The Soviets
German relations with the Soviet Union are uniformly bad due to four years of warfare and the nuclear attack on Germany, but they have also been complicated because of historical rivalry dating from the Second World War period through to the Cold War division of Germany. A recurrent theme in West German-Soviet relations since the end of the Second World War has been Soviet concerns about a resurgence of German militarism, and West German concerns about an invasion or nuclear attack from the Soviet Union. Despite West Germany normalising relations with East Germany and showing a willingness to pacify Soviet concern about German rearmament or territorial revanchism, the Soviets continually feared a unified and rearmed Germany. Although the West German government signed the Non-proliferation of Nuclear Weapons Treaty, the Helsinki Accords and validated the Oder-Neisse line dividing East Germany from Poland, which recognized the hegemony of the Soviet Union over Eastern Europe and the existing territorial boundaries of the European states, they refused to recognise East German sovereignty or resolve the border issues between the two German states. From 1980 West German relations with the Soviet Union began to deteriorate over its support of NATO's placing of American Pershing II and Cruise missiles in Western European countries to counter the Soviet deployment of SS-20s targeted on Western Europe. There was also a noticeable decline in Soviet relations with East Germany in this period, with the East German regime continuing to pursue closer economic relations with West Germany and seeking more autonomy in its domestic policy, despite retaining close military ties with the Soviet Union. Although the East German government continued to recognise the unquestioned leadership of the Soviet Union, there was an emergent feeling within both German states that their relations with each other were being held hostage by rivalry between the Soviet Union and the United States. Among the officer cadres of the East and West German militaries there was also concern that the Super Powers and the rest of Europe were willing to allow Germany to be used as a nuclear battlefield in any future conflict, and that their armed forces were being controlled and kept down. As Soviet politicians continued to accuse West Germany or militarism into the 1990’s and became increasingly confrontational in Europe, the Middle East and the Far East senior East German officers secretly contacted West German counterparts to discuss closer German relations and possible future reunification. With East German troops taking heavy casualties in supporting the Soviet war with China, plans were accelerated leading to the events of German Reunification in October 1996 and the German-Soviet War.
In Germany in 2001 the Soviet Union is widely disliked and feared as in German eyes the Soviets were responsible for the destruction of Germany in both of the last two world wars. The recent Third German Army offensive against Soviet forces occupying parts of Eastern Germany pushed the Soviet 2nd and 20th Guards Army across the Oder-Neisse line into Poland, clearing Soviet forces from German territory for the fourth time since 1996. However the divisions of the Soviet 1st and 2nd Southwestern Fronts still occupy the entire eastern half of Austria, and a few Russian advisors remain with the East German garrison that occupies Rugen Island. The unrelenting nature of the conflict with the Soviets has drained the resources of the German Army, limiting its capacity to pacify the rest of the nation and confront the French occupying German territory in the Rhineland. Unlike other Warsaw Pact armies whose morale has collapsed or who have become more nationalist focused, the Soviets still remain a largely functional force in Central Europe at least. However signs that there morale is also starting to deteriorate is evident in the recent defection of the Soviet 94th Cavalry Division to NATO, and intelligence sources believe that many Soviet divisions are unwilling to comply with orders to take offensive action. Also desertion has become a problem within many Soviet units, with many Soviet and Warsaw Pact units affected by the problems of desertion and mutiny, although other than a few small roving bands of criminals most don’t cross the border into Germany in large numbers. However the activities of the former Soviet 30th Guards Motorised Rifle Division is particularly troublesome to civilians in south-eastern Germany. The entire division deserted in late 1998 while in control of the town of Pirna after the commander was killed in action, and the executive officer and his subordinates set themselves up as a local warlord terrorising communities across the area. The division had a strength of 4,000 men and 18 tanks before the commanders deserted and it has attracted more deserters and criminal elements from various sources in this region since. However internal rivalry in 2000 split the marauding division with the executive officer retaining half of the force and most of its combat vehicles, while the remainder forming scattered bands of marauders in the region. Pressure from the German Third Army has further dispersed the division, with most of it fleeing to Southern Poland but it still plagues the borderlands between Germany, Poland and Czechoslovakia.
Some Western intelligence agencies believe that the Soviet threat in Europe is now declining as the Soviet armies are being gradually withdrawn to the Soviet Union. However German military analysts would point to the fact that there are still 22 active Soviet divisions in Poland and another 10 in Austria, with many more divisions further east in Soviet and Warsaw Pact territories. The future intensions of the Soviet Army are only really known to the surviving government of the Soviet Union which reconvened in the Russian city of Ryazan after the Soviet capital of Moscow was destroyed by US strategic nuclear missile strikes in November 1997. Despite the disruption of Soviet communications since the nuclear war the commanders of the Soviet forces are still under the instruction of the KGB (Komitet Gosudarstvennoi Bezopasnosti), the Soviet Union’s infamous state security and espionage organisation. The KGB has one or more representatives in the command staff of all major Soviet Fronts and Armies in Europe. The activities of the KGB have been severely curtailed in Germany since reunification. With the demise of the German Democratic Republic the KGB no longer have a large network of operatives remaining in Germany as Western intelligence rivals frequently work together against them. However the KGB remains a force to be reckoned with across Eastern Europe were their resources and influence greatly exceeds any Western rival, and they still retain some support among die-heart communist sympathisers. KGB operations in Austria and Southern Germany are controlled from Vienna, while those in Northern Germany are controlled from Lublin in Poland. KGB agents in Germany remain very well hidden but can be found in Kiel, Munich, Leipzig, and in the Austrian city of Salzburg. Ironically one of the KGB’s greatest rivals in the intelligence community is the GRU (Glavnoye Razvedyvatel'noye Upravleniye) the Soviet foreign military intelligence service. Technically the KGB has control over all GRU operations and intelligence data, but the GRU is highly resistant to KGB control and never more so than in the Twilight War. Although the KGB has political commissars with some of the divisions in Poland and Austria, unless KGB Border Guard units are also present in the area they have a lot less influence than they had before the war. Among the Soviet military the GRU is far more influential and respected, and GRU Spetsnaz troops are the best and most reliable in the Soviet Army.