Blueprints for Battle: Planning for War in Central Europe, 1948-1968

1. Strategic Problems and the Central Sector, 1948-1968: An Overview

5 1 Strategic Problems and the Central Sector, 1948–1968 An Overview Lawrence S. Kaplan Western Europe’s vulnerability to a Soviet thrust from East Germany was arguably the most pressing concern of the five powers that signed the Brussels Pact in March 1948. It was the most persuasive reason for the European allies to seek an American commitment to their defense. While the Soviet threat was not France’s most visible worry in this period, the danger from a potential Soviet attack, coupled with a concomitant Communist internal uprising, was sufficient to convince the military and political elites of all but the Gaullist non-Communist parties to subsume their fears of a revived Germany under the greater fear of Soviet aggression. It was the nightmare of Communist hordes overwhelming a relatively defenseless West as they quickly marched across the North German plain to the English Channel or through the Fulda Gap in Hesse to split West Germany in half. British field marshal Sir Bernard Law Montgomery’s often-quoted remark during his service as commander of the Western Union Defense Organization (WUDO) in 1948 that all the Soviets needed to reach the Channel was an adequate supply of shoe leather created an image that was difficult to eradicate.1 It did not matter that the Soviets in the Stalin era may have had no intention of invading the West; they still had expectations of the collapse of the capitalist societies through their internal weaknesses, abetted by active Communist parties in such countries as France and Italy. What did matter in 1948 6 Lawrence S. Kaplan was the perceived need by the British and French foreign ministers, Ernest Bevin and Georges Bidault, to lure the United States into the new Western Union. Only an assured American role in the defense of the West would calm European nerves and provide the psychological as well as military basis for the economic recovery promised under the Marshall Plan. The creation of WUDO under the leadership of Field Marshal Montgomery with French general Jean de Lattre de Tassigny as his subordinate commander of the land forces was consciously designed to show the Americans that Europe was doing its part by rearming and integrating its forces—but not much more. In 1948 WUDO was waiting for the completion of the North Atlantic Treaty that would incorporate its activities in an enlarged organization.2 While the Soviet Union’s view of the West in the early Cold War years was not a mirror image, there were elements of the same suspicions that were found among the future Atlantic allies. Despite Communist expectation of the impending doom of all capitalist nations, the Soviets anticipated aggressive actions against them before their demise. Communist control of Eastern Europe, including Czechoslovakia after the coup of February 1948, was not sufficient to ensure security in the face of the West’s hostility. When the United States and the United Kingdom combined their occupation zones in 1948 to help restore the German economy, the Soviets were convinced that this was a prelude to the creation of a dangerous Germany intent on reclaiming its lost territories. To forestall such an eventuality they encouraged subversive activities among the Communist parties in Western Europe and instituted a blockade of the Western allies’ access to the portions of Berlin assigned under the Yalta agreements of 1945. The Soviet Union failed to prevent either the formation of NATO or a unified West German state, but continued to present itself in the 1950s as the champion of a unified Germany freed from U.S. occupation.3 Whether NATO provided the security Europe demanded in 1948—and afterward—is a question not easily answered. Whether it was necessary in light of the continuing debate over Soviet capabilities as well as intentions is also a question for historians to answer. But in the matter of perceptions there was a transatlantic conviction in 1948 and 1949 that Europe was in peril and that only the United States could redress the imbalance by joining Europe not as an observer or as cheerleader, but as a participant in the process. The immediate aftermath of the creation of NATO inspired some confidence on the erroneous assumption that U.S. B-29s based in Omaha, Nebraska , and armed with atomic weapons would provide a sufficient deterrent to Communist aggression as the Soviet armies hovered over Western Europe. Strategic Problems and the Central Sector...