The Central Front D+17 (26 July, 1987) Part I

For the Soviet Union, the principal objective of this war was to capture and neutralize the Federal Republic of Germany. Campaigns and offensives undertaken in separate theaters were planned and executed in support of this goal. In the leadup to war, the Kremlin believed wholeheartedly that seizing West Germany was an elixir for the Soviet …

Baltic Approaches D+17 (26 July, 1987) Part I

The Soviets controlled Gdansk. The shipyard was secure, as were other key areas of the port city. The outskirts though, remained unsettled. Pockets of Solidarity members and rebellious Polish military and police, who’d been ejected from the city, fight on into the morning. As the day carries on, the plight of the city becomes a …

Baltic Approaches D+16 (25 July, 1987) Part I

0000-0700 Hours 0015- Just after midnight, CINC-West learned that the GDR government was in the process of ordering all units of its armed forces to either halt in place or return to their installations at once. Immediate attempts to contact Potsdam, as well as division headquarters and airbases belonging to the East German military all …

The Politics of Global War: Poland Teeters D+14 Part IV

The Western TVD commander-in-chief Marshal Nikolai Ogarkov was not surprised by the morning’s events. CINC-West had suspected Poland was inching closer to rebellion, or at the very least a hostile neutrality. Neither situation was likely to create an environment which would bode well for Ogarkov and his command, With the uncertainty looming on the horizon …

The Politics of Global War: Poland Teeters D+14 Part I

D+14 0000-0900 The meeting between the Soviet ambassador and Poland’s head of state concluded three minutes after midnight. As soon as the pompous Soviet diplomat was gone, Wojciech Jaruzelski summoned his aides and the senior members of his government. Telephone calls were made, and orders given. The Soviet ambassador had made a fatal mistake in …

The Central Front D+13 (22 July, 1987) Part III

The meeting took place at the same location as the one held ten days earlier; a luxury home in Waldsiedlung, a suburb north of Berlin that served as an exclusive residential zone for senior GDR politicians and party officials. Snetkov arrived shortly before 2100. The journey from Stendal to this exclusionary neighborhood outside of Berlin …

Baltic Approaches D+6 (15 July, 1987) Part II

Pre-war Soviet and Warsaw Pact plans for the Coastal Front anticipated that amphibious and airborne operations against Denmark would not begin until total air superiority had been obtained. The land advance up through Schleswig-Holstein and onto the Jutland peninsula was expected to reap the benefits of complete Pact control of the skies by the time …