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Old 07-15-2019, 11:04 AM
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chico20854 chico20854 is offline
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Originally Posted by RN7 View Post
So far I've only got to page 10 but it's a great read Chico.

I was doing something similar a few years ago as part of a write up of a T2K German Sourcebook which I have never finished, but I think yours is more detailed. One minor point would be the three NATO garrisons in West Berlin include the French garrison. When West German troops cross the Inter-German border in October 1996 the French leave the Atlantic Alliance (they officially left the military part of NATO in 1966) and pull their troops out of West Germany. The Soviets would likely allow the French troops to evacuate West Berlin through Tegel Airport in the French Sector minus their equipment. The French Sector would then be occupied by Soviet Troops and East German police forces as no NVA troops were allowed in Berlin.

I had the Soviet 35th Guard Air Assault Brigade airlifted into East Berlin in November 1996 to stiffen the Soviet and East German government position in East Berlin. It is used in the Soviet attempt to occupy the American and British sectors of West Berlin. When NATO starts to move against Berlin in December 1996 the 35th takes heavy casualties, but helps to evacuate senior Soviet and East German officials to the Polish border.

I included four parts of East Germany as part of the Warsaw Pact defensive line along the German-Polish border and the Baltic Sea.

Falkenhagen in Eastern Brandenburg a few miles west of the Oder River was a major Soviet command bunker complex. It was in fact the largest Soviet command centre outside of the Soviet Union during the Cold War, and was originally built by the Nazis as an underground munitions and chemicals factory. The Soviet took it over in 1945 and expanded and upgraded it. The Soviets heavily fortified Falkenhagen and the surrounding area after West German forces cross the Inter-German border, and when NATO takes Berlin the NVA command and leadership is relocated to Falkenhagen. NATO armoured forces led by German Fallschirmjager and special forces storm and overrun Falkenhagen at the beginning of Advent Crown. Some NVA escape across the Oder into Poland, but the acting East German leader is among the casualties.

Bautzen is a town on the Spree River in Easter Lower Saxony and was the location of two prisons. One was the Stasi prison for political prisoners in East Germany, and Bautzen became a redoubt for Stasi holdouts after the unifications of Germany. The town was the last part of mainland Germany to fall to West German forces after heavy fighting. After the nuclear warfare Bautzen is dominated by Germany's Sorb population, a Slavic people native to Germany.

Usedom Island is located on the estuary of the Oder River in the Baltic. At the end of WW2 the eastern part of the island was transferred to Poland with the western part remaining under East German control. When West German forces cross the Inter-German Border in October 1996 Polish troops cross into the East German part of Usedom, ransack the German settlements and expel the German population despite protest from the East Germans and Soviets. Usedom is garrisoned by Polish forces at the start of Advent Crown, but after German forces land on the island the Poles quickly retreat to the Polish part of the island and the mainland. Later in the war the Germans annex all of Usedom and expel all Poles from the island, changing official names and signposts to German names. The Germans also do this in the nearby Polish city of Gdansk on the mainland, changing its official name to its per-Second World War German name of Danzig. This has been protested by all sections of post-nuclear war Poland and the Soviets. NATO and MilGov has yet to comment on this.

Rugen island is German's largest island located in the Baltic. It remains under NVA and East German government control as late as 2000, and has been reinforced by some Soviet army and naval forces. The NVA government in exile use Rugen for propaganda purposes and to taunt the Unified German government.

I also have a rogue NVA force marauding across Saxony and the adjacent Czech and Polish borderlands. Kampfgruppe Schneider is led by deserters from the German Army. They were originally NVA troops who merged with the Bundeswehr in 1996, but broke from their unit during the fighting in Poland in 1999. Although the core of Kampfgruppe Schneider are former NVA, they have turned into extreme German nationalists and have an infamous reputation for brutality among both NATO and Warsaw Pact forces in the region. Even the right wing German Freibroderbund has distanced itself from Kampfgruppe Schneider, who has begun to paint swastikas on their vehicles and has a preference for wearing black and grey uniforms that resemblance the Second World War Waffen SS.
Thanks!

I followed a more v1 timeline where the NVA are active participants in the campaign to liberate East Germany, although I've operated on the assumption that the NVA comes out of its barracks in support of the West Germans as soon as the Bundeswehr crosses the border.

For the Battle of Berlin, I assume that the French Brigade negotiates a withdrawal and even manages to extract its equipment. (The same with the French 3rd Army and Belgian Corps in West Germany). The reference to three NATO brigades in Berlin was poorly worded; it should have referred to the UK and US Berlin Brigades and the heavily armed and lavishly equipped West German "civilian" police regiment. I have two Soviet brigade-sized elements in Berlin, the 6th Motor-Rifle Brigade and the KGB 105th Border Guard Regiment. I'll go into further detail in my future writeup, but with German reunification I have the socialist loyalists regrouping in 1997 under Soviet tutelage. Those that were in the East German military or security services are concentrated in three VOPO regiments, while East German men of military age that were in the USSR or elsewhere in the Warsaw Pact (on vacation, working, studying or married to local women) were drafted into two FDJ (Freie Deutsche Jugend, equivalent to the Soviet Komsomol party youth movement) regiments. I think the narrative refers to one of the VOPO regiments in the siege of Warsaw; the others are likewise used/squandered by the Soviet high command - their loyalty is still considered suspect and STAVKA has no compelling reason not to use them as cannon fodder, yet the VOPO units are also composed of ardent communists that have been betrayed by their countrymen, true fanatics for the communist cause that could be extremely useful in enforcing loyalty behind suspect Polish formations!

I like your concept re: Usedom. Do you mean Szczecin/Stettin rather than Gdansk/Danzig? Gdansk is pretty deep along the Baltic coast.
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