James G
Squadron vice admiral
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Post by James G on Oct 6, 2021 18:11:45 GMT
Thirty-four – Night #3
For the third night in a row, Coalition aircraft and cruise missiles pounded East Germany. The undertakings made in Geneva where the DDR sought to end the conflict weren’t widely known about yet that didn’t matter. Political leaders had committed themselves to action and those in uniform did their duty. The Potsdam area was the focus of a significant concentration of air power. The previous night had seen a stealth F-117 hit by a SAM – thankfully, it ‘only’ crashed in West Germany rather than inside East Germany – and the unexpected ambush made by LSK MiG-29s. A mass of anti-SAM firepower was unleashed against any hint of air defences and there were also two squadrons of F-15C Eagles flying about close by looking to make an air-to-air kill. The Army HQ at Geltow was finally demolished from above with F-111s lob-tossing guided bombs at it. Inside the city on the edges of West Berlin, there were East German civilians present so more care was taken when the Americans, the British, the Belgians & the Dutch too got busy smashing apart the garrison for one of the regular divisions of the East German Army. That unit was mainly out in the field, yet laser-guided bombs ripped through its home-base where nearly every structure there was flattened. Both the Belgians and the Dutch with their F-16s went outside of Potsdam direct to strike at suspected rural hiding places of sub-units of the 1st Motorised Infantry Division too where they bombed troop concentrations and armoured vehicles. No fighters showed up to try and stop what the Coalition was doing. Instead, it was just land-based air defences in action. HARM-shooters were confronted with multiple targets for those missiles and accompanying other munitions too. SAMs and targeted shells came up though, striking several aircraft and downing some: a lot of ordnance already fired at those weapons had hit decoys. A Dutch pilot realised his jet wouldn’t make it back to friendly skies and ejected when over West Berlin – ensuring his fighter was pointed the other way first – rather than possibly end up as a prisoner outside of the city. Met on the ground in Berlin by American paratroopers, he asked for one of their M-16s and volunteered himself as a rifleman.
Away to the south, another big air attack was made against the abandoned Juterbog Airbase. The Americans had a carbon-copy of the facility at a Nellis AFB off-site out in Nevada which they had spent many years practising attacking due to it once being a prime Soviet airbase inside East Germany. They called it the ‘Korean Airfield’ for the sake of politics but it was Juterbog. There were no Russians at Juterbog, just the suspected hidden operating base of the best East German fighters who’d long before Operation Allied Sword had started had departed from Preschen AB over near the Polish border. There was a free-fire zone established all around the runway and the direct base facilities. None of them showed any sign of life but into the woodland and across open fields bombs fell. The LSK was believed to be operating under cover there. The Americans rained down high-explosives aplenty. The same happened away to the north too, further from where the divided Berlin was. Wittstock AB was yet another former Soviet base that looked to be wholly abandoned yet the Coalition was certain that there were MiGs hidden below extensive and clever camouflage. Canadian and Danish aircraft joined the Americans in striking up there at Wittstock where they blew apart a wide area of the countryside. Napalm was employed too with the aim that, even if protected in improvised revetments under cover from blast damage, hidden aircraft would be burnt out.
Around Erfurt, Halle and Schwerin, Coalition aircraft followed cruise missile attacks made first where they moved to bomb targets outside of those urban areas. Further East German Army combat divisions had their headquarters in those places yet had dispersed their units out of them into the countryside. Locations identified through various intelligence means directed where the Tomahawks landed and where the bombs from above fell. A lot of ordnance slammed into rural areas where there were very limited concentrations of civilians known to be presence. HARM-shooters and fighters accompanied those aircraft sent on those attack missions as East German skies were filled with Coalition aircraft. There were other strikes against identified LSK dispersal strips including several more former Soviets bases. When the USSR had had the DDR as a client state, East Germany had been filled with their military facilities which they had then departed from in the previous years. More than a dozen former prime targets in a hypothetical NATO-Warsaw Pact conflict finally received the punishment long envisioned for them at the hands of Western air power. Runways and taxiways were bombed and so too many of the HASs in which the Coalition anticipated that the East Germans had hit aircraft thinking that they would be safe. As sturdy as NATO ones, the HASs hit weren’t easy kills. Smart bombs had to be forced into them at high speed with a lot of penetration needed to break the protection offered. LSK airbases had already received the same treatment. Fantastic aerial footage from cameras mounted upon strike aircraft recorded the destruction of many targets, to be shared later on by Coalition governments. The British would do what the Americans had already been doing and, the following day, release to the media images of RAF Jaguars & Tornados blowing apart airbases such as Damgarten and Finow.
The MiG-29s showed up only in the early hours, long after their country had suffered many hours of devastating air strikes. Multiple pairs of them were detected by distant AWACS aircraft as overflying parts of Saxony. Jamming was overcome to pick them up and while there were efforts made to send fighters towards them, analysts too sought to work backwards through the information available to see where they had come from. The US Air Force’s 27th Fighter Squadron with its F-15s flying from Ramstein AB went after them. The Eagles had been in the Frankfurt area but their pilots lit their afterburners and shot eastwards. Medium-range Sparrow missiles were fired first before the F-15s sought to close in with Sidewinders. They had a lot of trouble doing that though. The MiG-29s refused to be easy kills. They used their IR systems exclusively – keeping their radars off – and there was also electronic jamming aiding them from mobile ground stations. One of the pairs went down easy but the others scattered and raced above the ground at dangerously low-level as they waited for the Americans to arrive. Once that happened, the LSK sought a dog-fight. They’d gotten the Belgians like that, also a US Navy F-14, with the first time that was tried and the aim was to do it again. Yet, just as they were trying to write their own script, so were the Americans who refused to be drawn into that. With each side seeking a fight on its own terms, one didn’t happen. The MiG-29s were soon at bingo fuel and evaded from further action by dropping low and seeking safety on the ground at hidden dispersal sites. With two kills of aircraft which the East Germans couldn’t afford to lose, the 27th Fighter Squadron was still full of disappointed fighter pilots though. Everything had been set up almost perfectly for a fight which they had intended to win but that didn’t play out. Distant Coalition analysts were the only ones happy: they felt confident that they identified where those MiGs had gone too. Urgent strike plans to hit such places, to catch those aircraft on the ground instead of blasting them out of the sky, were set into motion.
Night #3 with the delayed Potsdam strike yet the planned ones against major East German Army concentrations was something intended to be the end of the main act with regard to the air campaign. The Coalition wasn’t giving up in what it was doing in attempting to force the DDR to accede to its demands, yet had run though its pre-conflict target list. What they had hit, in many cases several times, were all that had been looked at ahead of time. There had been additions to that, with more to come (those Saxony dispersal airstrips) too, but the large-scale attacks were planned to be something ceased. Ever airbases and airfield within East Germany had been bombed. The nuclear sites had been flattened. The East German Army struck hard. A heck of a lot of mobile ballistic missile launchers were believed to have been eliminated. For the DDR to try and continue its wars against its neighbours, they were going to have much difficulty in doing that.
No announcement was due to come afterwards though to that effect. There had never been a declaration of the specifics of Coalition air action less the East Germans attempt to ride that out. When the third night was over, there would still be ongoing operations yet just not as heavy. Attention was due to be shifted across to the Czech Republic more than it already had been directed. American and French air activity had been present in Czech skies with planned increases to that. It was going to be more of a tactical focus down there too. Elsewhere, Coalition air power was set to be directed against targets of opportunity with regard to smashing apart missile batteries – for SAMs and Scuds alike – and hitting more of that remaining hidden air force. Getting downed aircrew out was another matter to be addressed. There had been some lifted out of East Germany ahead of Night #3 finishing, with others in enemy custody, yet there were others on the ground across the DDR and the Czech Republic. A previous French rescue effort down in Bohemia had turned out to be disastrous when they sought to get one of their airmen out though the Americans had had some successes, especially in the areas near the Inner-German Border. When Potsdam was being targeted like it was, an ongoing CSAR mission that night took place further west near to Osterberg. American helicopters were in action (the situation was considered to dangerous for fixed wing aircraft such as the AC-130 gunships or MC-130 rescue coordination aircraft) where they located a two-man crew from an F-15E. On-hand air cover for the mission came from F-16s flown by Vermont Air National Guard pilots with the 134th Fighter Squadron. Flying down low and using night vision equipment as well as IR sensors, they picked up a Scud battery. Mavericks and rocket pods were unleashed to hit two launch vehicles and half a dozen more trucks supporting the missiles. It was a great success for those part-time airmen who before they’d been sent to fly from Belgium for Operation Allied Sword ops had been mobilised to go to Kuwait instead.
Three nights of bombing had cost the Coalition. Including a few aircraft lost on the ground to East German ballistic missile attacks, plus accidents, there were eighty-one aircraft destroyed. Almost sixty had been hit by SAMs to see their destruction including a few struck when in West German skies too. Surface-to-air missile systems in East German hands had been bombed, hit with missiles and subject to extensive electronic warfare efforts yet they were fired throughout the opening stage of the air campaign. The use of MiG-29s might have had the sex-appeal in East German air defences, but it was their SAMs which had done all of the hard work. Those weapons had hit tactical and strike aircraft, fighters, distant electronic support aircraft and also a couple of stealth aircraft too. Coalition predictions on how many missiles for the launchers that the DDR had available had been way too low. For every struck aircraft, the East Germans had fired an average of nine SAMs. They’d used decoys all over the place to simulate SAM systems ready for the Coalition to attack them and then used real weapons to ambush attackers. Other tactics employed included placing them in populated areas where the Coalition was extremely hesitant to attack. The DDR had been struck really damn hard but its air defences after three nights of that were still judged as uncomfortably still capable.
Once daylight arrived, the conflict between the Coalition and the DR didn’t end though it did move to a sort-of pause stage.
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lordroel
Administrator
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Post by lordroel on Oct 6, 2021 18:14:57 GMT
I have nothing but contempt for that person. He's trash, a nasty little bully. I left ah.com because of him. SLP welcomes bullies like that too. I'd rather not see anything by him here, please. My apologies James G if i offended you with this post. Will not mention anything of him on any thread you created. |
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James G
Squadron vice admiral
Posts: 7,608
Likes: 8,833
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Post by James G on Oct 7, 2021 18:16:57 GMT
Thirty-five – Mass trespass
The East Germans kept their word. There was no ballistic missile strike launched against Coalition military bases in West Germany on the morning of July 5th. That included even localised border strikes too with very short-range similar weapons, something that had caused a high casualty rate the day before. The DDR had been heavily bombed overnight and the expectation had been that no matter what had been said in Geneva, there would come a missile strike. However, that wasn’t the case. The responses which came from senior Coalition figures were first to say that the East Germans might be biding their time and intending to strike later in the day when alert levels might be lower. As the hours wore onwards, that narrative changed though. Instead, it became a case of comments made that Coalition air power had so thoroughly smashed much of their missile force that what little remained was being held back for a later date. Whatever the truth of the matter, Scuds, Spiders, Scarabs and even FROGs didn’t lance westwards – nor even up into Denmark or over West Germany into the Low Countries again – just as had been promised during those latest talks in Switzerland. A couple of false alarms did take place and Patriot missile batteries stood ready regardless. Tension and fear remained over the whole matter of that fearsome military capability that most people believed that the DDR retained despite those remarks from the Coalition about the apparent effectiveness of all of that bombing.
During the previous night, news had leaked that the East Germans had made that offer to the Coalition, and were saying too that they were ready to meet Coalition demands. With that came the revelation that such an offer had been wholescale rejected out of hand. West German media broadcast the details of what had been said in Geneva, with a lot of specifics, and that was rapidly picked up elsewhere. As to those accurate details, there was wide suspicion among Coalition governments that ZDF had been supplied everything directly by senior government figures from Bonn. It was a deliberate move, such was the thinking, from the government of Chancellor Schäuble for several reasons. One looked likely to show to his people that he was completely against the war and to calm the public. The second was thought to be a move to apply pressure upon them. Well… if Schäuble sought to bring calm to an already angered West Germany, he failed in that. The revelations were explosive as far as so many were concerned. The DDR was a rotten regime but they were doing what had been demanded of them, what so many fellow Germans had lost their lives for. And the reply which had come to that was for the Americans, the British and the French to carry on regardless! With no follow-up ballistic missile attack on top of all of that, that brought forth once more trouble across the country. There had been significant unrest ahead of Operation Allied Sword starting and that once more erupted after those reports came out of Geneva.
Organised protests took place in West German cities where anti-war marches took place from Hamburg to Munich, from Cologne to Frankfurt. People came out into the streets to demand that the Coalition cease its aerial barrage upon East Germany. There were calls too for Schäuble to do something to stop that yet that time around, those were less pronounced than before due to the belief that their government was doing a lot on that note. Violence rocked the Cologne and Hamburg protests where mass vandalism, looting and isolated cases of arson occurred. Troublemakers attached themselves to the marches and had themselves a good time while protected from the authorities by the mass of people around them. Those marches had taken place before and hadn’t had much effect in the eyes of the leaders of the anti-war movement which had sprung up across the country. The leaders of that were a widespread grouping from various backgrounds – political figures, noted activists and lesser-known organisers – who had no complete control over the movement which they led. There was a lot they didn’t agree on, especially among an alarming number of younger activists who had more of an anti-American position rather than an anti-war one. However, what was understood was that the most effective method of pressure which they could apply, which had had some success ahead of the conflict starting, was to target Coalition military facilities within West Germany. The big airbases operated by the Americans and the British on their country’s soil had been targets of attempted blockages to access as well as mass trespass in the days leading up to them being used to bomb East Germany. Ballistic missile attacks targeted upon them had caused a lot of worry for those who were seeking to attempt further goes at that: being in the way of a Scud wasn’t appealing for anyone at all. With no missiles incoming though, protests leaders managed to convince a number of their followers to make another go of that.
West Germany was legally required, as per many agreements signed with its allies stretching back through the decades, to ensure the security of foreign bases within the country. The enforcement of maintaining law and order had been tested before yet faced its greatest challenge on July 5th. RAF Bruggen up in the north as well as Ramstein AB, Sembach AB & Spangdahlem AB to the south each had thousands of determined protesters converge upon them with the intention of breaking in and taking over them via physical protests so that they wouldn’t be used as staging posts for further air strikes. Moreover, there was also Geilenkirchen AB too, close to Bruggen. East German propaganda broadcasts – West Germans didn’t often watch DDR news but it was available and many activists were following coverage – had claimed that NATO-crewed AWACS aircraft were flying from there in support of the Coalition’s air campaign. Euronews, based in France and testing the patience greatly of President Fabius, had confirmed that. Operation Allied Sword wasn’t a NATO task but those E-3 Sentry jets were flying. They did so to protect West Germany yet that little detail was lost in the outrage. Police forces the two states of North Rhine-Westphalia and Rhineland-Palatinate couldn’t contain what happened due to the speed of events. Each of the targeted facilities apart from Sembach had protesters enter the perimeters of them. Fences were torn open and in came people. American and British security units, fully-armed due to a potential East German commando threat, responded as best as they could. Warning shots were fired skywards. Armed vehicles rushed forwards with machine guns pointed at crowds. Physical force was used to eject protesters and with that came violent exchanges with fists thrown, objects chucked and spitting too. Bruggen was the easiest to be cleared of protesters with those at Ramstein taking the longest to get out. Clean-ups were needed afterwards and repairs to the fencing too. Geilenkirchen was different though. The West Germans were in-charge of security there. They were surprised and overwhelmed fast. Those who broke in didn’t have the fear that the Luftwaffe ground personnel there would start shooting them so they wouldn’t move. Protesters sat down, started holding hands and sang songs. They weren’t going anywhere. Many of the aircraft which flew from there were on temporary duty elsewhere yet eight AWACS aircraft were stuck at Geilenkirchen afterwards by protesters who blocked the runways & taxiways with the West Germans seemingly incapable of removing them with that successful mass trespass working.
Road access to Ramstein and Sembach was entirely blocked too. If need be, everything required could be flown in by air but it was easier to truck in supplies. The protesters wouldn’t move when American military police units tried to get them to. West German police officers were present as well and, to the fury of the Americans, wouldn’t help them in clearing the roads. Hand-held flares were lit and there was the unleashing of a few fireworks outside of Ramstein too. Such a thing, if continued, would be a hindrance to flight operations. The mass protests out in the open also provided cover for further break-in attempts around the long expanses of perimeter fencing. Ramstein was entered later in the day and the job of getting people back out again was harder: they’d lost their fear of the armed Americans and had to be dragged out rather than coerced into leaving. A request up the chain of command from the base commander there, plus his other US Air Force counterparts, was made to the US Army Europe HQ for troops to be dispatched to aid with security: there just weren’t enough personnel on-hand within the bases to ensure that they wouldn’t be invaded again during the night. Additions to those messages stated that there was less and less cooperation from the West German police force too. If help wasn’t send, shots might be needed otherwise…
...which everyone knew would make things far worse.
CNN had a camera crew outside of Ramstein. They broadcast images live from there back to America with those appearing on screen across the United States not long before a scheduled Pentagon briefing. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, due to front that where images of bombings and figures to be released on targets destroyed were to be shared, requested permission from the Secretary of Defence to delay that. That wasn’t granted. Later on, President Cuomo would realise that was a mistake yet his hindsight was irrelevant on that matter. The Chairman was confronted for comment on those protests with pointed questions asked as to what would happen if Ramstein and other bases were overrun like Geilenkirchen had so thoroughly been by unarmed civilians who wouldn’t leave. Would such people be shot if they wouldn’t leave? He gave a fudge in response to the question, seeking to give a non-answer. To say either yes or no would have consequences which he was aware of. That all came in light of recent anger among many American politicians, members of the media and sections of the public at large concerning West Germany. To the Americans, West Germany was meant to be their ally who they protected from attack. East Germany had struck at that country, killing civilians with missile strikes towards urban areas, and West Germans were blaming the United States for that. Denouncements of Bonn and the people of West Germany had come aplenty. Back at the press conference, it turned into the disaster which Cuomo would regard it as due to a question from an NBC reporter. He asked of the Chairman whether it was true that the East Germans had downed not one but two stealth F-117s and, as a follow-up, if it was the case that those aircraft were no longer flying combat missions in DDR skies less more of them be shot down? There was a pointed refusal to answer that: it was a military secret. That didn’t shut down the issue. When called upon to ask what should have been a different question, a usually supportive journalist from ABC instead repeated that same question from his colleague. Those reporters at the Pentagon wouldn’t let the matter go. They didn’t want to hear anything else about the air campaign, weren’t prepared to stick to the script, unless they got an adequate response to the matter of the F-117s.
Were the East Germans capable of such feats as bringing a pair of them down? How could that be the case when time and time again, the Chairman, the SecDef & other Cuomo Administration officials had boastfully asserted that the DDR military was being bombed flat and its air defences smashed to ruin?
There were Western media teams in Erfurt that same day. Accompanied by uniformed Volksarmee ‘public affairs officers’ (Stasi personnel in reality), they were taken to that bombed apartment building in that small East German city in the early hours of July 4th. The damage done by those American bombs which had hit it was clear to see. Those were people’s homes and in them they had died. The details of why it had been hit, how that had been an accident, weren’t something talked about. Instead, the focus was on the visible destruction there. When the Coalition talked about bombing East Germany flat, this was what the DDR had to show of that. Reporters were taken to the civilian hospital too where they met with the wounded. All the stops were pulled out with the propaganda effort there: only the ‘perfect’ victims were chosen to be recorded for the video cameras of the foreigners. Women and young children were shown. One little girl, aged seven and rather pretty, was presented to the cameras with visible facial wounds and also two missing legs. Her mother spoke of the little girl’s brother when she held up a photograph of him and said he was only five. He wasn’t there in the hospital with his sister because he was to be buried the next day after the Americans had ‘murdered’ him with their bombs.
Schäuble had been given that firm no by Cuomo the second time around. The Coalition wouldn’t cease what it was doing with regard to attacking East Germany. Rather than do as he had the first time, the West German leader instead sought to continue trying to get the Americans – it was they who were leading the Coalition despite it officially being a partnership of equals – to give it all up via diplomacy. He went around Cuomo in that, avoiding targeting for persuasion Heseltine and Fabius too. The foreign minister was instructed to help him in contacting as many national governments as possible across Europe who were uninvolved in the conflict. The Austrians, the Finns, the Irish, the Swedes, the Swiss… they were all approached with the call made upon them to help end Operation Allied Sword. It was the same with other NATO countries which had likewise declined to take part in attacks against the DDR: the Greeks, the Portuguese, the Spanish, the Turks and even the Icelandic government. Calls were made to capitals across the continent with Schäuble going as far as talking to Eastern European nations such as Hungary, Romania and the Baltic States. Everyone he and his foreign minister spoke with agreed that war wasn’t what was wanted for Europe. But what could they do? None were prepared to really commit themselves to really taking a stand, to using the full force of diplomacy against the Coalition. They had no real influence. Not including the Czechs, the Poles & the Slovaks who were all (one way or another) already involved, there was another country that still had influence, whom the Americans might listen to with regards to Schäuble’s push to see jaw-jaw replace war-war.
He put in a call to Moscow and President Chernomyrdin there.
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lordroel
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Post by lordroel on Oct 7, 2021 18:29:08 GMT
Thirty-five – Mass trespassThe East Germans kept their word. There was no ballistic missile strike launched against Coalition military bases in West Germany on the morning of July 5th. That included even localised border strikes too with very short-range similar weapons, something that had caused a high casualty rate the day before. The DDR had been heavily bombed overnight and the expectation had been that no matter what had been said in Geneva, there would come a missile strike. However, that wasn’t the case. The responses which came from senior Coalition figures were first to say that the East Germans might be biding their time and intending to strike later in the day when alert levels might be lower. As the hours wore onwards, that narrative changed though. Instead, it became a case of comments made that Coalition air power had so thoroughly smashed much of their missile force that what little remained was being held back for a later date. Whatever the truth of the matter, Scuds, Spiders, Scarabs and even FROGs didn’t lance westwards – nor even up into Denmark or over West Germany into the Low Countries again – just as had been promised during those latest talks in Switzerland. A couple of false alarms did take place and Patriot missile batteries stood ready regardless. Tension and fear remained over the whole matter of that fearsome military capability that most people believed that the DDR retained despite those remarks from the Coalition about the apparent effectiveness of all of that bombing. During the previous night, news had leaked that the East Germans had made that offer to the Coalition, and were saying too that they were ready to meet Coalition demands. With that came the revelation that such an offer had been wholescale rejected out of hand. West German media broadcast the details of what had been said in Geneva, with a lot of specifics, and that was rapidly picked up elsewhere. As to those accurate details, there was wide suspicion among Coalition governments that ZDF had been supplied everything directly by senior government figures from Bonn. It was a deliberate move, such was the thinking, from the government of Chancellor Schäuble for several reasons. One looked likely to show to his people that he was completely against the war and to calm the public. The second was thought to be a move to apply pressure upon them. Well… if Schäuble sought to bring calm to an already angered West Germany, he failed in that. The revelations were explosive as far as so many were concerned. The DDR was a rotten regime but they were doing what had been demanded of them, what so many fellow Germans had lost their lives for. And the reply which had come to that was for the Americans, the British and the French to carry on regardless! With no follow-up ballistic missile attack on top of all of that, that brought forth once more trouble across the country. There had been significant unrest ahead of Operation Allied Sword starting and that once more erupted after those reports came out of Geneva. Organised protests took place in West German cities where anti-war marches took place from Hamburg to Munich, from Cologne to Frankfurt. People came out into the streets to demand that the Coalition cease its aerial barrage upon East Germany. There were calls too for Schäuble to do something to stop that yet that time around, those were less pronounced than before due to the belief that their government was doing a lot on that note. Violence rocked the Cologne and Hamburg protests where mass vandalism, looting and isolated cases of arson occurred. Troublemakers attached themselves to the marches and had themselves a good time while protected from the authorities by the mass of people around them. Those marches had taken place before and hadn’t had much effect in the eyes of the leaders of the anti-war movement which had sprung up across the country. The leaders of that were a widespread grouping from various backgrounds – political figures, noted activists and lesser-known organisers – who had no complete control over the movement which they led. There was a lot they didn’t agree on, especially among an alarming number of younger activists who had more of an anti-American position rather than an anti-war one. However, what was understood was that the most effective method of pressure which they could apply, which had had some success ahead of the conflict starting, was to target Coalition military facilities within West Germany. The big airbases operated by the Americans and the British on their country’s soil had been targets of attempted blockages to access as well as mass trespass in the days leading up to them being used to bomb East Germany. Ballistic missile attacks targeted upon them had caused a lot of worry for those who were seeking to attempt further goes at that: being in the way of a Scud wasn’t appealing for anyone at all. With no missiles incoming though, protests leaders managed to convince a number of their followers to make another go of that. West Germany was legally required, as per many agreements signed with its allies stretching back through the decades, to ensure the security of foreign bases within the country. The enforcement of maintaining law and order had been tested before yet faced its greatest challenge on July 5th. RAF Bruggen up in the north as well as Ramstein AB, Sembach AB & Spangdahlem AB to the south each had thousands of determined protesters converge upon them with the intention of breaking in and taking over them via physical protests so that they wouldn’t be used as staging posts for further air strikes. Moreover, there was also Geilenkirchen AB too, close to Bruggen. East German propaganda broadcasts – West Germans didn’t often watch DDR news but it was available and many activists were following coverage – had claimed that NATO-crewed AWACS aircraft were flying from there in support of the Coalition’s air campaign. Euronews, based in France and testing the patience greatly of President Fabius, had confirmed that. Operation Allied Sword wasn’t a NATO task but those E-3 Sentry jets were flying. They did so to protect West Germany yet that little detail was lost in the outrage. Police forces the two states of North Rhine-Westphalia and Rhineland-Palatinate couldn’t contain what happened due to the speed of events. Each of the targeted facilities apart from Sembach had protesters enter the perimeters of them. Fences were torn open and in came people. American and British security units, fully-armed due to a potential East German commando threat, responded as best as they could. Warning shots were fired skywards. Armed vehicles rushed forwards with machine guns pointed at crowds. Physical force was used to eject protesters and with that came violent exchanges with fists thrown, objects chucked and spitting too. Bruggen was the easiest to be cleared of protesters with those at Ramstein taking the longest to get out. Clean-ups were needed afterwards and repairs to the fencing too. Geilenkirchen was different though. The West Germans were in-charge of security there. They were surprised and overwhelmed fast. Those who broke in didn’t have the fear that the Luftwaffe ground personnel there would start shooting them so they wouldn’t move. Protesters sat down, started holding hands and sang songs. They weren’t going anywhere. Many of the aircraft which flew from there were on temporary duty elsewhere yet eight AWACS aircraft were stuck at Geilenkirchen afterwards by protesters who blocked the runways & taxiways with the West Germans seemingly incapable of removing them with that successful mass trespass working. Road access to Ramstein and Sembach was entirely blocked too. If need be, everything required could be flown in by air but it was easier to truck in supplies. The protesters wouldn’t move when American military police units tried to get them to. West German police officers were present as well and, to the fury of the Americans, wouldn’t help them in clearing the roads. Hand-held flares were lit and there was the unleashing of a few fireworks outside of Ramstein too. Such a thing, if continued, would be a hindrance to flight operations. The mass protests out in the open also provided cover for further break-in attempts around the long expanses of perimeter fencing. Ramstein was entered later in the day and the job of getting people back out again was harder: they’d lost their fear of the armed Americans and had to be dragged out rather than coerced into leaving. A request up the chain of command from the base commander there, plus his other US Air Force counterparts, was made to the US Army Europe HQ for troops to be dispatched to aid with security: there just weren’t enough personnel on-hand within the bases to ensure that they wouldn’t be invaded again during the night. Additions to those messages stated that there was less and less cooperation from the West German police force too. If help wasn’t send, shots might be needed otherwise… ...which everyone knew would make things far worse. CNN had a camera crew outside of Ramstein. They broadcast images live from there back to America with those appearing on screen across the United States not long before a scheduled Pentagon briefing. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, due to front that where images of bombings and figures to be released on targets destroyed were to be shared, requested permission from the Secretary of Defence to delay that. That wasn’t granted. Later on, President Cuomo would realise that was a mistake yet his hindsight was irrelevant on that matter. The Chairman was confronted for comment on those protests with pointed questions asked as to what would happen if Ramstein and other bases were overrun like Geilenkirchen had so thoroughly been by unarmed civilians who wouldn’t leave. Would such people be shot if they wouldn’t leave? He gave a fudge in response to the question, seeking to give a non-answer. To say either yes or no would have consequences which he was aware of. That all came in light of recent anger among many American politicians, members of the media and sections of the public at large concerning West Germany. To the Americans, West Germany was meant to be their ally who they protected from attack. East Germany had struck at that country, killing civilians with missile strikes towards urban areas, and West Germans were blaming the United States for that. Denouncements of Bonn and the people of West Germany had come aplenty. Back at the press conference, it turned into the disaster which Cuomo would regard it as due to a question from an NBC reporter. He asked of the Chairman whether it was true that the East Germans had downed not one but two stealth F-117s and, as a follow-up, if it was the case that those aircraft were no longer flying combat missions in DDR skies less more of them be shot down? There was a pointed refusal to answer that: it was a military secret. That didn’t shut down the issue. When called upon to ask what should have been a different question, a usually supportive journalist from ABC instead repeated that same question from his colleague. Those reporters at the Pentagon wouldn’t let the matter go. They didn’t want to hear anything else about the air campaign, weren’t prepared to stick to the script, unless they got an adequate response to the matter of the F-117s. Were the East Germans capable of such feats as bringing a pair of them down? How could that be the case when time and time again, the Chairman, the SecDef & other Cuomo Administration officials had boastfully asserted that the DDR military was being bombed flat and its air defences smashed to ruin? There were Western media teams in Erfurt that same day. Accompanied by uniformed Volksarmee ‘public affairs officers’ ( Stasi personnel in reality), they were taken to that bombed apartment building in that small East German city in the early hours of July 4th. The damage done by those American bombs which had hit it was clear to see. Those were people’s homes and in them they had died. The details of why it had been hit, how that had been an accident, weren’t something talked about. Instead, the focus was on the visible destruction there. When the Coalition talked about bombing East Germany flat, this was what the DDR had to show of that. Reporters were taken to the civilian hospital too where they met with the wounded. All the stops were pulled out with the propaganda effort there: only the ‘perfect’ victims were chosen to be recorded for the video cameras of the foreigners. Women and young children were shown. One little girl, aged seven and rather pretty, was presented to the cameras with visible facial wounds and also two missing legs. Her mother spoke of the little girl’s brother when she held up a photograph of him and said he was only five. He wasn’t there in the hospital with his sister because he was to be buried the next day after the Americans had ‘murdered’ him with their bombs. Schäuble had been given that firm no by Cuomo the second time around. The Coalition wouldn’t cease what it was doing with regard to attacking East Germany. Rather than do as he had the first time, the West German leader instead sought to continue trying to get the Americans – it was they who were leading the Coalition despite it officially being a partnership of equals – to give it all up via diplomacy. He went around Cuomo in that, avoiding targeting for persuasion Heseltine and Fabius too. The foreign minister was instructed to help him in contacting as many national governments as possible across Europe who were uninvolved in the conflict. The Austrians, the Finns, the Irish, the Swedes, the Swiss… they were all approached with the call made upon them to help end Operation Allied Sword. It was the same with other NATO countries which had likewise declined to take part in attacks against the DDR: the Greeks, the Portuguese, the Spanish, the Turks and even the Icelandic government. Calls were made to capitals across the continent with Schäuble going as far as talking to Eastern European nations such as Hungary, Romania and the Baltic States. Everyone he and his foreign minister spoke with agreed that war wasn’t what was wanted for Europe. But what could they do? None were prepared to really commit themselves to really taking a stand, to using the full force of diplomacy against the Coalition. They had no real influence. Not including the Czechs, the Poles & the Slovaks who were all (one way or another) already involved, there was another country that still had influence, whom the Americans might listen to with regards to Schäuble’s push to see jaw-jaw replace war-war. He put in a call to Moscow and President Chernomyrdin there. East Germany is playing the victim in this war despite being the one that started it by doing its thing in the Czech Republic. |
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James G
Squadron vice admiral
Posts: 7,608
Likes: 8,833
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Post by James G on Oct 7, 2021 18:36:15 GMT
Thirty-five – Mass trespassThe East Germans kept their word. There was no ballistic missile strike launched against Coalition military bases in West Germany on the morning of July 5th. That included even localised border strikes too with very short-range similar weapons, something that had caused a high casualty rate the day before. The DDR had been heavily bombed overnight and the expectation had been that no matter what had been said in Geneva, there would come a missile strike. However, that wasn’t the case. The responses which came from senior Coalition figures were first to say that the East Germans might be biding their time and intending to strike later in the day when alert levels might be lower. As the hours wore onwards, that narrative changed though. Instead, it became a case of comments made that Coalition air power had so thoroughly smashed much of their missile force that what little remained was being held back for a later date. Whatever the truth of the matter, Scuds, Spiders, Scarabs and even FROGs didn’t lance westwards – nor even up into Denmark or over West Germany into the Low Countries again – just as had been promised during those latest talks in Switzerland. A couple of false alarms did take place and Patriot missile batteries stood ready regardless. Tension and fear remained over the whole matter of that fearsome military capability that most people believed that the DDR retained despite those remarks from the Coalition about the apparent effectiveness of all of that bombing. During the previous night, news had leaked that the East Germans had made that offer to the Coalition, and were saying too that they were ready to meet Coalition demands. With that came the revelation that such an offer had been wholescale rejected out of hand. West German media broadcast the details of what had been said in Geneva, with a lot of specifics, and that was rapidly picked up elsewhere. As to those accurate details, there was wide suspicion among Coalition governments that ZDF had been supplied everything directly by senior government figures from Bonn. It was a deliberate move, such was the thinking, from the government of Chancellor Schäuble for several reasons. One looked likely to show to his people that he was completely against the war and to calm the public. The second was thought to be a move to apply pressure upon them. Well… if Schäuble sought to bring calm to an already angered West Germany, he failed in that. The revelations were explosive as far as so many were concerned. The DDR was a rotten regime but they were doing what had been demanded of them, what so many fellow Germans had lost their lives for. And the reply which had come to that was for the Americans, the British and the French to carry on regardless! With no follow-up ballistic missile attack on top of all of that, that brought forth once more trouble across the country. There had been significant unrest ahead of Operation Allied Sword starting and that once more erupted after those reports came out of Geneva. Organised protests took place in West German cities where anti-war marches took place from Hamburg to Munich, from Cologne to Frankfurt. People came out into the streets to demand that the Coalition cease its aerial barrage upon East Germany. There were calls too for Schäuble to do something to stop that yet that time around, those were less pronounced than before due to the belief that their government was doing a lot on that note. Violence rocked the Cologne and Hamburg protests where mass vandalism, looting and isolated cases of arson occurred. Troublemakers attached themselves to the marches and had themselves a good time while protected from the authorities by the mass of people around them. Those marches had taken place before and hadn’t had much effect in the eyes of the leaders of the anti-war movement which had sprung up across the country. The leaders of that were a widespread grouping from various backgrounds – political figures, noted activists and lesser-known organisers – who had no complete control over the movement which they led. There was a lot they didn’t agree on, especially among an alarming number of younger activists who had more of an anti-American position rather than an anti-war one. However, what was understood was that the most effective method of pressure which they could apply, which had had some success ahead of the conflict starting, was to target Coalition military facilities within West Germany. The big airbases operated by the Americans and the British on their country’s soil had been targets of attempted blockages to access as well as mass trespass in the days leading up to them being used to bomb East Germany. Ballistic missile attacks targeted upon them had caused a lot of worry for those who were seeking to attempt further goes at that: being in the way of a Scud wasn’t appealing for anyone at all. With no missiles incoming though, protests leaders managed to convince a number of their followers to make another go of that. West Germany was legally required, as per many agreements signed with its allies stretching back through the decades, to ensure the security of foreign bases within the country. The enforcement of maintaining law and order had been tested before yet faced its greatest challenge on July 5th. RAF Bruggen up in the north as well as Ramstein AB, Sembach AB & Spangdahlem AB to the south each had thousands of determined protesters converge upon them with the intention of breaking in and taking over them via physical protests so that they wouldn’t be used as staging posts for further air strikes. Moreover, there was also Geilenkirchen AB too, close to Bruggen. East German propaganda broadcasts – West Germans didn’t often watch DDR news but it was available and many activists were following coverage – had claimed that NATO-crewed AWACS aircraft were flying from there in support of the Coalition’s air campaign. Euronews, based in France and testing the patience greatly of President Fabius, had confirmed that. Operation Allied Sword wasn’t a NATO task but those E-3 Sentry jets were flying. They did so to protect West Germany yet that little detail was lost in the outrage. Police forces the two states of North Rhine-Westphalia and Rhineland-Palatinate couldn’t contain what happened due to the speed of events. Each of the targeted facilities apart from Sembach had protesters enter the perimeters of them. Fences were torn open and in came people. American and British security units, fully-armed due to a potential East German commando threat, responded as best as they could. Warning shots were fired skywards. Armed vehicles rushed forwards with machine guns pointed at crowds. Physical force was used to eject protesters and with that came violent exchanges with fists thrown, objects chucked and spitting too. Bruggen was the easiest to be cleared of protesters with those at Ramstein taking the longest to get out. Clean-ups were needed afterwards and repairs to the fencing too. Geilenkirchen was different though. The West Germans were in-charge of security there. They were surprised and overwhelmed fast. Those who broke in didn’t have the fear that the Luftwaffe ground personnel there would start shooting them so they wouldn’t move. Protesters sat down, started holding hands and sang songs. They weren’t going anywhere. Many of the aircraft which flew from there were on temporary duty elsewhere yet eight AWACS aircraft were stuck at Geilenkirchen afterwards by protesters who blocked the runways & taxiways with the West Germans seemingly incapable of removing them with that successful mass trespass working. Road access to Ramstein and Sembach was entirely blocked too. If need be, everything required could be flown in by air but it was easier to truck in supplies. The protesters wouldn’t move when American military police units tried to get them to. West German police officers were present as well and, to the fury of the Americans, wouldn’t help them in clearing the roads. Hand-held flares were lit and there was the unleashing of a few fireworks outside of Ramstein too. Such a thing, if continued, would be a hindrance to flight operations. The mass protests out in the open also provided cover for further break-in attempts around the long expanses of perimeter fencing. Ramstein was entered later in the day and the job of getting people back out again was harder: they’d lost their fear of the armed Americans and had to be dragged out rather than coerced into leaving. A request up the chain of command from the base commander there, plus his other US Air Force counterparts, was made to the US Army Europe HQ for troops to be dispatched to aid with security: there just weren’t enough personnel on-hand within the bases to ensure that they wouldn’t be invaded again during the night. Additions to those messages stated that there was less and less cooperation from the West German police force too. If help wasn’t send, shots might be needed otherwise… ...which everyone knew would make things far worse. CNN had a camera crew outside of Ramstein. They broadcast images live from there back to America with those appearing on screen across the United States not long before a scheduled Pentagon briefing. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, due to front that where images of bombings and figures to be released on targets destroyed were to be shared, requested permission from the Secretary of Defence to delay that. That wasn’t granted. Later on, President Cuomo would realise that was a mistake yet his hindsight was irrelevant on that matter. The Chairman was confronted for comment on those protests with pointed questions asked as to what would happen if Ramstein and other bases were overrun like Geilenkirchen had so thoroughly been by unarmed civilians who wouldn’t leave. Would such people be shot if they wouldn’t leave? He gave a fudge in response to the question, seeking to give a non-answer. To say either yes or no would have consequences which he was aware of. That all came in light of recent anger among many American politicians, members of the media and sections of the public at large concerning West Germany. To the Americans, West Germany was meant to be their ally who they protected from attack. East Germany had struck at that country, killing civilians with missile strikes towards urban areas, and West Germans were blaming the United States for that. Denouncements of Bonn and the people of West Germany had come aplenty. Back at the press conference, it turned into the disaster which Cuomo would regard it as due to a question from an NBC reporter. He asked of the Chairman whether it was true that the East Germans had downed not one but two stealth F-117s and, as a follow-up, if it was the case that those aircraft were no longer flying combat missions in DDR skies less more of them be shot down? There was a pointed refusal to answer that: it was a military secret. That didn’t shut down the issue. When called upon to ask what should have been a different question, a usually supportive journalist from ABC instead repeated that same question from his colleague. Those reporters at the Pentagon wouldn’t let the matter go. They didn’t want to hear anything else about the air campaign, weren’t prepared to stick to the script, unless they got an adequate response to the matter of the F-117s. Were the East Germans capable of such feats as bringing a pair of them down? How could that be the case when time and time again, the Chairman, the SecDef & other Cuomo Administration officials had boastfully asserted that the DDR military was being bombed flat and its air defences smashed to ruin? There were Western media teams in Erfurt that same day. Accompanied by uniformed Volksarmee ‘public affairs officers’ ( Stasi personnel in reality), they were taken to that bombed apartment building in that small East German city in the early hours of July 4th. The damage done by those American bombs which had hit it was clear to see. Those were people’s homes and in them they had died. The details of why it had been hit, how that had been an accident, weren’t something talked about. Instead, the focus was on the visible destruction there. When the Coalition talked about bombing East Germany flat, this was what the DDR had to show of that. Reporters were taken to the civilian hospital too where they met with the wounded. All the stops were pulled out with the propaganda effort there: only the ‘perfect’ victims were chosen to be recorded for the video cameras of the foreigners. Women and young children were shown. One little girl, aged seven and rather pretty, was presented to the cameras with visible facial wounds and also two missing legs. Her mother spoke of the little girl’s brother when she held up a photograph of him and said he was only five. He wasn’t there in the hospital with his sister because he was to be buried the next day after the Americans had ‘murdered’ him with their bombs. Schäuble had been given that firm no by Cuomo the second time around. The Coalition wouldn’t cease what it was doing with regard to attacking East Germany. Rather than do as he had the first time, the West German leader instead sought to continue trying to get the Americans – it was they who were leading the Coalition despite it officially being a partnership of equals – to give it all up via diplomacy. He went around Cuomo in that, avoiding targeting for persuasion Heseltine and Fabius too. The foreign minister was instructed to help him in contacting as many national governments as possible across Europe who were uninvolved in the conflict. The Austrians, the Finns, the Irish, the Swedes, the Swiss… they were all approached with the call made upon them to help end Operation Allied Sword. It was the same with other NATO countries which had likewise declined to take part in attacks against the DDR: the Greeks, the Portuguese, the Spanish, the Turks and even the Icelandic government. Calls were made to capitals across the continent with Schäuble going as far as talking to Eastern European nations such as Hungary, Romania and the Baltic States. Everyone he and his foreign minister spoke with agreed that war wasn’t what was wanted for Europe. But what could they do? None were prepared to really commit themselves to really taking a stand, to using the full force of diplomacy against the Coalition. They had no real influence. Not including the Czechs, the Poles & the Slovaks who were all (one way or another) already involved, there was another country that still had influence, whom the Americans might listen to with regards to Schäuble’s push to see jaw-jaw replace war-war. He put in a call to Moscow and President Chernomyrdin there. East Germany is playing the victim in this war despite being the one that started it by doing its thing in the Czech Republic. Victim is always a good move to play against free societies with a rampant media. |
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lordroel
Administrator
Posts: 67,973
Likes: 49,378
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Post by lordroel on Oct 7, 2021 18:42:39 GMT
East Germany is playing the victim in this war despite being the one that started it by doing its thing in the Czech Republic. Victim is always a good move to play against free societies with a rampant media. Now i wonder if we can see what the people really in East Germany feel about all this, do they support the East German government out of loyalty ore are they very afraid of being picked up by the Stasi after they told somebody who turned out to be a unofficial collaborator that they wanted to see a bomb hit Honecker. |
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stevep
Fleet admiral
Posts: 24,835
Likes: 13,224
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Post by stevep on Oct 8, 2021 10:18:26 GMT
Thirty-five – Mass trespassThe East Germans kept their word. There was no ballistic missile strike launched against Coalition military bases in West Germany on the morning of July 5th. That included even localised border strikes too with very short-range similar weapons, something that had caused a high casualty rate the day before. The DDR had been heavily bombed overnight and the expectation had been that no matter what had been said in Geneva, there would come a missile strike. However, that wasn’t the case. The responses which came from senior Coalition figures were first to say that the East Germans might be biding their time and intending to strike later in the day when alert levels might be lower. As the hours wore onwards, that narrative changed though. Instead, it became a case of comments made that Coalition air power had so thoroughly smashed much of their missile force that what little remained was being held back for a later date. Whatever the truth of the matter, Scuds, Spiders, Scarabs and even FROGs didn’t lance westwards – nor even up into Denmark or over West Germany into the Low Countries again – just as had been promised during those latest talks in Switzerland. A couple of false alarms did take place and Patriot missile batteries stood ready regardless. Tension and fear remained over the whole matter of that fearsome military capability that most people believed that the DDR retained despite those remarks from the Coalition about the apparent effectiveness of all of that bombing. During the previous night, news had leaked that the East Germans had made that offer to the Coalition, and were saying too that they were ready to meet Coalition demands. With that came the revelation that such an offer had been wholescale rejected out of hand. West German media broadcast the details of what had been said in Geneva, with a lot of specifics, and that was rapidly picked up elsewhere. As to those accurate details, there was wide suspicion among Coalition governments that ZDF had been supplied everything directly by senior government figures from Bonn. It was a deliberate move, such was the thinking, from the government of Chancellor Schäuble for several reasons. One looked likely to show to his people that he was completely against the war and to calm the public. The second was thought to be a move to apply pressure upon them. Well… if Schäuble sought to bring calm to an already angered West Germany, he failed in that. The revelations were explosive as far as so many were concerned. The DDR was a rotten regime but they were doing what had been demanded of them, what so many fellow Germans had lost their lives for. And the reply which had come to that was for the Americans, the British and the French to carry on regardless! With no follow-up ballistic missile attack on top of all of that, that brought forth once more trouble across the country. There had been significant unrest ahead of Operation Allied Sword starting and that once more erupted after those reports came out of Geneva. Organised protests took place in West German cities where anti-war marches took place from Hamburg to Munich, from Cologne to Frankfurt. People came out into the streets to demand that the Coalition cease its aerial barrage upon East Germany. There were calls too for Schäuble to do something to stop that yet that time around, those were less pronounced than before due to the belief that their government was doing a lot on that note. Violence rocked the Cologne and Hamburg protests where mass vandalism, looting and isolated cases of arson occurred. Troublemakers attached themselves to the marches and had themselves a good time while protected from the authorities by the mass of people around them. Those marches had taken place before and hadn’t had much effect in the eyes of the leaders of the anti-war movement which had sprung up across the country. The leaders of that were a widespread grouping from various backgrounds – political figures, noted activists and lesser-known organisers – who had no complete control over the movement which they led. There was a lot they didn’t agree on, especially among an alarming number of younger activists who had more of an anti-American position rather than an anti-war one. However, what was understood was that the most effective method of pressure which they could apply, which had had some success ahead of the conflict starting, was to target Coalition military facilities within West Germany. The big airbases operated by the Americans and the British on their country’s soil had been targets of attempted blockages to access as well as mass trespass in the days leading up to them being used to bomb East Germany. Ballistic missile attacks targeted upon them had caused a lot of worry for those who were seeking to attempt further goes at that: being in the way of a Scud wasn’t appealing for anyone at all. With no missiles incoming though, protests leaders managed to convince a number of their followers to make another go of that. West Germany was legally required, as per many agreements signed with its allies stretching back through the decades, to ensure the security of foreign bases within the country. The enforcement of maintaining law and order had been tested before yet faced its greatest challenge on July 5th. RAF Bruggen up in the north as well as Ramstein AB, Sembach AB & Spangdahlem AB to the south each had thousands of determined protesters converge upon them with the intention of breaking in and taking over them via physical protests so that they wouldn’t be used as staging posts for further air strikes. Moreover, there was also Geilenkirchen AB too, close to Bruggen. East German propaganda broadcasts – West Germans didn’t often watch DDR news but it was available and many activists were following coverage – had claimed that NATO-crewed AWACS aircraft were flying from there in support of the Coalition’s air campaign. Euronews, based in France and testing the patience greatly of President Fabius, had confirmed that. Operation Allied Sword wasn’t a NATO task but those E-3 Sentry jets were flying. They did so to protect West Germany yet that little detail was lost in the outrage. Police forces the two states of North Rhine-Westphalia and Rhineland-Palatinate couldn’t contain what happened due to the speed of events. Each of the targeted facilities apart from Sembach had protesters enter the perimeters of them. Fences were torn open and in came people. American and British security units, fully-armed due to a potential East German commando threat, responded as best as they could. Warning shots were fired skywards. Armed vehicles rushed forwards with machine guns pointed at crowds. Physical force was used to eject protesters and with that came violent exchanges with fists thrown, objects chucked and spitting too. Bruggen was the easiest to be cleared of protesters with those at Ramstein taking the longest to get out. Clean-ups were needed afterwards and repairs to the fencing too. Geilenkirchen was different though. The West Germans were in-charge of security there. They were surprised and overwhelmed fast. Those who broke in didn’t have the fear that the Luftwaffe ground personnel there would start shooting them so they wouldn’t move. Protesters sat down, started holding hands and sang songs. They weren’t going anywhere. Many of the aircraft which flew from there were on temporary duty elsewhere yet eight AWACS aircraft were stuck at Geilenkirchen afterwards by protesters who blocked the runways & taxiways with the West Germans seemingly incapable of removing them with that successful mass trespass working. Road access to Ramstein and Sembach was entirely blocked too. If need be, everything required could be flown in by air but it was easier to truck in supplies. The protesters wouldn’t move when American military police units tried to get them to. West German police officers were present as well and, to the fury of the Americans, wouldn’t help them in clearing the roads. Hand-held flares were lit and there was the unleashing of a few fireworks outside of Ramstein too. Such a thing, if continued, would be a hindrance to flight operations. The mass protests out in the open also provided cover for further break-in attempts around the long expanses of perimeter fencing. Ramstein was entered later in the day and the job of getting people back out again was harder: they’d lost their fear of the armed Americans and had to be dragged out rather than coerced into leaving. A request up the chain of command from the base commander there, plus his other US Air Force counterparts, was made to the US Army Europe HQ for troops to be dispatched to aid with security: there just weren’t enough personnel on-hand within the bases to ensure that they wouldn’t be invaded again during the night. Additions to those messages stated that there was less and less cooperation from the West German police force too. If help wasn’t send, shots might be needed otherwise… ...which everyone knew would make things far worse. CNN had a camera crew outside of Ramstein. They broadcast images live from there back to America with those appearing on screen across the United States not long before a scheduled Pentagon briefing. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, due to front that where images of bombings and figures to be released on targets destroyed were to be shared, requested permission from the Secretary of Defence to delay that. That wasn’t granted. Later on, President Cuomo would realise that was a mistake yet his hindsight was irrelevant on that matter. The Chairman was confronted for comment on those protests with pointed questions asked as to what would happen if Ramstein and other bases were overrun like Geilenkirchen had so thoroughly been by unarmed civilians who wouldn’t leave. Would such people be shot if they wouldn’t leave? He gave a fudge in response to the question, seeking to give a non-answer. To say either yes or no would have consequences which he was aware of. That all came in light of recent anger among many American politicians, members of the media and sections of the public at large concerning West Germany. To the Americans, West Germany was meant to be their ally who they protected from attack. East Germany had struck at that country, killing civilians with missile strikes towards urban areas, and West Germans were blaming the United States for that. Denouncements of Bonn and the people of West Germany had come aplenty. Back at the press conference, it turned into the disaster which Cuomo would regard it as due to a question from an NBC reporter. He asked of the Chairman whether it was true that the East Germans had downed not one but two stealth F-117s and, as a follow-up, if it was the case that those aircraft were no longer flying combat missions in DDR skies less more of them be shot down? There was a pointed refusal to answer that: it was a military secret. That didn’t shut down the issue. When called upon to ask what should have been a different question, a usually supportive journalist from ABC instead repeated that same question from his colleague. Those reporters at the Pentagon wouldn’t let the matter go. They didn’t want to hear anything else about the air campaign, weren’t prepared to stick to the script, unless they got an adequate response to the matter of the F-117s. Were the East Germans capable of such feats as bringing a pair of them down? How could that be the case when time and time again, the Chairman, the SecDef & other Cuomo Administration officials had boastfully asserted that the DDR military was being bombed flat and its air defences smashed to ruin? There were Western media teams in Erfurt that same day. Accompanied by uniformed Volksarmee ‘public affairs officers’ ( Stasi personnel in reality), they were taken to that bombed apartment building in that small East German city in the early hours of July 4th. The damage done by those American bombs which had hit it was clear to see. Those were people’s homes and in them they had died. The details of why it had been hit, how that had been an accident, weren’t something talked about. Instead, the focus was on the visible destruction there. When the Coalition talked about bombing East Germany flat, this was what the DDR had to show of that. Reporters were taken to the civilian hospital too where they met with the wounded. All the stops were pulled out with the propaganda effort there: only the ‘perfect’ victims were chosen to be recorded for the video cameras of the foreigners. Women and young children were shown. One little girl, aged seven and rather pretty, was presented to the cameras with visible facial wounds and also two missing legs. Her mother spoke of the little girl’s brother when she held up a photograph of him and said he was only five. He wasn’t there in the hospital with his sister because he was to be buried the next day after the Americans had ‘murdered’ him with their bombs. Schäuble had been given that firm no by Cuomo the second time around. The Coalition wouldn’t cease what it was doing with regard to attacking East Germany. Rather than do as he had the first time, the West German leader instead sought to continue trying to get the Americans – it was they who were leading the Coalition despite it officially being a partnership of equals – to give it all up via diplomacy. He went around Cuomo in that, avoiding targeting for persuasion Heseltine and Fabius too. The foreign minister was instructed to help him in contacting as many national governments as possible across Europe who were uninvolved in the conflict. The Austrians, the Finns, the Irish, the Swedes, the Swiss… they were all approached with the call made upon them to help end Operation Allied Sword. It was the same with other NATO countries which had likewise declined to take part in attacks against the DDR: the Greeks, the Portuguese, the Spanish, the Turks and even the Icelandic government. Calls were made to capitals across the continent with Schäuble going as far as talking to Eastern European nations such as Hungary, Romania and the Baltic States. Everyone he and his foreign minister spoke with agreed that war wasn’t what was wanted for Europe. But what could they do? None were prepared to really commit themselves to really taking a stand, to using the full force of diplomacy against the Coalition. They had no real influence. Not including the Czechs, the Poles & the Slovaks who were all (one way or another) already involved, there was another country that still had influence, whom the Americans might listen to with regards to Schäuble’s push to see jaw-jaw replace war-war. He put in a call to Moscow and President Chernomyrdin there. East Germany is playing the victim in this war despite being the one that started it by doing its thing in the Czech Republic.
Its the frequent action of a brutal state when faced with opposition from a democratic society. Doesn't make it any less useful in some case. The US here could win the war and end up losing the peace.
Thinking about it the impacts on the EU - or whatever it was called at this stage - would also be interesting with its most important member alienated from France, Britain and Italy.
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stevep
Fleet admiral
Posts: 24,835
Likes: 13,224
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Post by stevep on Oct 8, 2021 10:28:00 GMT
Thirty-five – Mass trespassThe East Germans kept their word. There was no ballistic missile strike launched against Coalition military bases in West Germany on the morning of July 5th. That included even localised border strikes too with very short-range similar weapons, something that had caused a high casualty rate the day before. The DDR had been heavily bombed overnight and the expectation had been that no matter what had been said in Geneva, there would come a missile strike. However, that wasn’t the case. The responses which came from senior Coalition figures were first to say that the East Germans might be biding their time and intending to strike later in the day when alert levels might be lower. As the hours wore onwards, that narrative changed though. Instead, it became a case of comments made that Coalition air power had so thoroughly smashed much of their missile force that what little remained was being held back for a later date. Whatever the truth of the matter, Scuds, Spiders, Scarabs and even FROGs didn’t lance westwards – nor even up into Denmark or over West Germany into the Low Countries again – just as had been promised during those latest talks in Switzerland. A couple of false alarms did take place and Patriot missile batteries stood ready regardless. Tension and fear remained over the whole matter of that fearsome military capability that most people believed that the DDR retained despite those remarks from the Coalition about the apparent effectiveness of all of that bombing. During the previous night, news had leaked that the East Germans had made that offer to the Coalition, and were saying too that they were ready to meet Coalition demands. With that came the revelation that such an offer had been wholescale rejected out of hand. West German media broadcast the details of what had been said in Geneva, with a lot of specifics, and that was rapidly picked up elsewhere. As to those accurate details, there was wide suspicion among Coalition governments that ZDF had been supplied everything directly by senior government figures from Bonn. It was a deliberate move, such was the thinking, from the government of Chancellor Schäuble for several reasons. One looked likely to show to his people that he was completely against the war and to calm the public. The second was thought to be a move to apply pressure upon them. Well… if Schäuble sought to bring calm to an already angered West Germany, he failed in that. The revelations were explosive as far as so many were concerned. The DDR was a rotten regime but they were doing what had been demanded of them, what so many fellow Germans had lost their lives for. And the reply which had come to that was for the Americans, the British and the French to carry on regardless! With no follow-up ballistic missile attack on top of all of that, that brought forth once more trouble across the country. There had been significant unrest ahead of Operation Allied Sword starting and that once more erupted after those reports came out of Geneva. Organised protests took place in West German cities where anti-war marches took place from Hamburg to Munich, from Cologne to Frankfurt. People came out into the streets to demand that the Coalition cease its aerial barrage upon East Germany. There were calls too for Schäuble to do something to stop that yet that time around, those were less pronounced than before due to the belief that their government was doing a lot on that note. Violence rocked the Cologne and Hamburg protests where mass vandalism, looting and isolated cases of arson occurred. Troublemakers attached themselves to the marches and had themselves a good time while protected from the authorities by the mass of people around them. Those marches had taken place before and hadn’t had much effect in the eyes of the leaders of the anti-war movement which had sprung up across the country. The leaders of that were a widespread grouping from various backgrounds – political figures, noted activists and lesser-known organisers – who had no complete control over the movement which they led. There was a lot they didn’t agree on, especially among an alarming number of younger activists who had more of an anti-American position rather than an anti-war one. However, what was understood was that the most effective method of pressure which they could apply, which had had some success ahead of the conflict starting, was to target Coalition military facilities within West Germany. The big airbases operated by the Americans and the British on their country’s soil had been targets of attempted blockages to access as well as mass trespass in the days leading up to them being used to bomb East Germany. Ballistic missile attacks targeted upon them had caused a lot of worry for those who were seeking to attempt further goes at that: being in the way of a Scud wasn’t appealing for anyone at all. With no missiles incoming though, protests leaders managed to convince a number of their followers to make another go of that. West Germany was legally required, as per many agreements signed with its allies stretching back through the decades, to ensure the security of foreign bases within the country. The enforcement of maintaining law and order had been tested before yet faced its greatest challenge on July 5th. RAF Bruggen up in the north as well as Ramstein AB, Sembach AB & Spangdahlem AB to the south each had thousands of determined protesters converge upon them with the intention of breaking in and taking over them via physical protests so that they wouldn’t be used as staging posts for further air strikes. Moreover, there was also Geilenkirchen AB too, close to Bruggen. East German propaganda broadcasts – West Germans didn’t often watch DDR news but it was available and many activists were following coverage – had claimed that NATO-crewed AWACS aircraft were flying from there in support of the Coalition’s air campaign. Euronews, based in France and testing the patience greatly of President Fabius, had confirmed that. Operation Allied Sword wasn’t a NATO task but those E-3 Sentry jets were flying. They did so to protect West Germany yet that little detail was lost in the outrage. Police forces the two states of North Rhine-Westphalia and Rhineland-Palatinate couldn’t contain what happened due to the speed of events. Each of the targeted facilities apart from Sembach had protesters enter the perimeters of them. Fences were torn open and in came people. American and British security units, fully-armed due to a potential East German commando threat, responded as best as they could. Warning shots were fired skywards. Armed vehicles rushed forwards with machine guns pointed at crowds. Physical force was used to eject protesters and with that came violent exchanges with fists thrown, objects chucked and spitting too. Bruggen was the easiest to be cleared of protesters with those at Ramstein taking the longest to get out. Clean-ups were needed afterwards and repairs to the fencing too. Geilenkirchen was different though. The West Germans were in-charge of security there. They were surprised and overwhelmed fast. Those who broke in didn’t have the fear that the Luftwaffe ground personnel there would start shooting them so they wouldn’t move. Protesters sat down, started holding hands and sang songs. They weren’t going anywhere. Many of the aircraft which flew from there were on temporary duty elsewhere yet eight AWACS aircraft were stuck at Geilenkirchen afterwards by protesters who blocked the runways & taxiways with the West Germans seemingly incapable of removing them with that successful mass trespass working. Road access to Ramstein and Sembach was entirely blocked too. If need be, everything required could be flown in by air but it was easier to truck in supplies. The protesters wouldn’t move when American military police units tried to get them to. West German police officers were present as well and, to the fury of the Americans, wouldn’t help them in clearing the roads. Hand-held flares were lit and there was the unleashing of a few fireworks outside of Ramstein too. Such a thing, if continued, would be a hindrance to flight operations. The mass protests out in the open also provided cover for further break-in attempts around the long expanses of perimeter fencing. Ramstein was entered later in the day and the job of getting people back out again was harder: they’d lost their fear of the armed Americans and had to be dragged out rather than coerced into leaving. A request up the chain of command from the base commander there, plus his other US Air Force counterparts, was made to the US Army Europe HQ for troops to be dispatched to aid with security: there just weren’t enough personnel on-hand within the bases to ensure that they wouldn’t be invaded again during the night. Additions to those messages stated that there was less and less cooperation from the West German police force too. If help wasn’t send, shots might be needed otherwise… ...which everyone knew would make things far worse. CNN had a camera crew outside of Ramstein. They broadcast images live from there back to America with those appearing on screen across the United States not long before a scheduled Pentagon briefing. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, due to front that where images of bombings and figures to be released on targets destroyed were to be shared, requested permission from the Secretary of Defence to delay that. That wasn’t granted. Later on, President Cuomo would realise that was a mistake yet his hindsight was irrelevant on that matter. The Chairman was confronted for comment on those protests with pointed questions asked as to what would happen if Ramstein and other bases were overrun like Geilenkirchen had so thoroughly been by unarmed civilians who wouldn’t leave. Would such people be shot if they wouldn’t leave? He gave a fudge in response to the question, seeking to give a non-answer. To say either yes or no would have consequences which he was aware of. That all came in light of recent anger among many American politicians, members of the media and sections of the public at large concerning West Germany. To the Americans, West Germany was meant to be their ally who they protected from attack. East Germany had struck at that country, killing civilians with missile strikes towards urban areas, and West Germans were blaming the United States for that. Denouncements of Bonn and the people of West Germany had come aplenty. Back at the press conference, it turned into the disaster which Cuomo would regard it as due to a question from an NBC reporter. He asked of the Chairman whether it was true that the East Germans had downed not one but two stealth F-117s and, as a follow-up, if it was the case that those aircraft were no longer flying combat missions in DDR skies less more of them be shot down? There was a pointed refusal to answer that: it was a military secret. That didn’t shut down the issue. When called upon to ask what should have been a different question, a usually supportive journalist from ABC instead repeated that same question from his colleague. Those reporters at the Pentagon wouldn’t let the matter go. They didn’t want to hear anything else about the air campaign, weren’t prepared to stick to the script, unless they got an adequate response to the matter of the F-117s. Were the East Germans capable of such feats as bringing a pair of them down? How could that be the case when time and time again, the Chairman, the SecDef & other Cuomo Administration officials had boastfully asserted that the DDR military was being bombed flat and its air defences smashed to ruin? There were Western media teams in Erfurt that same day. Accompanied by uniformed Volksarmee ‘public affairs officers’ ( Stasi personnel in reality), they were taken to that bombed apartment building in that small East German city in the early hours of July 4th. The damage done by those American bombs which had hit it was clear to see. Those were people’s homes and in them they had died. The details of why it had been hit, how that had been an accident, weren’t something talked about. Instead, the focus was on the visible destruction there. When the Coalition talked about bombing East Germany flat, this was what the DDR had to show of that. Reporters were taken to the civilian hospital too where they met with the wounded. All the stops were pulled out with the propaganda effort there: only the ‘perfect’ victims were chosen to be recorded for the video cameras of the foreigners. Women and young children were shown. One little girl, aged seven and rather pretty, was presented to the cameras with visible facial wounds and also two missing legs. Her mother spoke of the little girl’s brother when she held up a photograph of him and said he was only five. He wasn’t there in the hospital with his sister because he was to be buried the next day after the Americans had ‘murdered’ him with their bombs. Schäuble had been given that firm no by Cuomo the second time around. The Coalition wouldn’t cease what it was doing with regard to attacking East Germany. Rather than do as he had the first time, the West German leader instead sought to continue trying to get the Americans – it was they who were leading the Coalition despite it officially being a partnership of equals – to give it all up via diplomacy. He went around Cuomo in that, avoiding targeting for persuasion Heseltine and Fabius too. The foreign minister was instructed to help him in contacting as many national governments as possible across Europe who were uninvolved in the conflict. The Austrians, the Finns, the Irish, the Swedes, the Swiss… they were all approached with the call made upon them to help end Operation Allied Sword. It was the same with other NATO countries which had likewise declined to take part in attacks against the DDR: the Greeks, the Portuguese, the Spanish, the Turks and even the Icelandic government. Calls were made to capitals across the continent with Schäuble going as far as talking to Eastern European nations such as Hungary, Romania and the Baltic States. Everyone he and his foreign minister spoke with agreed that war wasn’t what was wanted for Europe. But what could they do? None were prepared to really commit themselves to really taking a stand, to using the full force of diplomacy against the Coalition. They had no real influence. Not including the Czechs, the Poles & the Slovaks who were all (one way or another) already involved, there was another country that still had influence, whom the Americans might listen to with regards to Schäuble’s push to see jaw-jaw replace war-war. He put in a call to Moscow and President Chernomyrdin there.
Now that last bit could be interesting. Chernomyrdin isn't a friend of the west but he doesn't want any nukes in German hands. Can he find a way to have his cake and eat it - which would be the standard response for a politician? Or will he jump decisively in one or another direction. If he tells Schäuble that E Germany does have a nuclear programme and he supports the alliance actions then it put Schäuble in a very difficult situation. If he comes out openly against further military action by the alliance it would heighten tension further but probably be ignored by the alliance. He could try action to make things more difficult for both sides or a wild card I wonder what the responses would be if he offered Russian forces to occupy E Germany and sort out the mess? Although getting transit rights through Poland and other states could be an issue.  There's a lot that could happen here.
I'm surprised the Americans especially got those protestors out without shooting someone, or at least a lot of use of riot gear say. Especially if you have a lot of people using peaceful protests, sit downs and the like it can be very, very difficult to end without use of force that would be counter productive in the longer run.
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James G
Squadron vice admiral
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Post by James G on Oct 10, 2021 17:51:34 GMT
Victim is always a good move to play against free societies with a rampant media. Now i wonder if we can see what the people really in East Germany feel about all this, do they support the East German government out of loyalty ore are they very afraid of being picked up by the Stasi after they told somebody who turned out to be a unofficial collaborator that they wanted to see a bomb hit Honecker. There is a complicated situation there. Anti-regime feeling is high yet the air campaign has drawn people together against attack. Plus, where East Germans usually watch West German television criticising their country, they are now seeing that criticising those attacking them too. Twice uprisings have been tried - 1989 and 1994 - and neither worked. Stamping down on opposition, in the background especially, has worked for the regime. The Coalition is also going out of their way not to incite a revolt fearing that they'll have to pick up the pieces: they are seeking to keep the regime in power in many ways, while denying that that is the case. Overall, that's a mess.
Its the frequent action of a brutal state when faced with opposition from a democratic society. Doesn't make it any less useful in some case. The US here could win the war and end up losing the peace.
Thinking about it the impacts on the EU - or whatever it was called at this stage - would also be interesting with its most important member alienated from France, Britain and Italy.
We're at the EC stage in 1995. Big deal that is though not a focus I intend to really run on.
Now that last bit could be interesting. Chernomyrdin isn't a friend of the west but he doesn't want any nukes in German hands. Can he find a way to have his cake and eat it - which would be the standard response for a politician? Or will he jump decisively in one or another direction. If he tells Schäuble that E Germany does have a nuclear programme and he supports the alliance actions then it put Schäuble in a very difficult situation. If he comes out openly against further military action by the alliance it would heighten tension further but probably be ignored by the alliance. He could try action to make things more difficult for both sides or a wild card I wonder what the responses would be if he offered Russian forces to occupy E Germany and sort out the mess? Although getting transit rights through Poland and other states could be an issue. There's a lot that could happen here.
I'm surprised the Americans especially got those protestors out without shooting someone, or at least a lot of use of riot gear say. Especially if you have a lot of people using peaceful protests, sit downs and the like it can be very, very difficult to end without use of force that would be counter productive in the longer run.
Major opportunity for Moscow is on the cards. Chernomyrdin would want to have the cake, eat it, then get some more. Russian diplomatic opposition to the Coalition can be ignored but playing sneaky buggers is a different matter. I'm not thinking of Russian ground involvement though. Those bases were on-alert for activity and responded as best as they could. That WG-operated NATO base showed what could happen though and so, quickly, teh RAF and USAF have called for soldiers to argument RAF Regiment / USAF security Police. |
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James G
Squadron vice admiral
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Post by James G on Oct 10, 2021 17:52:44 GMT
Thirty-six – Thrown to the wolves
Officially, the Coalition hadn’t said anything about limiting the air campaign after the three planned nights of heavy bombing. The military action to force East Germany to comply with the demands issued from Rotterdam in June was to continue throughout July until those were met. Nonetheless, the easing off of what the Coalition was doing after those ferocious trio of night-time attacks occurred and the knowledge of that entered the public arena. In addition, leaked efforts made by the DDR to try and convince the Coalition that the regime wished to comply with the demands also came out: promises of a lack of response to continuing air strikes came with ‘proof’ of that for all to see. Open news of such events galvanised not just the anti-war movement within neighbouring West Germany, but the wider campaign against Operation Allied Sword too from those determined to see it stop. Domestic Danish opposition to their country being at war (and a staging base for Coalition air activity too) was significant and gained a new lease of life in what many Europe-wise started to call a ‘ceasefire’ starting July 5th: there was no ceasefire but that didn’t stop the momentum to have one brought about. Anti-war feeling was pretty strong in the Netherlands as well with many Dutch civilians present at the demonstration outside of Geilenkirchen AB which saw that NATO facility right on the West German-Dutch border overrun by protesters who afterwards refused to leave. Far bigger opposition from political figures and traditional activists was seen in both Britain and France. In the UK, it wasn’t a party political issue. The Labour opposition had committed itself to supporting the Conservative government – that was conditional though – against allowing East Germany to continue what it was doing. Yet, Labour & Conservative MPs from the backbenches of each party broke ranks with the leadership. They showed up at rallies and demonstrations. So too did tens of thousands of ordinary people. Denouncements from the tabloid media, calling them supporters of the Honecker regime, were ignored. They were opposed to war and the killing of innocents. Protests stepped up to end the fighting for good once that apparent ceasefire was in action. Paris and other French cities came to a standstill when marches by tens of thousands of protesters, organised by the French left, blocked roads and shut down businesses. President Fabius had extensive domestic political support but that didn’t translate in complete public backing. The French protesters wanted what those in Britain, Denmark and the Netherlands, plus the many more ones in West Germany too, were demanding: no more bombing. In those four countries – yet not something ignored in other ones of the Coalition – there was a concern among military officers and senior government officials that what had been seen in West Germany where military bases were invaded in instances of mass trespass might occur in their nations as well. Security measures were enacted with contingency plans in-place to react accordingly.
The leaking by the West German government of what happened down in Geneva had an affect that had been unseen with regards to the Czech Republic. East Germany was willing to see the regime in Prague thrown to the wolves. Such was how the rebel government in charge there in the Czech capital saw it. Candidate X read for himself those revelations that had come out of the talks in Switzerland. He demanded that the East German ambassador in Prague come to see him and, when the man promptly did, there was a denial made. That was all a Coalition forgery, he said. In fact, the Americans worked with the West Germans on it so as to sew discord between the allies which East Berlin and Prague were. The DDR position was that there was to be no abandonment of the Czech Republic at all. What was wanted in East Berlin was a neighbour ruled by Czechs themselves who would be free of the Poles who had invaded them. To see that occur, East Germany would stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Candidate X: whatever the West was saying, was all another one of their infamous lies conducted to see both the Czech Republic and the DDR brought to heel under their own foreign rule. That was a position maintained in direct contact between the two capitals in the aftermath too. Down in Prague, Candidate X didn’t believe it though. He considered it likely that East Germany was about to abandon him if that brought with it the end of the attacks upon Honecker’s regime. What could he do with that knowledge though? There was no easy action to take when in such a position.
Minister of State Security Schwanitz was the one who spoke with the Czech rebel leader rather than Margot Honecker. She and the majority of the Politburo remained in their bunker under Prenden – that place was a waiting tomb as far as the Stasi head was concerned – while he stayed on the move within East Berlin. When the call came from Prague, he took it and told Candidate X that he was speaking for the whole of the Politburo in his reply. A calm, reasonable tone was used by him with plentiful assurances given. It was unknown to Schwanitz that what he said wasn’t actually believed on the other end: he thought he had done a convincing job. As to the whole matter of throwing the Czech rebels to the wolves, Schwanitz hadn’t been involved in what went on with that. He was pushed aside when it came to Honecker authorising the foreign minister setting up that Geneva meeting. Abandoning the Czechs wasn’t something that he was in on at all. Schwanitz was told after the fact that that was part of the deal offered where the DDR would be able to escape from the war which it was involved in with the Coalition. Livid would be an understatement to describe how he was once that came to light. Additions had been added without his knowledge and he only found out after the fact via that leak from Bonn for their own aims. Without Schwanitz, Honecker wouldn’t have any role at all in the East Germany leadership let alone be the regime leader via her position as general secretary. She should have by rights been pushed aside to allow for a man to take their rightful place as the nation’s top figure. Alas, Schwanitz, plus other securocrats like him from the intelligence & security services, had put Erich Honecker’s widow in power and kept her there. In exchange for what she got, he and they had all of the power and influence that they had. It was a deal struck with both agreed thoroughly with upon initiation. Yet Honecker had decided to do what she did with regards to the offer presented to the Coalition without his approval, nor knowledge even! She was listening to the foreign minister and with him, an opponent of Schwanitz’s whispering in her ear, she thought that that was acceptable. It wasn’t. Just like Candidate X down in Prague, Schwanitz up in East Berlin moved to the plotting stage with the belief that something, anything had to be done to avoid a ghastly outcome for him personally.
Chancellor Schäuble made his contact with President Chernomyrdin. The two of them weren’t close at all and had only met once beforehand briefly. Bonn had criticised previous Russian support for the East German regime and also the conflict raging down in the Caucasus which Chernomyrdin might have inherited from Yeltsin yet himself significantly expanded in violence. The disagreements like that were put aside as Schäuble sought to use realpolitik to get what he wanted: an end to the Americans and their allies bombing his fellow Germans over in the DDR.
Chernomyrdin was asked for the assistance of Russia in bringing to an end the situation where East Germany was completely at odds with the Coalition and couldn’t be trusted by them to honour any peace agreement. Schäuble wanted Russia to directly involve itself, to use their influence within the DDR to put a stop to East German behaviour in a manner which would satisfy Cuomo in Washington in particular though also Fabius, Prime Minister Heseltine & others. As to how that was to be done, the main factor which Schäuble identified was the East German nuclear weapons programme. Revelations of that had seen that major break in East Berlin-Moscow ties. The DDR was now saying, in a white lie that everyone could see through, that they were ‘only’ developing a peaceful nuclear energy programme instead. Schäuble wanted that lie shoved aside and for Russia to support a West German diplomatic effort to resolve it all. International inspectors, demilitarisation and whatever else it took with regards to that were on the table as far as Schäuble was concerned. Russia could do that, he said, and it also had the right to do it too. The legal successor state to the Soviet Union, Russia retained it victor of WW2 rights over the divided Germany’s. Chernomyrdin asked what was in it for Russia… beyond being involved in putting an end to the nuclear ambitions of DDR for good that was. Schäuble didn’t make any promises though there was talk of a reset in Bonn-Moscow relations: he was willing to see a lot done in exchange for and end to the ongoing conflict that he feared was only going to restart soon enough ahead of that apparent ceasefire.
Chernomyrdin said that he needed time to formulate a response. Russia wasn’t opposed to the idea but he couldn’t act without due consideration. Schäuble wanted more though that was all that he was going to get with first contact made. He wasn’t happy yet it was better than a flat no. He and Chernomyrdin agreed to talk again soon enough with both sides working up more detail proposals on how to act.
The Americans were listening in once again. Their bugging of their Bonn allies, done on West German soil, saw an instant report delivered to Cuomo. The 42nd President finished early a meeting with leading congressional figures on another important matter to go into a briefing concerning the further actions undertaken by Schäuble as he carried on with his diplomatic activity. The mention of Chernomyrdin’s name, more so than a potential West German-Russian deal, infuriated Cuomo. The Russian president was an unindicted co-conspirator (he had sovereign immunity as a head of state but his partners didn’t) in a legal case being pursued by the US Attorney for the Southern District of New York. It was something all over the media. Russia’s leader was caught up in a major criminal conspiracy using the Bank of New York – the nation’s oldest bank – to launder illegal funds gained by weapons trafficking and other illegal smuggling through that institution. Multiple US-based bank employees were already under arrest with warrants sought for foreigners involved. Chernomyrdin couldn’t be touched but his fingerprints were all over it. Moreover, so too were many East Germans linked unofficially to the regime in East Berlin. Cuomo had taken a personal interest in the case and so that brought about his steadfast outrage at the idea of having Chernomyrdin anywhere near the Coalition’s conflict with the DDR. For Schäuble to do what he was, with the West German leader well aware of the Bank of New York scandal too, was what Cuomo considered to be one big middle finger directed at his administration. That personal issue came alongside anything else. Bonn and Moscow working together to basically screw over the United States was infuriating. Cuomo didn’t believe that the Russians could be trusted to bring the East Germans to heel. Only the Coalition, lead by the United States, could do the job. Instructions went out from Washington: there was to be all opposition possible employed to scupper such an arrangement.
That other matter which Cuomo was at the time dealing with, what they were talking about in the meeting which he left when the news of the Chernomyrdin-Schäuble tie-in came, concerned Taiwan. Back the previous month, Taiwan’s president had flown to the United States and spoke at his former university. Beijing had been furious over the matter with the Chinese considering the American visit to be a blatant breach of the ‘One China policy’. Cuomo had acted ahead of time to try and limit the diplomatic unrest yet had been defeated by Congress. His own party had worked with the Republicans to hand-in-hand ensure that Taiwan’s leader came without restriction. He’d gone back home afterwards though that was far from the end of the matter. There was a Chinese military build-up underway. An invasion of Taiwan was considered highly unlikely but the notion couldn’t be completely written off. The Taiwanese were working with their long-established allies right across the partisan divide in Congress to seek protection against any Chinese ‘adventurism’. To Cuomo, that was unacceptable. He decided foreign policy and he would deal with China. Congress had their own ideas on that matter where they believed that, if the situation was unfavourable, Taiwan might be thrown to the wolves. The US Armed Forces were stretched across the globe, more than they had been in a long while. The force assembled in Europe to combat the East Germans was massive and so too was that long-standing deployment into Kuwait to face down Saddam. A crisis in the Taiwan Strait wasn’t wanted at all! Congress wouldn’t listen though. Cuomo returned to trying to deal with that matter after the Chernomyrdin revelations.
It was one heck of a complicated balancing act being the world’s policeman.
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lordroel
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Post by lordroel on Oct 10, 2021 17:59:50 GMT
Thirty-six – Thrown to the wolvesOfficially, the Coalition hadn’t said anything about limiting the air campaign after the three planned nights of heavy bombing. The military action to force East Germany to comply with the demands issued from Rotterdam in June was to continue throughout July until those were met. Nonetheless, the easing off of what the Coalition was doing after those ferocious trio of night-time attacks occurred and the knowledge of that entered the public arena. In addition, leaked efforts made by the DDR to try and convince the Coalition that the regime wished to comply with the demands also came out: promises of a lack of response to continuing air strikes came with ‘proof’ of that for all to see. Open news of such events galvanised not just the anti-war movement within neighbouring West Germany, but the wider campaign against Operation Allied Sword too from those determined to see it stop. Domestic Danish opposition to their country being at war (and a staging base for Coalition air activity too) was significant and gained a new lease of life in what many Europe-wise started to call a ‘ceasefire’ starting July 5th: there was no ceasefire but that didn’t stop the momentum to have one brought about. Anti-war feeling was pretty strong in the Netherlands as well with many Dutch civilians present at the demonstration outside of Geilenkirchen AB which saw that NATO facility right on the West German-Dutch border overrun by protesters who afterwards refused to leave. Far bigger opposition from political figures and traditional activists was seen in both Britain and France. In the UK, it wasn’t a party political issue. The Labour opposition had committed itself to supporting the Conservative government – that was conditional though – against allowing East Germany to continue what it was doing. Yet, Labour & Conservative MPs from the backbenches of each party broke ranks with the leadership. They showed up at rallies and demonstrations. So too did tens of thousands of ordinary people. Denouncements from the tabloid media, calling them supporters of the Honecker regime, were ignored. They were opposed to war and the killing of innocents. Protests stepped up to end the fighting for good once that apparent ceasefire was in action. Paris and other French cities came to a standstill when marches by tens of thousands of protesters, organised by the French left, blocked roads and shut down businesses. President Fabius had extensive domestic political support but that didn’t translate in complete public backing. The French protesters wanted what those in Britain, Denmark and the Netherlands, plus the many more ones in West Germany too, were demanding: no more bombing. In those four countries – yet not something ignored in other ones of the Coalition – there was a concern among military officers and senior government officials that what had been seen in West Germany where military bases were invaded in instances of mass trespass might occur in their nations as well. Security measures were enacted with contingency plans in-place to react accordingly. The leaking by the West German government of what happened down in Geneva had an affect that had been unseen with regards to the Czech Republic. East Germany was willing to see the regime in Prague thrown to the wolves. Such was how the rebel government in charge there in the Czech capital saw it. Candidate X read for himself those revelations that had come out of the talks in Switzerland. He demanded that the East German ambassador in Prague come to see him and, when the man promptly did, there was a denial made. That was all a Coalition forgery, he said. In fact, the Americans worked with the West Germans on it so as to sew discord between the allies which East Berlin and Prague were. The DDR position was that there was to be no abandonment of the Czech Republic at all. What was wanted in East Berlin was a neighbour ruled by Czechs themselves who would be free of the Poles who had invaded them. To see that occur, East Germany would stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Candidate X: whatever the West was saying, was all another one of their infamous lies conducted to see both the Czech Republic and the DDR brought to heel under their own foreign rule. That was a position maintained in direct contact between the two capitals in the aftermath too. Down in Prague, Candidate X didn’t believe it though. He considered it likely that East Germany was about to abandon him if that brought with it the end of the attacks upon Honecker’s regime. What could he do with that knowledge though? There was no easy action to take when in such a position. Minister of State Security Schwanitz was the one who spoke with the Czech rebel leader rather than Margot Honecker. She and the majority of the Politburo remained in their bunker under Prenden – that place was a waiting tomb as far as the Stasi head was concerned – while he stayed on the move within East Berlin. When the call came from Prague, he took it and told Candidate X that he was speaking for the whole of the Politburo in his reply. A calm, reasonable tone was used by him with plentiful assurances given. It was unknown to Schwanitz that what he said wasn’t actually believed on the other end: he thought he had done a convincing job. As to the whole matter of throwing the Czech rebels to the wolves, Schwanitz hadn’t been involved in what went on with that. He was pushed aside when it came to Honecker authorising the foreign minister setting up that Geneva meeting. Abandoning the Czechs wasn’t something that he was in on at all. Schwanitz was told after the fact that that was part of the deal offered where the DDR would be able to escape from the war which it was involved in with the Coalition. Livid would be an understatement to describe how he was once that came to light. Additions had been added without his knowledge and he only found out after the fact via that leak from Bonn for their own aims. Without Schwanitz, Honecker wouldn’t have any role at all in the East Germany leadership let alone be the regime leader via her position as general secretary. She should have by rights been pushed aside to allow for a man to take their rightful place as the nation’s top figure. Alas, Schwanitz, plus other securocrats like him from the intelligence & security services, had put Erich Honecker’s widow in power and kept her there. In exchange for what she got, he and they had all of the power and influence that they had. It was a deal struck with both agreed thoroughly with upon initiation. Yet Honecker had decided to do what she did with regards to the offer presented to the Coalition without his approval, nor knowledge even! She was listening to the foreign minister and with him, an opponent of Schwanitz’s whispering in her ear, she thought that that was acceptable. It wasn’t. Just like Candidate X down in Prague, Schwanitz up in East Berlin moved to the plotting stage with the belief that something, anything had to be done to avoid a ghastly outcome for him personally. Chancellor Schäuble made his contact with President Chernomyrdin. The two of them weren’t close at all and had only met once beforehand briefly. Bonn had criticised previous Russian support for the East German regime and also the conflict raging down in the Caucasus which Chernomyrdin might have inherited from Yeltsin yet himself significantly expanded in violence. The disagreements like that were put aside as Schäuble sought to use realpolitik to get what he wanted: an end to the Americans and their allies bombing his fellow Germans over in the DDR. Chernomyrdin was asked for the assistance of Russia in bringing to an end the situation where East Germany was completely at odds with the Coalition and couldn’t be trusted by them to honour any peace agreement. Schäuble wanted Russia to directly involve itself, to use their influence within the DDR to put a stop to East German behaviour in a manner which would satisfy Cuomo in Washington in particular though also Fabius, Prime Minister Heseltine & others. As to how that was to be done, the main factor which Schäuble identified was the East German nuclear weapons programme. Revelations of that had seen that major break in East Berlin-Moscow ties. The DDR was now saying, in a white lie that everyone could see through, that they were ‘only’ developing a peaceful nuclear energy programme instead. Schäuble wanted that lie shoved aside and for Russia to support a West German diplomatic effort to resolve it all. International inspectors, demilitarisation and whatever else it took with regards to that were on the table as far as Schäuble was concerned. Russia could do that, he said, and it also had the right to do it too. The legal successor state to the Soviet Union, Russia retained it victor of WW2 rights over the divided Germany’s. Chernomyrdin asked what was in it for Russia… beyond being involved in putting an end to the nuclear ambitions of DDR for good that was. Schäuble didn’t make any promises though there was talk of a reset in Bonn-Moscow relations: he was willing to see a lot done in exchange for and end to the ongoing conflict that he feared was only going to restart soon enough ahead of that apparent ceasefire. Chernomyrdin said that he needed time to formulate a response. Russia wasn’t opposed to the idea but he couldn’t act without due consideration. Schäuble wanted more though that was all that he was going to get with first contact made. He wasn’t happy yet it was better than a flat no. He and Chernomyrdin agreed to talk again soon enough with both sides working up more detail proposals on how to act. The Americans were listening in once again. Their bugging of their Bonn allies, done on West German soil, saw an instant report delivered to Cuomo. The 42nd President finished early a meeting with leading congressional figures on another important matter to go into a briefing concerning the further actions undertaken by Schäuble as he carried on with his diplomatic activity. The mention of Chernomyrdin’s name, more so than a potential West German-Russian deal, infuriated Cuomo. The Russian president was an unindicted co-conspirator (he had sovereign immunity as a head of state but his partners didn’t) in a legal case being pursued by the US Attorney for the Southern District of New York. It was something all over the media. Russia’s leader was caught up in a major criminal conspiracy using the Bank of New York – the nation’s oldest bank – to launder illegal funds gained by weapons trafficking and other illegal smuggling through that institution. Multiple US-based bank employees were already under arrest with warrants sought for foreigners involved. Chernomyrdin couldn’t be touched but his fingerprints were all over it. Moreover, so too were many East Germans linked unofficially to the regime in East Berlin. Cuomo had taken a personal interest in the case and so that brought about his steadfast outrage at the idea of having Chernomyrdin anywhere near the Coalition’s conflict with the DDR. For Schäuble to do what he was, with the West German leader well aware of the Bank of New York scandal too, was what Cuomo considered to be one big middle finger directed at his administration. That personal issue came alongside anything else. Bonn and Moscow working together to basically screw over the United States was infuriating. Cuomo didn’t believe that the Russians could be trusted to bring the East Germans to heel. Only the Coalition, lead by the United States, could do the job. Instructions went out from Washington: there was to be all opposition possible employed to scupper such an arrangement. That other matter which Cuomo was at the time dealing with, what they were talking about in the meeting which he left when the news of the Chernomyrdin-Schäuble tie-in came, concerned Taiwan. Back the previous month, Taiwan’s president had flown to the United States and spoke at his former university. Beijing had been furious over the matter with the Chinese considering the American visit to be a blatant breach of the ‘One China policy’. Cuomo had acted ahead of time to try and limit the diplomatic unrest yet had been defeated by Congress. His own party had worked with the Republicans to hand-in-hand ensure that Taiwan’s leader came without restriction. He’d gone back home afterwards though that was far from the end of the matter. There was a Chinese military build-up underway. An invasion of Taiwan was considered highly unlikely but the notion couldn’t be completely written off. The Taiwanese were working with their long-established allies right across the partisan divide in Congress to seek protection against any Chinese ‘adventurism’. To Cuomo, that was unacceptable. He decided foreign policy and he would deal with China. Congress had their own ideas on that matter where they believed that, if the situation was unfavourable, Taiwan might be thrown to the wolves. The US Armed Forces were stretched across the globe, more than they had been in a long while. The force assembled in Europe to combat the East Germans was massive and so too was that long-standing deployment into Kuwait to face down Saddam. A crisis in the Taiwan Strait wasn’t wanted at all! Congress wouldn’t listen though. Cuomo returned to trying to deal with that matter after the Chernomyrdin revelations. It was one heck of a complicated balancing act being the world’s policeman. So to deal with East Germany, Cuomo is willing to trow a old ally (Taiwan) under the bus. |
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James G
Squadron vice admiral
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Post by James G on Oct 10, 2021 18:18:13 GMT
Thirty-six – Thrown to the wolvesOfficially, the Coalition hadn’t said anything about limiting the air campaign after the three planned nights of heavy bombing. The military action to force East Germany to comply with the demands issued from Rotterdam in June was to continue throughout July until those were met. Nonetheless, the easing off of what the Coalition was doing after those ferocious trio of night-time attacks occurred and the knowledge of that entered the public arena. In addition, leaked efforts made by the DDR to try and convince the Coalition that the regime wished to comply with the demands also came out: promises of a lack of response to continuing air strikes came with ‘proof’ of that for all to see. Open news of such events galvanised not just the anti-war movement within neighbouring West Germany, but the wider campaign against Operation Allied Sword too from those determined to see it stop. Domestic Danish opposition to their country being at war (and a staging base for Coalition air activity too) was significant and gained a new lease of life in what many Europe-wise started to call a ‘ceasefire’ starting July 5th: there was no ceasefire but that didn’t stop the momentum to have one brought about. Anti-war feeling was pretty strong in the Netherlands as well with many Dutch civilians present at the demonstration outside of Geilenkirchen AB which saw that NATO facility right on the West German-Dutch border overrun by protesters who afterwards refused to leave. Far bigger opposition from political figures and traditional activists was seen in both Britain and France. In the UK, it wasn’t a party political issue. The Labour opposition had committed itself to supporting the Conservative government – that was conditional though – against allowing East Germany to continue what it was doing. Yet, Labour & Conservative MPs from the backbenches of each party broke ranks with the leadership. They showed up at rallies and demonstrations. So too did tens of thousands of ordinary people. Denouncements from the tabloid media, calling them supporters of the Honecker regime, were ignored. They were opposed to war and the killing of innocents. Protests stepped up to end the fighting for good once that apparent ceasefire was in action. Paris and other French cities came to a standstill when marches by tens of thousands of protesters, organised by the French left, blocked roads and shut down businesses. President Fabius had extensive domestic political support but that didn’t translate in complete public backing. The French protesters wanted what those in Britain, Denmark and the Netherlands, plus the many more ones in West Germany too, were demanding: no more bombing. In those four countries – yet not something ignored in other ones of the Coalition – there was a concern among military officers and senior government officials that what had been seen in West Germany where military bases were invaded in instances of mass trespass might occur in their nations as well. Security measures were enacted with contingency plans in-place to react accordingly. The leaking by the West German government of what happened down in Geneva had an affect that had been unseen with regards to the Czech Republic. East Germany was willing to see the regime in Prague thrown to the wolves. Such was how the rebel government in charge there in the Czech capital saw it. Candidate X read for himself those revelations that had come out of the talks in Switzerland. He demanded that the East German ambassador in Prague come to see him and, when the man promptly did, there was a denial made. That was all a Coalition forgery, he said. In fact, the Americans worked with the West Germans on it so as to sew discord between the allies which East Berlin and Prague were. The DDR position was that there was to be no abandonment of the Czech Republic at all. What was wanted in East Berlin was a neighbour ruled by Czechs themselves who would be free of the Poles who had invaded them. To see that occur, East Germany would stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Candidate X: whatever the West was saying, was all another one of their infamous lies conducted to see both the Czech Republic and the DDR brought to heel under their own foreign rule. That was a position maintained in direct contact between the two capitals in the aftermath too. Down in Prague, Candidate X didn’t believe it though. He considered it likely that East Germany was about to abandon him if that brought with it the end of the attacks upon Honecker’s regime. What could he do with that knowledge though? There was no easy action to take when in such a position. Minister of State Security Schwanitz was the one who spoke with the Czech rebel leader rather than Margot Honecker. She and the majority of the Politburo remained in their bunker under Prenden – that place was a waiting tomb as far as the Stasi head was concerned – while he stayed on the move within East Berlin. When the call came from Prague, he took it and told Candidate X that he was speaking for the whole of the Politburo in his reply. A calm, reasonable tone was used by him with plentiful assurances given. It was unknown to Schwanitz that what he said wasn’t actually believed on the other end: he thought he had done a convincing job. As to the whole matter of throwing the Czech rebels to the wolves, Schwanitz hadn’t been involved in what went on with that. He was pushed aside when it came to Honecker authorising the foreign minister setting up that Geneva meeting. Abandoning the Czechs wasn’t something that he was in on at all. Schwanitz was told after the fact that that was part of the deal offered where the DDR would be able to escape from the war which it was involved in with the Coalition. Livid would be an understatement to describe how he was once that came to light. Additions had been added without his knowledge and he only found out after the fact via that leak from Bonn for their own aims. Without Schwanitz, Honecker wouldn’t have any role at all in the East Germany leadership let alone be the regime leader via her position as general secretary. She should have by rights been pushed aside to allow for a man to take their rightful place as the nation’s top figure. Alas, Schwanitz, plus other securocrats like him from the intelligence & security services, had put Erich Honecker’s widow in power and kept her there. In exchange for what she got, he and they had all of the power and influence that they had. It was a deal struck with both agreed thoroughly with upon initiation. Yet Honecker had decided to do what she did with regards to the offer presented to the Coalition without his approval, nor knowledge even! She was listening to the foreign minister and with him, an opponent of Schwanitz’s whispering in her ear, she thought that that was acceptable. It wasn’t. Just like Candidate X down in Prague, Schwanitz up in East Berlin moved to the plotting stage with the belief that something, anything had to be done to avoid a ghastly outcome for him personally. Chancellor Schäuble made his contact with President Chernomyrdin. The two of them weren’t close at all and had only met once beforehand briefly. Bonn had criticised previous Russian support for the East German regime and also the conflict raging down in the Caucasus which Chernomyrdin might have inherited from Yeltsin yet himself significantly expanded in violence. The disagreements like that were put aside as Schäuble sought to use realpolitik to get what he wanted: an end to the Americans and their allies bombing his fellow Germans over in the DDR. Chernomyrdin was asked for the assistance of Russia in bringing to an end the situation where East Germany was completely at odds with the Coalition and couldn’t be trusted by them to honour any peace agreement. Schäuble wanted Russia to directly involve itself, to use their influence within the DDR to put a stop to East German behaviour in a manner which would satisfy Cuomo in Washington in particular though also Fabius, Prime Minister Heseltine & others. As to how that was to be done, the main factor which Schäuble identified was the East German nuclear weapons programme. Revelations of that had seen that major break in East Berlin-Moscow ties. The DDR was now saying, in a white lie that everyone could see through, that they were ‘only’ developing a peaceful nuclear energy programme instead. Schäuble wanted that lie shoved aside and for Russia to support a West German diplomatic effort to resolve it all. International inspectors, demilitarisation and whatever else it took with regards to that were on the table as far as Schäuble was concerned. Russia could do that, he said, and it also had the right to do it too. The legal successor state to the Soviet Union, Russia retained it victor of WW2 rights over the divided Germany’s. Chernomyrdin asked what was in it for Russia… beyond being involved in putting an end to the nuclear ambitions of DDR for good that was. Schäuble didn’t make any promises though there was talk of a reset in Bonn-Moscow relations: he was willing to see a lot done in exchange for and end to the ongoing conflict that he feared was only going to restart soon enough ahead of that apparent ceasefire. Chernomyrdin said that he needed time to formulate a response. Russia wasn’t opposed to the idea but he couldn’t act without due consideration. Schäuble wanted more though that was all that he was going to get with first contact made. He wasn’t happy yet it was better than a flat no. He and Chernomyrdin agreed to talk again soon enough with both sides working up more detail proposals on how to act. The Americans were listening in once again. Their bugging of their Bonn allies, done on West German soil, saw an instant report delivered to Cuomo. The 42nd President finished early a meeting with leading congressional figures on another important matter to go into a briefing concerning the further actions undertaken by Schäuble as he carried on with his diplomatic activity. The mention of Chernomyrdin’s name, more so than a potential West German-Russian deal, infuriated Cuomo. The Russian president was an unindicted co-conspirator (he had sovereign immunity as a head of state but his partners didn’t) in a legal case being pursued by the US Attorney for the Southern District of New York. It was something all over the media. Russia’s leader was caught up in a major criminal conspiracy using the Bank of New York – the nation’s oldest bank – to launder illegal funds gained by weapons trafficking and other illegal smuggling through that institution. Multiple US-based bank employees were already under arrest with warrants sought for foreigners involved. Chernomyrdin couldn’t be touched but his fingerprints were all over it. Moreover, so too were many East Germans linked unofficially to the regime in East Berlin. Cuomo had taken a personal interest in the case and so that brought about his steadfast outrage at the idea of having Chernomyrdin anywhere near the Coalition’s conflict with the DDR. For Schäuble to do what he was, with the West German leader well aware of the Bank of New York scandal too, was what Cuomo considered to be one big middle finger directed at his administration. That personal issue came alongside anything else. Bonn and Moscow working together to basically screw over the United States was infuriating. Cuomo didn’t believe that the Russians could be trusted to bring the East Germans to heel. Only the Coalition, lead by the United States, could do the job. Instructions went out from Washington: there was to be all opposition possible employed to scupper such an arrangement. That other matter which Cuomo was at the time dealing with, what they were talking about in the meeting which he left when the news of the Chernomyrdin-Schäuble tie-in came, concerned Taiwan. Back the previous month, Taiwan’s president had flown to the United States and spoke at his former university. Beijing had been furious over the matter with the Chinese considering the American visit to be a blatant breach of the ‘One China policy’. Cuomo had acted ahead of time to try and limit the diplomatic unrest yet had been defeated by Congress. His own party had worked with the Republicans to hand-in-hand ensure that Taiwan’s leader came without restriction. He’d gone back home afterwards though that was far from the end of the matter. There was a Chinese military build-up underway. An invasion of Taiwan was considered highly unlikely but the notion couldn’t be completely written off. The Taiwanese were working with their long-established allies right across the partisan divide in Congress to seek protection against any Chinese ‘adventurism’. To Cuomo, that was unacceptable. He decided foreign policy and he would deal with China. Congress had their own ideas on that matter where they believed that, if the situation was unfavourable, Taiwan might be thrown to the wolves. The US Armed Forces were stretched across the globe, more than they had been in a long while. The force assembled in Europe to combat the East Germans was massive and so too was that long-standing deployment into Kuwait to face down Saddam. A crisis in the Taiwan Strait wasn’t wanted at all! Congress wouldn’t listen though. Cuomo returned to trying to deal with that matter after the Chernomyrdin revelations. It was one heck of a complicated balancing act being the world’s policeman. So to deal with East Germany, Cuomo is willing to trow a old ally (Taiwan) under the bus. No, no, no. Just multi-tasking. Congress thinks he will though. Much of that actually happening in 1995/96: see the Third Taiwan Strait Crisis. |
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lordroel
Administrator
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Post by lordroel on Oct 10, 2021 18:22:22 GMT
So to deal with East Germany, Cuomo is willing to trow a old ally (Taiwan) under the bus. No, no, no. Just multi-tasking. Congress thinks he will though. Much of that actually happening in 1995/96: see the Third Taiwan Strait Crisis. So no Fourth Taiwan Strait Crisis with China taking advantage of how far they can go now the United States is dealing with East Germany. |
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James G
Squadron vice admiral
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Post by James G on Oct 11, 2021 17:56:03 GMT
No, no, no. Just multi-tasking. Congress thinks he will though. Much of that actually happening in 1995/96: see the Third Taiwan Strait Crisis. So no Fourth Taiwan Strait Crisis with China taking advantage of how far they can go now the United States is dealing with East Germany. It would be the Third. First in 1955, second in 1958. What happened in OTL 1995-96, and is approaching now ITTL, would be #3. The fear in DC is that China is eyeing up a prize. |
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James G
Squadron vice admiral
Posts: 7,608
Likes: 8,833
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Post by James G on Oct 11, 2021 17:57:57 GMT
Thirty-seven – In the shadows
The Stasi had gotten into the brothel business in Stuttgart back in the early Seventies. They’d opened an illegal establishment in a rundown part of the city and two more had joined the first in the following decades. There was no sign above the door announcing that it was a front for HVA intelligence operations and most of those who worked there had no idea of that. The trio of brothels turned a profit, with that going back to the ‘specialised projects fund’ in East Berlin. Stuttgart was a military town with the Americans present and there were operations run form there using non-East German girls – West Germans, Austrians, even young French ladies – where they used their particular talents to ease information out of selected targets. Those agents usually didn’t even have a full concept of whom exactly they were working for either. The brothels doubled as safe houses at times due to their unique status: passer-bys didn’t pay attention to the comings & goings of strange men at all hours. The big US military headquarters on the edge of Stuttgart had been twice targeted by East German ballistic missiles during the conflict in July 1995. Those attacks, and the fear of others, had seen many people leave the city while others had spent a lot of time in air raid shelters. Business dried up fast with each brothel shutting down. There were certainly no Americans to pay a visit and also the police were patrolling the streets too. Other businesses had shut their doors and so the close down of ‘entertainment’ offered wasn’t noted as significant.
Brothel #1 (the first one opened back in ‘72) had been emptied of its workers and there were new guests there. They hadn’t come for the usual services on offer. Instead, the nine men spent their time doubling-up in the rooms available while staying out of sight. They were East German commandos dispatched to Stuttgart ahead of the shooting starting and needing a place out of sight as a planned base of operations. While wearing civilian attire and also carrying false identity papers, they were in fact paramilitary personnel from the Stasi’s own Felix Dzerzhinsky Guards Division. That huge unit had multiple spezialaufklärungskommando detachments on-strength with them spread across the length & breath of West Germany. None had seen any action including the one hiding in the Stuttgart brothel. The building had been filled with weapons – assault rifles, rocket launchers, satchel charges etc. – for their use and before they had entered West Germany via the Czech Republic they had been briefed upon various contingency plans for possible operations to undertake when in-country. Operations against Patch Barracks were several of those due to it hosting the US European Command HQ but none had taken place.
The men had been holed-up where they were... going a bit crazy struck inside. Their leader, an ambitious captain, wanted them to see action, even if the mission for them might be one of great risk. He had faith in himself and his men. To keep them inactive was a crime when his country was under attack. More than that, it ruined their morale. Yet, his orders told him to stay put. Those came from the brothel’s madam. A fierce-looking, unpleasant woman, she’d spent almost twelve years living in West Germany under the false identity of that country. The DDR was what she served yet it had been a long time since she’d been home. Nonetheless, her commitment to the HVA was complete. She kept the captain on a tight leash and made sure that none of his men went outside nor did anything to compromise their security. She waited upon the receipt of instructions to send them off into action. If it wasn’t to be that big American headquarters – where it appeared that US EUCOM operations had departed from –, then it would be somewhere else. Or, if the ceasefire that seemed to have arrived continued, then they’d been going home. Either way, whatever the end result was of the commandos being in Stuttgart, that would come about due to orders from home.
There were British special forces soldiers on the ground in East Germany alongside American and French teams likewise operating in the shadows. Several SAS eight-man patrols had crossed over the Inner-German Border – on foot or via low-level helicopter insertion – since the beginning of the conflict. None of them had done any significant in terms of undertaking high risk, high profile operations. To the SAS men sent in, that was considered a wise move. Several were veterans of the fighting in Iraq four years beforehand and were glad that wiser heads had prevailed back in Britain when it came to considering what to have them doing. There was no glory to be won by foolishly losing their lives within the heavily-militarised country which was the DDR. The nation was seemingly rammed full of the uniformed and armed enemy. East Germany had called out almost everyone that they could in that ‘people’s war’ which their leader had declared that her country was ready to fight to defend itself. There were checkpoints, patrols and sweeps taking place without pause where they were looking for the SAS, Green Berets, Navy SEALs and French commandos The western border areas and the northern coastline had seen extensive surveillance where there was a hunt on for infiltrators coming in with one of the American attempts forestalled. Other Americans had gotten in though and so too had the SAS. There were access points that had been exploited and those had generally been in the rough country offered by places such as the Thuringwald and the Harz Mountains. Once inside, using all means possible, the special forces teams had struck deeper while staying out of sight. They conducted silent operations of surveillance, intelligence-gathering and helping to assist in the rescues of downed airmen with as little active involvement of themselves that the East Germans could detect. No recall orders had come their way after several days inside despite all that was being said back home of a possible ceasefire between the DDR and the Coalition.
Golf One Zero was one of the SAS patrols. They were up in the Middle Harz, the highest and most isolated parts of that mountain range. Evading contact with the enemy was their mission. The Grenztruppen were active and so too reserve elements of the East German Army, yet those eight Britons did everything to stay out of their way. Killing those they came across wasn’t what they had been sent to do: that would make noise when their task was to do anything but alert the East Germans to their presence. If the worst happened though, they were ready for a fight. They lugged around with them as they kept on moving a good deal of weaponry. Led by a captain from the Parachute Regiment, none of the patrol were inexperienced. One of them had been spooked on the first night in though. He’d thought he’d seen a ‘damn big scary cat’ stalking them. His buddies had joked with him yet they knew he might have been right. A lynx was possible to have been lurking about… maybe. Still, it could have been the shadows playing tricks on him and the banter kept morale up among them. A descending parachute was seen on the second day in-country. Down came not a Coalition friendly but instead an East German pilot shot out of the sky. He landed within a hundred odd yards of their then hidden position. Rifle barrels were trained on him. The MiG pilot saw nothing though and went off looking for friendly lines. Perhaps Golf One Zero could have taken him out, yet perhaps doing so would have ultimately cost them. That wasn’t what they were sent into the DDR to do. Instead, they successfully located a forward-deployed Scud battery with trucks and trailers having come up high into the depths of the forest. With MILAN man-portable missiles, the SAS could have had themselves some fun. That wasn’t done either. What was done was what they were tasked to do: call it in. An air strike later came with the SAS men watching close-by not seeing whom did that but feeling the result from the explosive blasts. Afterwards, Golf One Zero prepared to move onwards to look for further targets to include the SAM battery which had fired upon by failed to hit the attacking aircraft. New orders came though.
Once evening fell, the SAS men crawled forward to where the Scud battery had been blown up. The surviving East Germans had long departed and left behind a smashed up weapons battery. Golf One Zero was sent in by someone back to the west wanting to know if the missile unit had in fact been real. The Iraqis had used fake Scuds in the Gulf War and it was known that the East Germans had their own. The captain had been damn confident that he called in that air strike against a real target though. Alas, when his men carefully reached the ruins of the carnage which they had caused, it was discovered that the trickery had worked. The missile launch vehicles, the support vehicles and everything about the entire battery was a damn charade! What a falsehood it was too. Everything looked real, even felt real to the touch. The attacking pilots and the crew in the stand-off surveillance aircraft would have likewise felt that they struck a real target. Nonetheless, they’d shot-up a plastic fake. Golf One Zero confirmed that they had been tricked and moved on towards a broadcast spot for their report and then also a new hiding place. Morale sunk with what had been discovered. They’d all been made fools of. The knowledge that so too had others, superiors back home, did nothing to lessen that slap in the face that it had been plastic blown to bits.
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There's a lot that could happen here.