On V.1 Background: Germany and the Bundeswehr in the Eighties

[Raellus]

Originally Posted by unipus

I just think there's a lot of reasons realistic and otherwise why "Germans start WW3" is an inherently silly place to start from.

Well, when you put it that way, yeah, it is.

I don't think that's really what GDW was going for in v1. That's certainly not what I've been arguing for. Technically, the USSR had already started WW3 over in Asia. In v1 the West German military saw an opportunity to reunify the two Germanies and they took it. They're not portrayed as warmongers, I don't think. They're portrayed as patriotic opportunists who were egged on by counterparts in the NVA. It's more that they made two fatal miscalculations. One, they underestimated the USSR's resolve to maintain its grip on the DDR and two, they underestimated the USSR's ability to fight a two front war (they probably assume that the Soviets were overcommitted in China).

So, perhaps v1's Germany scenario doesn't work as written.

How about Berlin as a flashpoint? It's got NATO and PACT forces in close proximity. We know from RL that many people in East Berlin wanted out. There've been major Cold War crises there before.

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