German Civil War?

[Raellus]

Revolution? Counter-revolution? I'm not sure what to call it, but please hear me out.

I just finished a Netflix documentary (A Perfect Crime) on the assassination-style murder of the West German official in the former East Germany shortly after the Berlin Wall came down. I knew the the former DDR remained economically depressed for decades after reunification (and, to a degree, still is), but the documentary revealed that there were major protests against the Bonn government's crash course of capitalist market reforms in the former East Germany. At one point during the first phase of the privatization and liquidation of state-owned/run industries, unemployment in the former DDR was at 50%, and a lot of East Germans were aching for the return of socialism. There were major popular demonstrations in East Berlin and Leipzig. In several instances, these turned into riots. There is some evidence that the remnants of the Stasi were trying to foment a revolution during that time as well. The Stasi were suspected by some of orchestrating the assassination of West German official, Detlev Karsten Rohwedder (the subject of the doc).

Full disclosure, I am a hard-core a v1.0 timeline apologist. I really don't like the v2-2.2 timelines at all. But, if you want to include the fall of the Berlin Wall in your campaign timeline, what follows might add a little something.

Imagine, if you will, a counter-revolution in East Germany starting in 1991. It would be made up of several elements- a genuine peoples' (i.e. unemployed East Germans) movement, fomented and supported by Stasi agitators, cashiered NVA officers, West German Red Army Faction terrorists, and Soviet/Russian intel (KGB, GRU, et al.). Imagine an insurgency with massive street demonstrations, bombings, assassinations, and the like, all of which happened IRL (but the hypothetical counter-revolution would turn it up to 11).

Let's posit that the West German military is called in to put down the rebellion. This further divides the people of the former East Germany (see, the West is even worse than the former DDR gov't!), and puts the Soviet/Russian gov't (depending on how you handle the dissolution of the USSR) on edge.

From there, you could have the Soviets/Russians roll back into the DDR on premise of proactive self-defense (but probably more in an attempt to recover at least a rump buffer state). This would, I'm sure, cause a major diplomatic/military crisis that would, in any case, lead to WWIII.

Thoughts?

-