My best friend from high school was in the Berlin Brigade, '88-92. He told me the Berlin police were curiously heavily armed, having rifles and AT weapons, almost like light infantry.
On top of that, West Germany had 3 airborne brigades. If one is fighting defensively, what good are those? Fighting in an urban area behind enemy lines, that's more like their style. No idea if that was true, but that's what this wargamer often did. FWIW, I almost always bypassed West Berlin when I played the Pact, leaving the ugly fighting to the Polish armies coming up on mid-game turns.
So, yeah, I agree that the Stasi had to have been in on the unification; the Soviets in and around Berlin had much bigger fish to fry when the West Germans crossed the border and the East Germans flipped sides. I'd have to check, but wouldn't the SGFG now be outnumbered?
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My Twilight claim to fame: I ran "Allegheny Uprising" at Allegheny College, spring of 1988.
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