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

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Platapus

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

In the forest of Bastogne, there were no 2 million civilians present. Nor had the Wehrmacht the intel like the NVA had on Berlin, or the superiority in air and ground firepower. Undisputed supply. decades of learning the enemy.

What I mean is: it does not compare, in no way. Not even the weather. Comparing any modern war to WWII does not make too much sense. It was tried with Iraq and Afghanistan, too. And again, such a comparison did not and does not work. but it is a trap military thinling time and again falls into: if it worked in the past war, then it necessarily works in the next war, too: the enemy does not learn, and the conditions do not change. the traditionalism of the military in this regard often tends to turn against it.

[August]

Originally Posted by Platapus

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

Yep.

Another thing about these plans is that they are just contingencies. There are probably a dozen other plans to capture West Berlin in the archives of an equal number of countries, (including i'll bet one in ours on how to re-capture it from the East Germans if that scenario came to pass).

[Skybird]

It seesm there only was this masterplan by the NVA and GDR to take control of the city, and it was constantly updated and forces were constantly trained and equipped for it. All intel they gathered, changed this plan. Another one is not known,and has not been indicated ever by former NVA officers.

Once lost, I think recapturing W-Berlib would have been a very low, if any, priority for NATO High Command. They would have had other, far more pressing problems with the Russians appearing at the Rhine, than to send a divison four hundred kilometers through enemy territory just to get pinned down in fighting over Berlin. As a german defence poltiicans said in the film: the idea to resist in berlin was only to buy some hours of time for negotiations.

i am not too optimistic over NATO's chances to have stopped a determined Soviet onslaught, for several reasons.

[Raptor1]

Originally Posted by Skybird

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.

From what I know, the Soviet 6th Guards Motorized Rifle Brigade, independently attached to the 20th Guards Army, was both stationed in East Berlin and supposed to participate in the offensive. If this is so, there must have at least been some Soviet involvement in the planning and execution. Besides this unit, most of the forces involved would indeed have been East German.

Perhaps East German forces were specially trained for the attack on Berlin, but, since NATO had dedicated garrison brigades for West Berlin, I'd assume that they would have specially trained to defend it as well.

I agree that the Berlin garrison could not reasonably expect to hold for several days, but anywhere from a day to a day and a half would be certainly possible; it takes a lot of time to wipe out well trained troops dug into an urban environment, even with a very large superiority in equipment and troops.

Also, as I said, when they ran the exercises that much of the information about this offensive is based on, they took the first day to cut off the garrison units and the second to eliminate them, suggesting that the planning for the operation itself anticipated such a condition.

[August]

I also wonder why the WP would want to take West Berlin when putting it under siege would be far less costly in terms of military assets.

A leveled west Berlin is nothing but a rallying point for the Western resistance. A hostage west Berlin becomes a political bargaining chip.

[Platapus]

Originally Posted by August

I also wonder why the WP would want to take West Berlin when putting it under siege would be far less costly in terms of military assets.

A leveled west Berlin is nothing but a rallying point for the Western resistance. A hostage west Berlin becomes a political bargaining chip.

Now that's strategic thinking.

[Oberon]

Would probably be the only place in East Germany that wouldn't receive a nuke either when they started flying...however, I suspect that it's a propaganda victory piece for the DDR. 'After years of division, Berlin has been rid of the imperialists and the comrades in the so called 'West Berlin' have been liberated!', etc, etc, etc.
Would make more sense to just surround it and leave it though, after all, it's not as if you'll free up many more forces by capturing it because you'll need to keep divisions there for suppression...unless they planned to give that job to Category B or C divisions and any A divisions used in the attack would be transferred to the front.

[TarJak]

It should not be forgotten that this would have been part of a much larger european campaign so the West Berlin take over would need to be done to neutralise the NATO assets and protect USSR/GDR supply lines from attack deep inside their own territory.

In terms of how long the major factors would be

1. Who started the shooting and how and where it started. If NATO for some reason decided that they wanted to liberate GDR, then I'd give the Berlin based NATO forces good odds for staying active until reached by forces pushing from the West. If it was the Warsaw Pact forces doing the invading then good odds they'd be overrun within a day or two of the invasion starting.
2. What happens with the main front of the campaign on the West/East German borders. If that front was going well for the Warsaw Pact forces, then I'd give the estimates by the GDR experts some credence, if however things were turning in favour of NATO, then the likelyhood of survival would increase with every mile of ground taken by NATO.

Either way the result would have been ugly for both sides.

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Raptor1

Also, as I said, when they ran the exercises that much of the information about this offensive is based on, they took the first day to cut off the garrison units and the second to eliminate them, suggesting that the planning for the operation itself anticipated such a condition.

The film was not basing on that excercise. It was mentioned only briefly at the very ending. What they were basing on are doicuments by Mielke and the NVA, stored in a German archive for such stuff.

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by August

I also wonder why the WP would want to take West Berlin when putting it under siege would be far less costly in terms of military assets.

A leveled west Berlin is nothing but a rallying point for the Western resistance. A hostage west Berlin becomes a political bargaining chip.

Ideologic reasons. There is no doubt that the west of Berlin was a thorn in their side, a piece of foreign territory inside theirs, which was seen as their terriotiry indeed by the GDR, just temporarily under foreign administration. Also, they wanted to get the thing with the airlift straight, which they considered to have been a humiliation - this had not to repeat,. under no costs.So, no siege, no rememerance of the airlift.

Also, there was the US ELINT base on the Berlin Teufelsberg. That at least needed to be wiped out.

The GDR was obsessed with taking westBerlin, and this obessession was maintained with German precison... even when Moscow wanted them to stop it, they still continued to prepare for it. Was it irrational? Maybe. The whole idea of WWIII was irrational.

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by TarJak

Who started the shooting and how and where it started. If NATO for some reason decided that they wanted to liberate GDR, then I'd give the Berlin based NATO forces good odds for staying active until reached by forces pushing from the West. If it was the Warsaw Pact forces doing the invading then good odds they'd be overrun within a day or two of the invasion starting..

What do you mean by "if NATO decided to liberate the GDR"? I think you overestimate NATO's chances in WWIII massively. with the thrust of major russian forces, numerically superior, and a doctrine planning with the use of tactcial nukes from day one on (they said in that film that this is documented in documents they were basing on), and NATO ammo supply also being thin (I read estimations saying that in a hot shooting war all their smart weapons would not have lasted for longer than 3-4 days at the beginning of the 80s, I also remember that in Gulf 91 they had to rely more and ore on the use of iron bombs because their smart ammo supply had started to run thin), I cannot see that there would have be any reserve, any serious opportunity to go onto the offensive and storm eastward to the Polish border. NATO, like the WP suffering high losses, would have fought a desparate fight to delay the Russians reaching the Rhine, and would have fought even more desperate to prevent them from crossing it or trying to keep them out of the North-Western plains (Holland, Belgium etc). I think this still would have been the most realistic scenario.

[Raptor1]

Originally Posted by Skybird

The film was not basing on that excercise. It was mentioned only briefly at the very ending. What they were basing on are doicuments by Mielke and the NVA, stored in a German archive for such stuff.

Most of what was known on this operation so far came from both information by former members of the East German army and based on the Bordkante series of exercises, specifically the one ran in 1986, which according to former East German officers most closely resembled the real operation. The actual operational plans were destroyed before German reunification, or so I heard.

The documentary might might well have been based on newely discovered documents or information that wasn't known until now.

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Raptor1

The documentary might might well have been based on newely discovered documents or information that wasn't known until now.

Indeed that is how I understood it, plus reports from NVA officers, and porvate notes by mieleke that should have been destroyed along with the warplans, but for some reasons were not destroyed - probably some secretary had just overseen them, or they had dissappeard in some collection of Mielke's private things.

[August]

Originally Posted by Skybird

The GDR was obsessed with taking westBerlin, and this obessession was maintained with German precison... even when Moscow wanted them to stop it, they still continued to prepare for it. Was it irrational? Maybe. The whole idea of WWIII was irrational.

What was the West Germans feelings about Berlin? Would they have allowed Berlin to fall to the Commies without a fight?

[Skybird]

Hard to say, I was a teen back then and as a teen your perception of what goes on around you can be somewhat strange

The real question would have been if the Westgerman Bundeswehr would have had the potential to send two or three of its eleven divisions 300 kilometers through the GDR, against combined NVA and Russian resistance, and knowing that this would inevitably mean WWIII and total destruction of all germany. I think the answer clearly is Nay. By training, doctrine and even design of many platforms and weapons, it was a defensive army anyway - you can even see that in the differences in designs for the Leo-2 and the M1, in the way the put different püriorities on what parts of the tanks need more protection. To go on the attack, after WWII simply has become unthinkable in Germany - even back then, even over Berlin (that'S why German thinking about it's engagement in Afghanistan was so seriously messed up and unrealistic from the very beginning on). Also, the Westgerman government was probably not free in making such a decision, depending on Londown, Paris and Washington to support that decision to laucnh WWIII.

I think none of these four governments would have been eager to trigger a whole world war for sure over Berlin, once it had fallen and the Berlin brigades had given up. The French would have needed to set a new defensive line at their own borders. The Brits would have beehn effetcoey kicked of the continent again. The US would have lost it's major foothold in europe. Germany was wanted as a buffer by everyone - and as the battleground to make sure any possible war would be fought not on British or French territory. Maybe time would have been a factor: the more devastating the takeover would have been and in the less time it had been completed, the more unlikely a Western military reaction on such a scale like an all out world war would have been. I cannot see that NATO ever has had any offensive potentials in continental europe against the WP - the soviet reaction always would have caused costs that would have outclassed any gains when attacking eastward first.

And in german thinking,m terms like "Commies" did not and do not play such a role like in American thinking. It still were less the commies and more the Soviets that were thought aboiut, in terms. And the hope for reunification never was given up, thinking of the Eastgermans as Germans that "we" needed to help. the left opposition was massively infiltrated and controlled by Moscow, we know today, also the peace movement did not do anything without Moscow having it's hands in it. This also helped to prevent a bit a thinlking that tried to see the WP as an allput black, a total evil. Thinking lefty was en vogue for many. the explicitly theatralic rethoric in the Reagan years and the debate around the SS-20s and Pershings and Cruise Missiles did their share to prevent a thinking that was allout and one-sided pro Germany or pro-US, and against the WP. the war for influ8encing public opinion, was waged quite successfully by Moscow, asn what made Reagan popular in the Us, made sure that in Germany he was not only mocked about, but was almost hated, especially by the younger ones. I think for Americans that is not easy to understand.