The "Fall X" - The Conquest of West-Berlin
 

If you live in an area where you can receive German third regional TV Channel RBB, today, Thursday, at 2245 there is a promising docu, which later is planned to be published on DVD also. It is about the GDR's detailed plans on how to take Berlin in one swift, deceisive attack in case of a war with NATO - and in around just half a day.

German
http://www.welt.de/kultur/history/ar...st-Berlin.html

Heart of the plan was to immediately take control of a key bridge that leads one of berlin's greatest and most vital traffic alleys over the city's Stadtautobahn. When this bridge (8 lanes plus 2 parking lanes) would have been beyond Allied control, French, British and American forces would not have been able to form one united strong fighting force in time (The American garrison sat in the south, the French garrison in the North and the British isolated and somewhat exposed on the other side of the river Havel in the West, lovely countryside that is). For Google Earthlings, check here: 52°30'36.55"N, 13°17'8.16"E.

The other major objective would have been, obviously, the two airports Tegel and Tempelhof, and the airfield in Gatow - to not allow again air-supply of the city. the GDR maintained an air assault regiment whose only objective was just this.

The planning began relatively late in 1969, but still was maintained in regular updates for the masterplan in 1985. Last big military exercises that were run especially with the purprose to train the assault on West Berlin were conducted 1988. The GDR planned to breach the wall at 59 locations simultaneously. Intelligence operations also had detailed plans for the time after the guarding Allied troops had been overwhelmed, to make sure that decision makers, heads of instititutions and any people who could potentially organise resistence, would be arrested or killed at the very beginning. The attack lanes for storming the citiy had been precisely documented on films shot by GDR "tourists".

Estimations for how long the Allies could have resisted and survived, are in the range of 6-8 hours, half a day. This estimation I have heared before, too, not just in the article.

"Der Fall X", channel RBB, Thursday 2245 local time.

Is Fall X a real codename? I always thought the attack was codnamed Operation Stoss...

I wouldn't put much faith in such estimates. After all Bastogne was only supposed to hold out for a few hours too.

Impressive...although I think the destruction of the Allied forces in West Berlin in the outbreak of WWIII would have been a bit of a given, it was either that or they'd be isolated and contained (which would have been a bit daft really).
The GDR was more organised and ready for attack than most people realise. :doh:

Bastogne never really faced a determined assault, though.

IIRC most of the numbers I've seen on Operation Stoss usually count on a total of 12,000 NATO troops and 6,000 West German security forces facing approximately 32,000 Warsaw Pact troops (Comprising the Soviet 6th Motor Rifle Brigade and a whole bunch of DDR army and border units), however, I haven't seen conclusive figures on how many of the East German troops consititute security forces themselves, which means the NATO armies would have been outnumbered by anywhere from a factor of 1:1.5 to 1:2.5.

These odds aren't really overwhelming, so, despite huge Warsaw Pact superiority in firepower and artillery, I'd give the Berlin garrison quite a bit more than 6-8 hours to survive. My estimate is that the Berlin garrison would fall a day or a day and a half after the start of the offensive (With possible holdouts for a bit later), which means about 2 days after the start of the war.

Yea I would say they would last more than hours. Urban fighting is difficult for an attacker. Look what Col. Frost's men did at Arnhem. They held on for four days- two days of serous fighting with little supplies, plus stragglers were still being found by the Germans on day five.

I'd have thought 2 days or even longer, depending on how much air support they were given.

That far inside Warsaw Pact lines, I doubt it. The risk and cost of sending attack aircraft or supply transports that far through WP fighters and SAM cover outweighs the advantage of keeping the Berlin garrison around for a few more hours.

There may be a few surviving units for a day or two more, but I think the Berlin garrison's chances of surviving as a fighting force through the second day of the offensive are rather low.

These estimate are not by amateurs, but old school politicians who witnessed WWII and were seen as high profiled defence experts. You have to take into account that the GDR attack would have chosen time and opporutnity, and their plan was uniknown to the west (else the risk for nuclear war - because the GDR was seriously preparing a preemptive attack on West Berlin - would have raised so seriously that the history books would have learned it by know). You also maybe ignore the laypout of the city. Each of the three garrisons was strictly separated, and the Brits already isolated themselves from the rest of the city when choosing Gatow - the wide river Havel (VERY wide) is a natural obstacle that you cannot bridge with ponton bridges or anything (and they did not have them in big nu,mbers anyway). the Laiserdamm bridge would have been object of a dedicated attack by elite forces that outnumbers all three garrisins together - and the Allied defenders would not have the opportunity to ready their three separated small forces and unite them into one big force - for that, you need time, and the infratsructure. the better the infrastructure, the shorter the time it takes. But in a surprise attack from almost 60 directions, by elite fordces that for 20 years have trained nothing else but just this taks of securing vicotry in their assigned combat sector of West Berlin, and the needed key node of infrastructure - the Kaiserdamm bridge - most likely falling to the enemy within the first 1-2 hours, or being destroyed, chances are that the combat bunits of the three allies would have been scattered around, desperately fighting for their survial and their tanks being taken out one by one by an onslaught wellprepared, by well-equipped and very well-trained forces. In many areas, the socalled Stadtautobahn in berlin is set inside an artifical canyon, an articial valley, it is several meters below the city's "sealevel". Beloieve me, I live din berlin for ten years, and I have driven on the Statdautobahn with my father and later alone very oftenb. Without key bridges, you seriously are in trouble if you want to move British forces from Gatow to the rest of the city, or want to move French and American forces from their garrisons into the center to unite. You could only do that at the price of moving them very slowly on secondary routes (so that they cannot fight united and with providing mutual support, or by exposing them to lethal fire when sending them into that artifical canyon that much of the Autbahn is - it essentially functions as a killing bag.

Anyhow, I'll see the docu this night, and then tell you about my impressions. The material is basing on surving notes and scripts by GDR officials, because the GDr tried to destroy eviodence for these plans before reunification. The authors of the docu are no nobodies. They are known for doing thorough researches. On the US Berlin briagde, I refer to Fred Franks (and Thomas Clancy's) book "into the storm", about the war 91. In the biography descprtion Franks tells how he took commandign post in Berlin at some time of his career - and was not impressed by the shape the bridge was in. He compared it to a theatre group, and took quite some effort to try turning it into combat group. I personally knew two American soldier famiklies back then, mwehn I was young and live din Berlin. A rare event, allied families and germans did noit meet usually and did not establish social contacts oftenb, but kept seperate. Back then I was maybe not aware of it, but seen from the perspective and with the mind of today I must say that they certainly did not expect to ever needing to fight in Berlin. But the GDR meant it bitterly serious, and it kept mobilised massive forces of elite grade for a longer time to turn its plans into reality. The Eastgerman forces were of better training and command standard than the standard Russian troups. I think you underestimate them. Also take into account that the airmobility of the Allies was limited, very very limited. And the GDR had reserved considerable airmobile units per objective.

I cannot see how the Allies, if being surprised, could have hold out for longer than jujst a couple of hours indeed. half a day I gave them, 12 hours, if the attack was decisive and a surprise. Many West- and Eastgerman insiders estimate just 6-8 hours. the Berliners themselves - did not trust the Alies' brigades anyway, they expected the city to fall within one day if the Soviets or Eastgermans really meant serious business. The airlift during the blockade really must have moitivated the GDR army. They would have moved all heaven and hell to prevent that story from repeating. I remember that bets were held in jokes which brigade would give up first and second. The bets were scaled in hours, not days.

Oh, and add two things to the overall situation of Fall X: the east would have had undisputed artillery superiority and total air superiority over Berlin.

Well surprising the Allies is doubtful. It would have been difficult for the DDR to amass that kind of combat capability without Allied intelligence getting wind of it.

Secondly the tunnels under the city were extensively mapped and improved by the Allies and their units trained to use them. This leads me to think that while West Berlin might have been quickly overrun the clearing of hold outs would have taken weeks and tied down an inordinate amount of WP troops doing it.

In the case of a total WP surprise, they might've collapsed in as little time, but that's a pretty unlikely scenario. Warsaw Pact forces would have to have several hours to reach their launch points and to prepare for the offensive, and NATO troops in West Berlin wouldn't need more than a short warning to start entranching and getting ready to defend.

You're also way overestimating the scale of WP forces assigned. From what I gather, Warsaw Pact forces had no overwhelming numbers in anything but artillery and aircraft, and possibly tanks (Which wouldn't be the most effective units ever against an enemy equipped with man portable AT weapons in an urban environment); the most likely manpower ratio was around 2:1 in favour of WP troops. Of all the troops assigned to the offensive, the only unit which was 'elite' was the 1st Battalion of the 40th Air Assault Regiment, which was to take Tegel and Tempelhof airports by air assault with 3 companies; similarly, this was the only apparent airmobile unit assigned to Operation Stoss. The rest of the WP troops fall into regular army, DDR border troops (About half of each) and several battalions of the so-called Kampfgruppen der Arbeiterklasse (And of course, security troops which would've followed the offensive).

Also, wouldn't the infrastructure problems impede the attacker's progress just as much if not more than the defenders?

Either way, West Berlin might have fallen in 6-12 had the Warsaw Pact achieved complete strategic surprise, otherwise the whole thing could've dragged on for a day or more. Indeed, when the exercises were run, the WP planned for 2 days to destroy NATO forces and another 2 days to take over the city.

Statements from the film.

They were basing on NVA documents that are collected in a german library for GDR and NVA documents, and on surviving personal notes by Mielke that were the only evidence for other material that was destroyed by the GDR before unification.

The Soviet high Command calculated 24 hours for a fall of Berlin if any WP troops would conduct the attack. However, it only were Eastgerman troops that were assigned the task by the Eastgerman government, one airmobile elite regiment and additional batallions of the NVA equalling a force strength of at least 36000 men (the airmobile regiment not counted), breaching the wall at 59 locations, additionally to massive use of bombers, airmobile units, special units (infiltrators) and paratroops . At the time these numbers were laid down by the GDR, the american brigade had roughly 6000 men and 60 tanks. The air regiment 40 wa smeant to attack only the two major airports.

the air superiority over Berlin during the 60s was such that in the mid-60s a session of the Bundestag, that occaisonally met in Berlin, was made impossible by the noise of several hundred Russian and 5 Eastgerman fighters flowing low over the city. The noise was such that a debate was not possible. the meeting was stopped.

The NVA was to take care of Berlin. Russian troops would have pushed the southern front into the Fulda gap, the northern front was to be lead by the Poles (I did not know that they were given such a leading role, I only knew they were supoosed to comndict massiove amphibious assaults to flank NATO in the north). Preemptively using nuclear weapons always was part of the planning: due to the experiences of WWII, the Russian doctrine was to immediateoly annihilate the enemy in his own territory whenever there was a sign that conflict was imminent. Russian defence inevitably meant to attack first, and to strike for annihilation.

The GDR had reserved and set uo major forces to attack Berlin without warning. the goal was to split the city from West to East by quickly advancing on the west-east-leading alleys called Heerstrasse (from northern Gatow leading east through southern Spandau, crossing the Havel and hitting the Kaiserdamm bridge) and the Strasse des 17 Juni (leading east to west through the centre and also hitting the Kaiserdamm bridge). thatv would have mean that although there may have been an unified allied command, the american bridgade in the south and the french brigade in the north could not have united, and the Brits were isolated in the West first by the river Havel, and second by the North-south moving Stadtautobahn (if somehow they would jhave managed to bypass the Havel). thwre would not have been a unified allied fighting force (with the Allies having planned for such a unification and coordination).

the Eastgerman NVA forces reserved for the task of attacking Berlin, were highly trained in urban warfare and warfare behind enemy lines (!), specialised for the battlefield Westberlin with inimiate knowledge of the locations, and especially equipped. A massive offensive for sabotaging key installations and eliminating key personel in the West. Massive air raids against the Allied military command structure and headquarters would have destroyed these. they did not mention artillery in the film, but I again remind of the superiority the WP had in artillery pieces.

reconnaissance activities in Westberlin on the ground practically exclusively were conducted by the Eastgerman MfS - not the Russians.

A mission plan called "Operation Stoss" was not mentioned throughout the film.

the MfS had second keys for all official buildings and police stations in W-Berlin. 604 members of the StaSi specialised and were trained and maintained just for operations in Berlin once the city had been militarily secured, to make sure that it falls into line with Eastern administration standards within shortest possible time.

the last manouver by the NVA to simulate the attack on Berlin was conducted 11 months before the wall fell down, in autumn 1988. The replacement city was Magdeburg which was given three NATO brigades, a regierender Bürgermeister, and the Elbe serving as the river Havel. codename of the manouver was "Bordkante 88".

This is quite consistent with everything I heard of the WP planning for taking West Berlin so far. The only differences are that the number for WP troops I heard most often was 32,000, not 36,000, and that only the 1st Battalion of the 40th Air Assault Regiment would have participated in the attack (The rest of the Regiment, seeing as it was an elite force in the East German army, would probably have been kept as a theater reserve or something like that), assaulting Tegel Airport with two companies and Tempelhof with one. Could be newly discovered documents or a later revision of the plan that include these elements though.

The Polish army taking a frontline position in the attacks on the northern sections of the front is also consistent with what I've heard. IIRC the Polish army was either the second biggest WP army deployed on the Central Front or very close to it, which could be a major factor in that decision.

The documentary might not mention it as Operation Stoss, but practically every single mention I've heard of this operation named it as such.

Attackers frequently "missunderestimate" the will to resist and overestimate their own ability to overrun.

The capture of W-berlin was an explicit Eastgerman task, and the film gave me the impression that it was that exclusively: WP troops beyind the NVA were not intended,. nor wehre hey prepared for that and trained for that. The GDr was the player planning for it. The Russians/the WP in a whole, did not, not in this detailk, sand I assume their plannign was mostly for air support, and leaving the rest to the Eastgermans (whom they maybe did not trust to use them in the fronline assaults at fulda and northern Germany - after all, they were Germans). The GDR even continued to plan for attacking W-Berin after relations between NATO and the USSR were thawing up and Moscow did not want to push such aggressive polans and polkciesd anymore - the GDR nevertheless did not obey according demands from Russia. So, W-Berlin was an NVA task, not so much a WP or Russia-task (ignoring air support and artillery). and the NVA was better trained and motivated in general, and NVA forces for the attack on berlin were specialsijg for that task. when the Soviet high Command estimated that WP troops would need 24 hours to capture the city and break resistence, then one could and should assume that the better quality troops of the NVA specialising for that task for around 20 years probably would have needed less time for the same task. That'S why i still think after that film that estimating that the Allied would have held the city for half a day, not longer, still is reasonable a statement. Holding out up to several days, with undisputed air superiority and artillery superiority and numerical superiority on the ground in the range of 2:1 to 3:1, all in favour of the enemy and with disrupted supply lines and critical losses in installations and personnel alrerady in the first two hours? that is very optimistic an assessement, I think. even more so when considering how highly vulnerable and open the Allied installations and community buildings were.