Schlachtfeld Fulda Gap ed. by Dieter Krüger (review)

A great many books and journal articles about the social, political, economic, and grand strategy aspects of the Cold War have been written since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Relatively few studies, however, have been devoted to the military strategy, plans, and tactics around which the lives of hundreds of thousands of soldiers in both East and West centered for more than four decades. The “operational military history” of the Cold War addresses such questions as: What were the specific military plans of both sides? What were the assumptions on which those plans were based? How did each side intend to cope with any relative manpower or technological advantages of the other side? How did chemical and nuclear weapons factor into the plans of both sides? Would any initial military clash in Central Europe inevitably have escalated into a global nuclear war? And, not least, what would happen to the populations of the two German states on whose territory the initial clash would have been fought?

The most likely ground zero of the war that was never fought was a place called the Fulda Gap, a natural invasion route between east and west. It was the gateway to West Germany’s financial capital, Frankfurt, and the strategic confluence of the Rhine and Main Rivers. Frankfurt and Kaiserslautern immediately to the west of Fulda were also the geographic center of gravity of U.S. forces in Europe and the location of two major air bases through which most U.S. reinforcements would have entered Europe. The town of Fulda, in the German land (state) of Hesse, sits only a few miles to the west of what during the Cold War was called the Inner German Border (IGB).

The Fulda Gap follows the Kinzig River valley, forming a land corridor between the Vogelsberg Mountains to the north and the Rhön and Spessart Mountains to the south. A parallel corridor runs north of the Vogelsberg. After Napoléon Bonaparte’s forces were defeated in the Battle of Leipzig in 1813, he withdrew his armies through the Fulda Gap and then regrouped at nearby Hanau to inflict a resounding defeat on the Austro-Bavarian army. For the better part of the Cold War, the Eighth Guards Army of the Group of Soviet Forces Germany was responsible for breaking through defenses of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in the gap. The U.S. V Corps of NATO’s Central Army Group (CENTAG) had the mission to stop them.

Schlachtfeld Fulda Gap (Battlefield Fulda Gap), edited by Dieter Krüger, is a long-overdue military analysis of that decisive piece of ground. Krüger, one of the foremost operational military analysts of the Cold War, is a historian at the University of Potsdam and the Zentrums für Militärgeschichte und Sozialwissenschaften der Bundeswehr (Center for Military History and Social Science of the Bundeswehr; ZMSBw). His previous works include Am Abgrund? Das Zeitalter der Bündnisse: Nordatlantische Allianz und Warschauer Pakt 1947 bis 1991 (At the Abyss? The Era of Alliances: North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the Warsaw Pact 1947–1991), and a book co-edited with Jan Hoffenaar, Blueprints for Battle: Planning for War in Central Europe, 1948–1968.

The team that Krüger assembled for his latest book is one of its major strengths. Chapter authors include military experts from both sides of the Iron Curtain, ranging from the highest levels of operational command down to tactical-level company command. The result is a work of impressive breadth and depth.

In the opening chapter, Helmut Hammerich of ZMSBw reviews the operational realities of battle in the Fulda Gap and the popular myths that grew up around those realities. According to V Corps Operations Plan 33001, also known as the General Defense Plan (GDP), the U.S. 3rd Armored Division was responsible for defending the line to the north of Fulda, and the U.S. 8th Infantry Division the line to the south. The U.S. 11th Armored Cavalry...