German Democratic Republic, Armed Forces

The armed forces of the German Democratic Republic (GDR, East Germany) included the Nationale Volksarmee (NVA, National People’s Army), the Grenztruppen (Border Troops), units of the Ministerium für Staatssicherheit (MFS, Ministry of State), the Volkspolizei (VP, People’s Police), the Kampfgruppen der Arbeiterklasse (Combat Groups of the Working Class), and the Zivilverteidigung (Civil Defense). The NVA was, however, the heart of East Germany’s national defense structure. In July 1952 the armed military police force was transformed into the Kasernierte Volkspolizei (KVP, Garrisoned People’s Police), predecessor of the armed forces of East Germany.

The rearmament of East Germany was made public in May 1955 in conjunction with the foundation of the Warsaw Treaty Organization (Warsaw Pact), which was itself a response to the incorporation of a rearmed Federal Republic of Germany (FRG, West Germany) with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) that same month. On 18 January 1956, the East German parliament, the Volkskammer (Chamber of People’s Deputies), established the NVA and the Ministry of National Defense (MFNV). By 1 March 1956, the command authorities of the new army reported their operational readiness.

The NVA was organized in three military services: ground forces, consisting of two armored and four motorized rifle divisions (1987 peak strength of some 106,000 troops); air force/air defense, consisting of three divisions (1987 strength some 35,000 troops); and the People’s Navy of three flotillas (1987 peak strength of approximately 14,200 men).

At its inception, the NVA was a volunteer army. Only after the August 1961 construction of the Berlin Wall was the framework for compulsory military service created. It went into effect in 1962. Until spring 1990, there was no specific provision made for conscientious objectors, and all able-bodied East Germans served a minimum and compulsory eighteen-month tour of duty. In 1964, however, it became possible to satisfy the conscription requirement as a so-called construction soldier.

East Germany’s close association with Soviet military models and the state’s strong desire to establish unquestioned political supremacy quickly transformed the NVA into an army of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED). Almost all NVA officers were members of the SED, and a network of political officers and members of the state security apparatus provided the required political indoctrination and supervision of the rank and file.

The NVA was equipped in accordance with the recommendations of the Joint Armed Forces Command of the Warsaw Pact. Thus, from 1962 the NVA received Soviet short-range missiles, and although it did have means of delivering nuclear weapons, the nuclear warheads remained in Soviet custody. Also in 1962, the air force became part of the unified air defense system of the Warsaw Pact. Beginning in 1963, the navy was equipped with Soviet missile patrol boats and landing craft capable of conducting offensive operations in the Baltic Sea.

In the prelude to the 1968 Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia, several NVA training exercises allowed Soviet forces in East Germany to be deployed elsewhere and provided cover for the general Warsaw Pact troop buildup. Although two NVA divisions were prepared to take part in the actual invasion, they were not requested. NVA participation was limited to a small liaison team at Warsaw Pact headquarters within Czechoslovakia.

The East German minister of defense commanded the Joint Warsaw Pact maneuvers in 1970, code-named WAFFENBRÜDERSCHAFT (brothers-in-arms), which were conducted on East German territory—proof positive that East Germany had been successfully integrated into the alliance.

In spite of the official policy of détente, combat capability and readiness were increased during the 1970s and accelerated in the early 1980s after the end of détente. In case of war, the NVA would reach a personnel strength of some 500,000 troops and would become part of the 1st and 2nd Front within the 1st Strategic Echelon. Under the command of the Soviet main force, attacks were to be launched on the territories of West Germany, Denmark, and Benelux. A special force supported by combat groups, border troops, and police readiness units were to invade West Berlin.

As civil unrest in Poland increased during 1980–1982, one NVA division was kept on alert should an invasion have been required. During the domestic crisis and disorder during the Velvet Revolution in October and November 1989, “groups of one hundred” were formed, comprising a total of 20,000 troops, to support East German police forces. The operation was conducted to secure buildings and institutions from damage or destruction.

Between 1989 and 1991, there was an initial phase of disorientation that in January 1990 was followed by demonstrations and strikes in more than forty garrisons. The NVA leadership stabilized the situation by making concessions and launching reforms. The disbanding of the political machinery within the armed forces and the introduction of democratic structures based on the rule of law after the first free elections in East Germany in March 1990 caused more uncertainty vis-à-vis the role and place of the NVA. Sweeping democratic-style reform was carried out against the backdrop of the still unsolved issue of whether there would be two armies on German territory after the reunification.

After the Soviet Union agreed to the reunified Germany’s membership in NATO, the end of the NVA was sealed. On 24 September 1990, it was removed from the military organization of the Warsaw Pact and was officially disbanded on 2 October. On the day of reunification, 3 October 1990, the Bundeswehr (Federal Armed Forces) of Germany integrated more than 89,800 former NVA members and 48,000 civilian employees.

References Childs, David. The GDR: Moscow’s German Ally. Boston: Allen and Unwin, 1983. Forster, Thomas. The East German Army: The Second Power in the Warsaw Pact. Translated by Deryck Viney. Boston: Allen and Unwin, 1980. McAdams, A. James. Germany Divided: From the Wall to Reunification. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1993. McCauley, Martin. The German Democratic Republic since 1945: East and West. New York: St. Martin’s, 1986.

THE COLD WAR – Soviet Strike

T-80 MBT: Designed as an improved T-64, eliminating its chief operating problems, the T-80 has a gas turbine engine and the ability to fire AT-8 Songster antitank guided missile from its 125mm main gun. The most recent version, the T- 80U, has a new and more efficient engine and can also fire the A-11 Sniper (9K120 Svir) laser-guided antitank missile. The tank is fitted with the same autoloader as the main gun on the T-72 and is rated at 6–8 rph.

NBC package included, along with infrared and thermal sights; first production model Soviet tank fitted with a ballistic computer and laser rangefinder.

Issued to Soviet forces in the mid-1980s, it continues to be produced by both Russia and Ukraine and remains in their armed forces. It has been sold abroad to the People’s Republic of China, Cyprus, Pakistan, and South Korea.

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After the war, the armed forces demobilized to their prewar strength of about four million and were assigned to the occupation of Eastern Europe. Conscription remained in force. During the late 1950s, under Nikita Khrushchev, who stressed nuclear rather than conventional military power, the army’s strength was cut to around three million. Leonid Brezhnev restored the size of the armed force to more than four million. During the Cold War, pride of place in the Soviet military shifted to the newly created Strategic Rocket Forces (SRF), which controlled the ground-based nuclear missile forces. In addition to the SRF, the air force had bomber-delivered nuclear weapons and the navy had missile-equipped submarines. The army, with the exception of the airborne forces, became an almost exclusively motorized and mechanized force.

The critical question, therefore, was whether a determined Warsaw Pact offensive could be held. Numbers and geography favoured the pact, and there was not even confidence in the West's technological edge as a form of compensation. While the Soviet Union might lag behind, it was often nimbler in turning new technologies into usable weapons systems. Furthermore, infatuation with advanced technology could result in a disregard of other critical features of military equipment including ruggedness, reliability and ease of operation - which the Soviet Union did not forget. Soviet designers, it was argued, built around the limitations of their troops and their industry while the West pushed them to their limits, with the result that the systems arrived late, well over cost, and were often difficult to operate effectively. In addition, there was a tremendous duplication of effort within NATO, as many countries had their own industries to protect and were not so sure of alliance that they wanted to become wholly dependent upon others for vital equipment.

The strength of the Warsaw Pact led serious commentators to wonder by the mid-1970s whether it could get itself into a position to launch an attack from a standing start - without warning - relying on its armoured divisions based in East Germany. If NATO was to cope it would need to be able to respond quickly to the first indicators of an enemy offensive. The problem was not warning time as such but the speed at which a political decision would be taken to mobilize. The indicators might be ambiguous. Diplomats might be concerned that any response would be a provocation, triggering the event that it was supposed to be preventing.

The Soviet army’s last war was fought in Afghanistan from December 1979 to February 1989. Brought in to save the fledgling Afghan communist government, which had provoked a civil war through its use of coercion and class conflict to create a socialist state, the Soviet army expected to defeat the rebels in a short campaign and then withdraw. Instead, the conflict degenerated into a guerilla war against disparate Afghan tribes that had declared a holy war, or jihad, against the Soviet army, which was unable to bring its strength in armor, artillery, or nuclear weapons to bear. The Afghan rebels, or mujahideen, with safe havens in neighboring Iran and Pakistan, received arms and ammunition from the United States, enabling them to prolong the struggle indefinitely. The Soviet high command capped the commitment of troops to the war at 150,000, for the most part treating it as a sideshow while keeping its main focus on a possible war with NATO. The conflict was finally brought to a negotiated end after the ascension of Mikhail Gorbachev in 1985, with nearly 15,000 men killed in vain.

Gorbachev’s policy of rapprochement with the West had a major impact on the Soviet armed forces. Between 1989 and 1991 their numbers were slashed by one million, with more cuts projected for the coming years. The defense budget was cut, the army and air force were withdrawn from Eastern Europe, naval ship building virtually ceased, and the number of nuclear missiles and warheads was reduced—all over the objections of the military high command. Gorbachev’s policy of glasnost, or openness, exposed the horrible conditions of service for soldiers, particularly the extent and severity of hazing, which contributed to a dramatic increase in desertions and avoidance of conscription. The prestige of the military dropped precipitously, leading to serious morale problems in the officer corps. Motivated in part by a desire to restore the power, prestige, and influence of the military in politics and society, the minister of defense, Dmitry Iazov, aided and abetted the coup against Gorbachev in August 1991. The coup failed when the commanders of the armored and airborne divisions ordered into Moscow refused to support it.

Warsaw Pact Deployment on the Central Front I

A Warsaw Pact invasion would have come via three main paths through Germany.

As with that of the Americans, British and French, the long-term Soviet deployment on the Central Front was, in the main, a direct result of where the Red Army stopped in 1945, although there were some minor adjustments during the forty years of the Cold War. The forces permanently stationed in East Germany were designated Group of Soviet Forces Germany (GSFG), with their headquarters at Zossen-Wünstorf, 30 km south of Berlin, and comprised five armies, most of which were approximately equivalent to a NATO corps in size.

The Soviet army believed that the basic form of military strategy was the offensive, and all its (and the Warsaw Pact’s) planning, organizations and exercises were devoted to this end. The 1945 organizations lasted for only a short time, and from 1947 infantry regiments began to be mechanized, using BTR-40P wheeled trucks. This process gathered pace in the 1950s, until 1957, when a major re-equipment programme began to bear fruit and new-style tank and motor-rifle divisions were introduced, which were smaller, easier to control and much harder hitting than their predecessors. These were organized into two types of army: a ‘tank army’, in which tank divisions normally predominated, and a ‘combined-arms army’, in which motor-rifle divisions predominated, the number and type of divisions depending upon the army’s combat mission.

The history of GSFG included some major equipment milestones, which marked a significant increase in tactical capability. The first of these was the fielding of T-62 tanks and BTR-60 eight-wheeled armoured personnel carriers in the early 1960s, while in the early 1970s the Mi-24 (NATO = ‘Hind’) helicopter gave a totally new capability to the Soviet air force’s Frontal Aviation command. The changeover in artillery from wheeled to tracked self-propelled guns, which came in the late 1970s, was also of major significance, although it was made considerably later than in NATO. The final stage was marked by the fielding of the new T-80 tank, which joined the front line facing NATO in the mid-1980s.

THE WESTERN TVD

In war the Warsaw Pact forces in central Europe would have come under the Western Teatr Voyennykh Destiviy (Theatre of Military Operations (TVD)), which would have been subdivided into fronts, each composed of a number of armies, and an air army. The commander-in-chief Western TVD controlled all Soviet and Warsaw Pact forces in Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary and Poland, as well as the second-echelon armies which would have been generated by the western military districts in the USSR.

SOVIET ARMIES IN GERMANY

In 1945 East Germany was occupied by six armies: the 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th Guards Tank Armies; the 3rd Shock Army; and the 8th Guards Army.fn2 Of these, the 4th Guards Tank Army was gradually withdrawn to the USSR in the 1950s, followed by the 3rd Guards Tank Army in 1960–61. This appears to have overstretched the headquarters that remained, since, in the aftermath of the 1961 Berlin crisis, a new headquarters unit, the 20th Guards Tank Army, was formed. The other army was Frontal Aviation’s 16th Air Army, which remained in East Germany from 1945 to the end of the Cold War.

From the 1960s onwards, GSFG comprised the following.

• The 2nd Guards Tank Army, the northernmost formation, occupied an area near the Baltic south of Rostock, with its peacetime headquarters at Fürstenberg–Havel, 60 km north of Berlin. Despite its title of ‘Tank Army’, it actually consisted of just one tank division, plus two motor-rifle divisions.

• The 3rd Shock Army was located in the centre and, in view of its intended role of thrusting across the North German Plain, it consisted of four tank divisions and a single motor-rifle division, making it, at least on paper, the most formidable fighting formation in any army. The title ‘Shock’ was conferred in 1945, but the name changed to 3rd Mechanized Army in 1947, before reverting to 3rd Shock Army in 1957–8. The headquarters was at Magdeburg, conveniently close to the IGB and just off the E8 autobahn, which would have been the main axis of the army’s advance into West Germany in the event of war.

• The 8th Guards Army was located in the south and, as its intended role would take it through primarily infantry country, it consisted of one tank division and three motor-rifle divisions. Its headquarters was at Nohra, 10 km south-west of Weimar.

• The 20th Guards Army was located just west of Berlin, effectively in the rear of the 3rd Shock Army. It consisted of three motor-rifle divisions, and did not have an integral tank division. Its headquarters was at Eberswalde-Finow, some 40 km north-east of Berlin.

• The 1st Guards Tank Army was virtually identical to the 3rd Shock Army, with four tank divisions and one motor-rifle division. Its headquarters was at Dresden, in the south-east corner of the GDR.

GSFG also included considerably more supporting units (artillery, engineers, aviation, communications and logistic services) than other similar organizations in the Soviet armed forces. Thus, for example, GSFG was supported by 34 Guards Artillery Division, which was three times the size of a normal artillery division.

The offensive nature of GSFG’s wartime missions was underlined by a further six reinforced bridging regiments and six amphibious river-crossing battalions, whose wartime mission was to ensure that the many rivers in West Germany and Denmark were crossed quickly. There were also two assault-engineer regiments, specially trained in urban clearance tasks, whose wartime missions would have been in cities such as Braunschweig and Hanover and in the Ruhr. Two aviation regiments were equipped with Hind attack helicopters, which established such a fearsome reputation in Afghanistan. There were also eight spetsnaz battalions for employment in NATO’s rear areas, and one integral airborne regiment, although GSFG had priority call on one or more of the airborne divisions back in the USSR, which were normally under centralized Ministry of Defence control.

The peacetime strength of GSFG amounted to some 380,000 men, with 7,000 tanks, 3,000 infantry fighting vehicles, 300 helicopters and a vast amount of artillery. All were manned at Category-A levels, which was usually well in excess of 90 per cent of their wartime figure.

OTHER SOVIET FORCES ON THE CENTRAL FRONT

Situated in Poland was the Soviet Northern Group of Forces (NGF), with its headquarters at Legnica. In peacetime its troops consisted of two motor rifle divisions and an air army. In war its position astride the lines of communication from the homeland would have been absolutely vital to the success of the offensive, and it would have been reinforced by units from the USSR.

The third element, in addition to GSFG and NGF, was the Central Group of Forces (CGF), which was formed in 1968, in the wake of the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia. The headquarters was located at Milovice, Czechoslovakia, some 30 km north-west of Hradec Králové, and after a rapid build-up in 1968–71 the CGF was composed of two tank and three motor-rifle divisions.