People's War

Slovakia and... a second country too, another neighbour.
International reactions to all of this, against the backdrop of all the rest of the actions of the DDR regime, comes next.

East Germany is fast becoming TNO's Ordenstaat Burgund; basically inciting wars between other states without the warring sides knowing.

Think both side will accuse each other of being rebels while claiming to be the official government.

Ten – Foreign assistance


East Germany’s national airline, Interflug, had never been a financial success story. The global oil mess of the Seventies had done incalculable damage though, still, the airline needed state support because it just couldn’t compete properly on the global stage. At one point in the late Eighties, there had been a moment when things had been looking bright for Interflug though. It had taken advantage of the restriction against West Germany’s national carrier – Lufthansa – using West Berlin and flown holiday-makers from that country (out of West Berlin but also elsewhere in the ‘other Germany’) to European destinations. Interflug used an airport on the very edges of West Berlin, inside DDR territory and thus not subject to the same restrictions, to collect passengers and fly them cheap to foreign resort destinations. That brought in that ever-so valued foreign currency that East Germany craved. Alas, the ‘happy time’ didn’t last too long. The cash-strapped government couldn’t keep providing support and there was also the issue of Interflug’s fleet mainly being Soviet-built aircraft that were old, had high fuel consumption and faced restrictions due to excessive noise across many Western destinations. Civil war in the former Yugoslavia hurt the airline too where the Dalmatian coast was off limits for West Germans seeking sunshine. A top of all of that, Interflug faced several high-profile accidents: there were crashes in Belgium (1991), near Hamburg (‘92) and in the Tyrrhenian Sea (‘94). Western governments banned Interflug from their airspace and landing at their airports due to the noise and pollution from those old aircraft: that came alongside those sanctions as well. There were a handful of Airbus jets but they couldn’t take up the load that the airline needed to keep going. Only at the direct intervention of the West German government did Interflug manage to continue a service to that country due to the desire to not see the DDR completely shut off from the West with the fear that that would make the situation inside the DDR even worse. Most remaining destinations by the middle of 1995 were places within the former Eastern Bloc and elsewhere in the communist/unfriendly world too. Baghdad, Beijing, Belgrade, Damascus, Havana, Moscow, Tripoli had Interflug flights too them along with Western destinations of Bonn, Helsinki and Vienna. None of that was regular though and none of it was in any way making a profit. It was mainly a propaganda thing for the East German regime. To keep the remaining aircraft flying, shortcuts were taken with maintenance and there was even state-organised theft of spare parts (even a whole engine for an Ilyushin-62 at one point!) ongoing.

In the middle of May 1995, as the Czech Civil War was in its early stages, one of the bi-weekly flights to Moscow made by Interflug departed from Schönefeld Airport – right there on the outskirts of the divided Berlin – and flew eastwards. As soon as the unarmed passenger jet entered Polish airspace, a pair of MiG-23s in Polish Air Force colours intercepted the airliner. It was instructed over open radio channels to vacant Polish airspace at once or it would be forced to do so. The pilot of the Tupolev-154 refused to do that. The demand was outrageous and he reminded those fighter pilots (plus many outsiders surely listening in) that he was flying an unarmed commercial passenger jet along a recognised air route in peacetime. He would continue onwards. No he wouldn’t came the retort. The MiGs didn’t open fire but came in closer, real close, and right up to almost the wing-tips. They began to try and force the aircraft to make a turn to starboard. That was a difficult and damn dangerous thing to do. No ‘bumping’ was done but it almost came to that. The intent on the part of the Poles was clear: they were willing to risk everything to see the Interflug Tu-154 do as demanded. Finally, the East German airliner complied. An announcement was made that it would be leaving Polish airspace and going back to the DDR. The MiGs eased off though followed the airliner almost all the way back to the frontier. Polish airspace was closed to East German aircraft no matter what their intentions and from Warsaw, the foreign ministry soon made that public too.


During the first few weeks of the fighting inside the Czech Republic where there were two sides claiming legitimacy, and fighting each other with all that they had, there was little outside interference. Many claims were made that there was that yet those were false: either mistakes or malicious lies. East Germany had unwillingly instigated the civil war there though didn’t directly intervene during May. Candidate X had installed himself successfully in Prague and his forces were on the ascendency as they took over a good portion of the country. Klaus’ government was the first to request outside support. Pleas were made to the Polish and Slovak governments for military aid in terms of supplies of weaponry. All of those former Warsaw Pact nations operated the same equipment and munitions were practically interchangeable. Shells, rockets and missiles were requested to replace the diminished supplies on-hand that government forces went through fast. The Slovaks were uneasy about doing that. In Bratislava they didn’t want to see the government of Klaus fall yet were weary of getting involved in a civil war inside the Czech Republic. No outright refusal was made but there was a delay in getting back to the Czechs. No such behaviour came from Warsaw. Poland offered more than was asked for, even tanks and other heavy warfighting gear too rather than just munitions. Czech military aircraft which had fled to Poland by deserters who didn’t want to see them used against fellow Czechs were also to be handed over too to the Klaus government. Furthermore, President Borusewicz affirmed that that the Czech-Polish defensive alliance was still active as far as Warsaw was concerned. He declared that East Germany was actively supporting the rebels and he considered that a violation of Czech sovereignty that should bring with it Polish direct military assistance. Klaus stalled on that at first, seeking to keep the fight an all-Czech affair.

That position didn’t last long though. The rebels began an offensive into Moravia at the beginning of June and won early victories both on the ground and in the air. The Battle of Jihlava was won by rebel troops where they opened up the highway for the beginning of the start of a continued drive down towards Brno. Polish weapons deliveries had yet to arrive among troops on the front-lines. More than that though, government forces were just not strong enough to win at Jihlava just like they weren’t where the city of Budejovice was secured over in the Bohemian Forest as well. The taking of that second location came with it the shutting down of many of the ‘easy’ ways out for Czechs seeking to leave the country due to its major transportation links to both Austria and West Germany. Those fights on the ground where the rebels won big came with a dominance established in the air. They were doing a lot better than government forces were when it came to fighter missions as well as providing close-air support. MiGs & Sukhois clashed in the skies, a lot of time with regrettable friendly fire incidents too, as well as making a big impact on the ground war. Polish military convoys entering government-held areas then came under aerial attack. On June 4th and then too a day later, flights of fighter-bombers as well as armed Mil-24 helicopters on long-range missions shot up truck columns coming from Polish Silesia towards Ostrava. The attacks were made in Czech territory (government-controlled) by rebel aircraft & helicopters though Poles were the victims. An argument was made that the Czech rebels had every right to do that as those were foreigners on Czech soil though that would give the rebels the legitimacy that everyone else said they didn’t have.

The night after the second major attack, when a further convoy was entering the Czech Republic once more carrying much-needed munitions to keep Klaus’ forces in the fight, Czech rebel Su-22s came towards the trucks with rockets and bombs again. They had forward air controllers – commandos deep in enemy territory – in-place ready to guide in what should have been a devastating third air attack. Polish MiG-29 fighters engaged them though, flying inside Czech skies when doing so with Poland actively taking a side in the conflict. Klaus had given approval after the defeats at Jihlava and Budejovice had caused great despondency that the rebels were about to win. The Slovaks had earlier that day finally relented on sending aid but the Poles and their fighters were of more immediate importance. A trio of Su-22s went down with two more taking emergency evasive action and flying back to Pardubice. Additional Polish air strikes were made the following day where they used Su-22s of their own to conduct air strikes against Czech rebel ground troops fighting to secure the small town of Krnov. Krnov was right on the Czech-Polish border and the air power – which unfortunately killed civilians too – helped keep it in government hands despite it being near cut off. All of that Polish air activity there in early June was unannounced. The Poles flew the same models of aircraft that the two sides fighting the Czech civil war had in service themselves (both the East Germans and Slovaks also had MiG-29s & Su-22s as well). It was meant to look like Czech government aircraft in action to anyone who asked though in Warsaw, Borusewicz knew that those in Prague, East Berlin and elsewhere would know the difference. Such an escalation brought about what was with hindsight an inevitable reaction.


East Germany provided foreign assistance too.

It was at first secretive in a public sense though in East Berlin, Margot Honecker, who had serious disputes with a certain few Politburo members over it all, wanted the Poles to know that the DDR was likewise getting involved. Those dissenters had previously strongly cautioned against any ‘adventures’ inside the Czech Republic but were once more overruled. The whole mess just got bigger and bigger for the DDR, going far beyond what the initial justification. Yet, their country’s head of state, and also the securocrats around her, took the opposite view. Securing a friendly neighbour to exploit on the country’s border had started out of murdering the Czech president then instigating a coup that had turned into igniting a civil war. Risking a regional war with other countries was the outcome as the middle of June 1995 approached. The East German Air Force put fighters in Czech skies to support the efforts of the rebel Czechs and also moved long-range anti-aircraft missiles right up against the Czech-DDR border. While those SAM systems remained on East German soil, and the fighters flew from DDR bases, their tasking was to act in foreign skies. In addition, troops were sent into the Czech Republic as well. There was no deployment of tank divisions nor the entry of paratroopers to aid the fighting (the 40th Air Assault Brigade was held ready to do that should the worst happen though) but instead commandos from the Felix Dzerzhinsky Guards Division. Fifteen thousand strong, that paramilitary unit belonged to the Stasi rather than the East German Army as the paratroopers did. There were special forces units attached to the division and many of them were soon given orders to begin to make secret deployments across the Ore Mountains along with military advisers to act as liaison officers. Aircraft and helicopters flew them into the Czech Republic and the commandos began to operate far from the where the front-lines lay. Instead, those commandos went deep into enemy territory and also quickly saw combat where they helped the Czech rebels. The air power and SAM assistance was more valued though.

East German MiG-29s and the SA-10 Grumbles were soon in action. Czech government aircraft were shot down and then, come June 10th, one of those missile batteries took down a pair of Polish fighter-bombers flying over Moravia heading for Caslav Airbase. Neither side in the Czech civil war operated that missile system after Czech SA-10s had been gifted to Slovakia in 1993. The missile launchers were undeniably East German in origin. The Poles knew what hit their aircraft soon enough though before they did, NATO governments did too. There were military SIGINT activities underway by multiple Western nations as they monitored the Czech civil war for foreign involvement. Those verified the use of those East German SAMs with later additional confirmation coming from governmental intelligence agencies also being put to use by countries such as America, Britain and France too. The targeting of those Polish aircraft was believed to have been deliberate. Czech rebel MiGs had been ‘waved off’ by East German military officers on the ground in the country acting an undeclared advisers. The SA-10s were employed instead with a launch whose authority came from high up the DDR command chain. The East Germans shot those aircraft down where they purposefully targeted the Poles. Their commitment to the fighting inside the Czech Republic by doing such a thing as that brought about even further uproar in Western capitals. Public calls were already being made by politicians and public figures outside governments directly, and those only got louder once revelations came of direct East German military action.

3 in so far. That number will grow.

   The other big unknown so far is what Moscow's reaction will be. It has tried to support the E German regime and is far less friendly than OTL Yeltsin's Russia but with the situation escalating so much does it double [as the E Germans keep doing] or drop out to avoid the fall-out.  Which I hope will be political and military but non-nuclear but given its a James TL and what he's said about a EG bomb project is a definite danger.

Eleven – Way too far


Towards the end of 1994, a bombshell in American politics had seen the Republican Revolution happen where control of both houses of Congress was lost by the Democrats. Entrenched there they had been yet the Republicans pulled off a shock and won a majority in the Senate and House from the Democrats. President Cuomo was a Democrat and the campaign by the Republicans had focused a great deal on him and his presidency despite those elections being mid-terms and not where Cuomo was himself on the ballot. His scandal-hit administration was where Republican efforts were concentrated with their message being that they, through Congress, could do a better job of governing the United States than he could. It was a groundbreaking election, a turning point in national politics. Only two years beforehand, Cuomo had won the White House after defeating an incumbent president where majorities then held were expanded upon when Congressional races were had in ‘92. There had come scandal after scandal though with members of his administration as well as allegations of misdoings by him & his staff when he was governor of New York state. The love life of the unmarried vice president had been all over the news and Cuomo had seen his education and transportation secretaries forced from office. Investigations underway in Albany (the New York state capital) looking into his tenure there had dominated the news. The Republicans had run a tightly-controlled national campaign rather than individual ones while Cuomo’s party had been beset by division when it had come to the ‘94 elections. The Republican Revolution had pushed previously near unknown Members of Congress from that party into national prominence in the aftermath of victory. Texan congressman Dick Armey was one of them. In June ‘95, when the Czech civil war was raging, Armey publicly called for direct US military intervention in that conflict.

Cuomo was no interventionist. American military operations against Iraq in both early ‘93 and late ‘94 had been something he had declared to members of his administration as action he had been bamboozled in to. It was the same with air operations to enforce a no-fly zone above Bosnia. Still, there had been no direct American involvement on the ground in the wars which raged throughout the former Yugoslavia, and also in Africa. When it had come to the surviving East Germany, there had been a hands-off approach. Sanctions were in-place yet they were European-led. Influential figures in Congress, even within his own administration, had long wanted more done but Cuomo had resisted such a thing. Domestic affairs was his focus where he tried to get on with the business of governing and transforming America. Throughout the last years of the Bush Administration and then into his own presidency, there had been briefing after briefing from the US Intelligence Community when it came to what East Germany was up to. The arms smuggling and sanction busting was known about. So too were the relationships maintained with such rotten regimes as those in Iraq, Libya, Serbia and Syria. Cuomo agreed to see that combatted but never allowed those in the Intelligence Community to go all-out. The Europeans didn’t want war despite all their bluster and neither did he. The hope in the president was that East Germany would collapse due to internal pressure. Every year there were confident assurances made by commentators that that would happen that year… with those repeated the next year too. Killing Havel, framing Klaus for murder and then backing a coup in the Czech Republic was outrageous behaviour as far as Cuomo was concerned. However, that didn’t force him to consider armed conflict with East Germany. He believed that his outlook on that was shared by the majority of Americans, those who didn’t beat the drumbeat for conflict via the media at every given opportunity, and he also was sure that his country’s allies in Europe shared that thinking. Such views of others moved though: domestically and internationally. What the regime of Margot Honecker did in May and June of ‘95 caused a reconsideration among so many. DDR activities in the Czech Republic were the final straw for many. East Germany had gone past being just a pariah into a hostile state that needed dealing with. When news broke that they had attacked the Poles – inside the Czech Republic admittedly – that galvanised those who had come to the conclusion that war was inevitable between the DDR and the West. Steadfast opposition came from Cuomo to that though. He didn’t want to take military action no matter what. The United States wasn’t the world’s policeman, he told his cabinet, and while East German actions were despicable, that wasn’t enough to see him take his country to war.

Armey had been talked about as being a candidate for the following year’s presidential election. That talk wasn’t really serious: he was a congressman and common logic demanded that governors, senators or those with equal government experience were presidential material. In a hypothetical contest, Cuomo was comfortable that he could beat Armey in such a 1996 race. However, because he had such a public profile, when the congressman demanded that the United States launch military action against East Germany notice was taken. Democrats, Republicans, the media and the public were all talking about what he was. There was support and opposition both to such a suggestion. Cuomo’s spokesman was asked about it at an official White House press event. The position of the Cuomo Administration, that put on the spot spokesman said, was that the United States wasn’t going to war due to events in the Czech Republic. NATO allies hadn’t been attacked and neither had direct US interests. American lives weren’t going to be put at risk in that situation.


Across the Atlantic, Michael Howard had been serving as the Home Secretary in Major’s government during 1994. Heseltine had sought to move him to the Education Department when he had assumed the premiership of the UK: Howard had resigned from the Cabinet rather than take that demotion after earlier disagreements with the new prime minister. It cut short his career and Howard had privately considered afterwards that he had been too quick to make a fight of it all rather than compromise. Nonetheless, what had been done had been done and Howard had left the government. He had remained an MP though and while on the backbenches had taken more of an interest in foreign affairs than he previously had done. East Germany was a bugbear among many MPs in the Commons, either on the government benches or those of the opposition, where party political loyalty was blurred when it came to the wish to see that country dealt with properly. Both Major and Heseltine had faced criticism from those such as Howard over the ‘free ride’ given to the DDR by the British Government. That view wasn’t shared among the Cabinet but many Britons did agree. East Germany was a hostile regime which oppressed its people and should have fallen just like the rest of the Eastern Bloc.

The reactions of the Heseltine Government to revelations of East German activity in the Czech Republic during Spring 1995 were criticised. The PM and his inner people asked what more they could do than they already were? The response which came back were calls for military actions short of actual war. Direct help for the Czech Republic was demanded to take place along with ‘stopping’ East Germany. That couldn’t be done without armed conflict though. Like was the case with Bosnia, where Major had half-heartedly taken the UK into that conflict where British troops were indirectly involved in peacekeeping (there wasn’t much of that too keep) under UN auspices, Heseltine had no inkling to see his country get involved in the Czech civil war. Further exposures of East Germany activity and then the military attacks made against Polish military units pushed Howard and his call for war to the forefront though. Should Britain go to war or not was all the media would talk about soon enough. While not alone, Howard was right out at the front of that. He was in front of the cameras saying that Britain had to act and he was joined within the Commons by other MPs saying the same thing.

Across Western Europe, there were similar situations ongoing. Governments themselves weren’t keen in any way to get involved in what was going on despite denouncing East German activity. There was a civil war raging in the Czech Republic where Czechs were fighting Czechs. Support was there for Klaus and his embattled legitimate government, with no room given to Candidate X inside Prague to spread his message of his own false legitimacy. Regardless, governments across the continent didn’t want war. East German activities though wouldn’t cease. They in fact escalated, making the situation more deadly in the Czech Republic and emboldening those who were calling for war. Across the Low Countries, up in Scandinavia, through France, Italy and down into the Iberian nations, loud calls were made for military intervention. The East Germans had to be stopped, the demands were made, and governments had to act. Then there was West Germany. What a mess the government found itself in with that. Chancellor Schäuble absolutely didn’t want to see his country fight fellow Germans, nor in fact did he want to see anyone else do so. The talk of bombing the DDR or launching missile strikes against East German units active over the Czech Republic left him aghast. West Germans inside and out of government shared that view. There was a minority though, those who did want to see something done. They had no unifying figure nor exact course of action (what exactly to do was something that divided them) but their numbers grew. They said that East Germany had to be stopped, even if that meant military action where Germans would kill Germans.


Perhaps those calls for intervention from Western countries might have died down eventually... perhaps. Yet they didn’t, not when come mid-June, East Germany escalated its activities. There was further military action of theirs undertaken and deadly clashes first with the Poles before strikes were made against the Slovaks as well. The Czech civil war expanded significantly into neighbouring countries.

What East Germany did went way too far. Their intervention became more open, more deadly and more expansive. Those seeking to force their own countries to get involved had a lot of the ‘I told you so’ attitude that upset some, but they were correct in what they had been saying. The DDR was completely out of control and its belligerent, horrific course of action was recognised as causing a general European war. They had to be stopped, so many more agreed, after what occurred on June 13th.