign of acceptance even without signing onboard.

There were three demands made of the DDR.

The first was that East Germany was to cease with immediate effect its missile attacks against neighbouring countries. No more Scud nor Spider ballistic missiles were to be fired into Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia nor anywhere else.

Second on the list was for the country to pull out all military forces from the Czech Republic be they ground troops, aircraft making use of Czech airbases and so-called military advisers. Additionally, East German military aircraft were also to cease flying in Czech airspace and there were to be no more firing of SAMs against aircraft also above that nation from out of DDR territory.

The third demand was that the East Germans were to cease at once development of nuclear weapons. They were to open up all of their development work to international inspectors sent by an independent organisation such as the International Atomic Energy Agency with IAEA operatives allowed free access to anywhere that they wished within East Germany.

All of these demands were to met… or else. The Coalition’s ultimatum was that unless East Germany accepted all of these requirements, and acted upon them with honesty in good time too, military action would be taken against the country. Their missile systems would be put out of action, they would be forced to vacate the Czech Republic and their nuclear facilities would be likewise subject to attack. The language used in the statement issued on behalf of all of those Coalition countries speaking as one was vague on what they meant by how the DDR was to exactly comply with their demands though when it came to the ultimatum and the consequences of not following it, military action was cleared affirmed as the outcome. The commitment was there in no uncertain terms of what would happen if the Coalition wasn’t satisfied with the East German response to what they were directed to do. Ten countries signed up to the Coalition: Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, the UK and the United States. Recent reverses in the positions of the Canadians, the Italians & the Norwegians had come following the latest East German missile strikes though for all of them, their outlook on how to deal with the DDR was something new. That country had just gone too far doing all that it had against its neighbours and then topped that off by the revelations about just how advanced its nuclear bomb project reportedly was. The mood was there that there was no choice but for action to be taken.


The ten leaders – Cuomo, Fabius and Heseltine prominent among them – stood looking solemn for a series of photographs after their statement containing their ultimatum was released. It went to the world’s media at the same time as there were simultaneous government-to-government contacts between their nations as the East Germans where the same thing was issued to them via official channels. The emergency summit in the Netherlands at which NATO had failed to agree as one on the matter thus forming the temporary Coalition afterwards broke up. Presidents, prime ministers and a chancellor all went home. There would be domestic difficulties at home for many of them. In no country which had committed itself to the Coalition, America, Britain & France included, was there solid political & public support for military action. The momentum for action was there but those against that weren’t about to go away. As to Schäuble, he went back to Bonn. West Germany was split on the issue ahead of the Rotterdam meeting though the news about the significant numbers of civilian deaths in Poznan did change things at home somewhat with outrage across his country at what the East Germans had done to Poland. Nonetheless, West Germany’s leader went back to his nation into a firestorm concerning what the Coalition had threatened to do to the DDR. No solution was going to come to solve the matter of how West Germans felt about the whole thing.

A HVA team had been active in Rotterdam when all of those NATO heads of government were there. East Germany spying activities across the Netherlands, as they were across Western Europe, were quite extensive though the quality of their mounted operations was never the best despite successes reported to Stasi bosses back home. Many operatives were engaged in criminal enterprises, using skills and contacts that they had made while doing that officially for the HVA. The Rotterdam operation came last minute and was pretty clumsy. Nothing of any significance was gained in the attempt at espionage when it came to discovering what was going on during the discussions held there through their efforts. Anything that East Germany’s spies really wanted to know was already readily available via the media anyway. Official leaks coming out of the impromptu summit came quick and fast and there was also all of the comment made back in the home countries of the participants too. West German refusal to back any idea of military action was known early on and so too was the about-turn in American & British behaviour where they suddenly pushed for intervention when DDR nuclear activities started dominating their agenda. The Italian reversal was something that exploded across the ‘lively’ Italian media and from the Canadian government, there was the public resignation of a junior minister back home that was reported on where he openly spoke of his opposition to his country being part of a European conflict. The operational controller back in East Berlin who the team in Rotterdam reported to would claim credit for so much of what he heard via the media rather than what he sent his HVA operatives to do. He did that to save his own behind and it denied his organisation the understanding that its intelligence-gathering capability in Western Europe were actually pretty poor.


Notwithstanding that issue, the regime led by Margot Honecker was aware ahead of the gathering in Rotterdam of what was coming due to how much of what happened being done in the open. The free societies in the West gave their media and politicians the ability to say what they wanted for everyone to hear. Republicans in America pushing for military action arguing against their intervention-shy Democratic president, the UK Labour opposition siding with war-mongering Conservatives in the Commons and the massive West Germany schism was all out there in the public arena. Press briefings were held where spokespeople for Western leaders hell-bent either on war or against it took place to explain the positioning of their governments. In East Germany, there was none of that though there were no fools in the Politburo who didn’t understand how all of that worked. The second ballistic missile attack undertaken against Poland had been passionately argued against by certain members where they said that NATO was looking for an excuse to act. Those for that attack in reply to the Poles putting troops into the Czech Republic claimed – and they were correct too – that NATO itself, especially West Germany, would never act against them in any pre-emptive fashion and so that that strike, regarded as necessary, could go ahead. The forming of the Coalition surprised them all though no matter what side of the argument they had been on. Differences among member states of that organisation when it came to military action to be taken or not with regard to the former Yugoslavia had long been prominent, so too European opposition to American war-making outside of Europe. With all the information in front of them to see what would happen, Politburo members had read the lay of the land completely wrong. To admit that though was difficult for them.

The diplomatic communiques arrived synchronously from those ten countries in East Berlin. Nations of the Coalition issued their demands and gave their ultimatum as to what would happen if those weren’t acted upon. A complete absence of West German participation was something that was paid attention to though the non-involvement of NATO members Greece, Iceland, Portugal, Spain & Turkey didn’t get a mention: they weren’t important but West Germany was. What the Coalition was threatening to do in terms of making attacks was translated among the Politburo as air and missile strikes. Yes, they could do that from every direction yet there would need to be the use of military bases inside West Germany and the use of that country’s airspace to really make it work. The West Germans were utterly opposed to conflict with open remarks made by their politicians, media and public that East Germany would retaliate by striking back at them whether they took part or not. The Coalition threatening military action was regarded as something that they couldn’t do without Schäuble on-board. Honecker and Minister of Security Schwanitz took that position. The defence & foreign ministers firmly agreed too. Others in the Politburo, those who had been arguing against all that had been done in the Czech Republic and against Poland as well, were less sure though didn’t actually fully disagree with that assessment. It made sense to them all.

The Coalition was bluffing. Their leaders had made their threats but wouldn’t be able to back them up without the West Germans onboard with that. When Schäuble didn’t reverse course, Cuomo, Fabius & Heseltine would wring their hands, blame Bonn and try something else. What those who’d issued that ultimatum from Rotterdam were hoping for was that East Germany would blink and back down. That wouldn’t happen. They would continue onwards with what they were doing.

Such was the thinking in East Berlin. Honecker gave instructions that there should be a pause in ballistic missile strikes and that defensive measures to protect the DDR should take place, just in case, but everything else would remain the same with the nation defending itself and its interests. A public statement was to be made with the General Secretary herself fronting that where she would address her country and the world directly, not ‘hiding behind written remarks’ as Schwanitz said that the Coalition leaders had done. That happened the night after what came out of Rotterdam. East Germany faced down those seeking to threaten it. A denial was made of nuclear weapons development and there was also the explanation that what the DDR was doing in Eastern Europe was all about national defence as well as answering a call for help from the government in Prague. She ended her remarks by firmly asserting that should any attack take place against the people of East Germany by Western countries, it would be met with an armed counterstrike. She didn’t have to say what exactly that would entail nor where it would take place. The imaginations of those abroad were already active: it would be West Germany should that occur.