Realpolitik
Banned
Godwin's law. Cute.
In all honesty, West Germany might not even need to invade. There was no future for the SED and everybody knew it, unlike the CCP. No SED means no East Germany.
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WI: East Germany pulls a Tinanamen in 1989?
- Thread starter Ismailov
- Start date
Godwin's law. Cute.
In all honesty, West Germany might not even need to invade. There was no future for the SED and everybody knew it, unlike the CCP. No SED means no East Germany.
He's right, though. West Germany can't* invade, the other western countries won't invade.
I can only stress it again: The USSR under Gorbachev wouldn't intervene in a domestic struggle of the GDR, but she would certainly assist her ally if said ally were attacked by an outside force.
*Physically, they can; but legally, they cannot.
RousseauX
Donor
That's not what happened.
The Initial PLA soldiers who went into Beijing were from areas around Beijing, and they did fraternize with the citizens, and hence why the politburo just completely pulled out all army units prior to June/4. It was not the case that "some soldiers stayed behind and got attacked" like you are making it out to be.
The army units who got sent in on June/4 were units from poorer districts who did not speak the same dialect as Beijinese did, and immediately opened fire when citizens try to build barricades, and then some citizens fought back but the army just indiscriminately shot people down who got int he way, whether they were violent or not.
No offense, but I'm chinese and you come across as a foreigner who obviously didn't read up on the incident from any remotely neutral source, if at all.
RousseauX
Donor
If the DDR government tries this most likely they get Romania 1989.
Remember Honecker was in favor of this but his security chief outright told him that it was simply not physically possible to beat down the protesters this time around.
Realpolitik
Banned
Sorry. I get a little irritated when people imply that I'm a Nazi sympathizer.
But like I said, they probably won't need to. East Germany will fall apart on its own, a la Romania if the regime decides to get violent.
I also fully agree with "West Germany would not, never, nada invade the GDR" in this situation due to a combination of mentioned factors.
HOWEVER that doesn't mean that image of East Germans "being tinanameneded" shown on national TV across West Germany, while Britain and France - not to mention the German Loony Left - prattle about "beware of militarist overreactions" wont have massive long-term political butterflies for long after the inevitable defection of most of the National Volks Army to the rebels.
Justified or not and constitutional restrictions nonwithstanding those who spoke out against intervention will be blamed for prolonging the agony allowing many more to be killed than would have been otherwise. Domestically there wont be any PDS/Linke or if one forms it will be viewed like the NPD and the Social Democrats wont touch the possibility of a coalition with it, with the proverbial 10foot bargepole. Ironically this will be quite beneficial to the Social Democrats as they wont have the OTL competition on their "left flank". However both the Social Democrats and the Union will be quite more rightwing than OTL due to both Socialism being discredited much closer to home and the lack of PDS/Linke competition.
Now internationally the changes will be more profound. The Euro project might very well not survive the "betrayal" and if it is implemented anyway the German position will be some version of "Pay your own damm bills or default and GTFO of the Euro". Any ECB money-printing will be met with threats of German withdrawal.
By 2014 we might be seeing a much smaller Eurozone or a more-or-less-managed dissolution of it with all the economic and political fallout that implies.
HOWEVER that doesn't mean that image of East Germans "being tinanameneded" shown on national TV across West Germany, while Britain and France - not to mention the German Loony Left - prattle about "beware of militarist overreactions" wont have massive long-term political butterflies for long after the inevitable defection of most of the National Volks Army to the rebels.
Justified or not and constitutional restrictions nonwithstanding those who spoke out against intervention will be blamed for prolonging the agony allowing many more to be killed than would have been otherwise. Domestically there wont be any PDS/Linke or if one forms it will be viewed like the NPD and the Social Democrats wont touch the possibility of a coalition with it, with the proverbial 10foot bargepole. Ironically this will be quite beneficial to the Social Democrats as they wont have the OTL competition on their "left flank". However both the Social Democrats and the Union will be quite more rightwing than OTL due to both Socialism being discredited much closer to home and the lack of PDS/Linke competition.
Now internationally the changes will be more profound. The Euro project might very well not survive the "betrayal" and if it is implemented anyway the German position will be some version of "Pay your own damm bills or default and GTFO of the Euro". Any ECB money-printing will be met with threats of German withdrawal.
By 2014 we might be seeing a much smaller Eurozone or a more-or-less-managed dissolution of it with all the economic and political fallout that implies.
Realpolitik
Banned
I think what you said in the first project is what I was more trying to imply. I doubt Thatcher would be so stupid, should the boys in Pankow decide to pull a Ceaucescu, to actively take their side and to threaten Bonn(and again-this is when every other regime is falling as well), but if the UK/France are that dumb and don't read the mood in West Germany/the world/the USA right... for Pete's sake, the world is not going to take Thatcher/Mitterrand, let along the misguided 68ers platitudes, about the dangers of right-wing West German militarism seriously if the East Germans are being massacred and the army is deserting en masse, and it's clear that the real bad guys here are the Communists. GHWB and Gorbachev will not take their side, so London and Paris will be on their own. East Germany is a state kept alive by ideology and Soviet force alone. No ethnic, no historical right to exist. Take those two away, East Germany will fall apart eventually, and those who were against intervention will pay the price with the new Germany. WWII guilt will only go so far with a new generation whose teenage memories are of those who lectured about the dangers of Nazism while East Germans were being slaughtered during the regimes inevitable fall.
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From the vantage point of 1989 the Warsaw Pact was as important as it had been when Gorby came into office. Throughout 1990 Soviet and even some Eastern European voices called for reforming the Pact to either focus on political cooperation or to serve as a stepping-stone to broader European cooperation. Some Soviet authors claimed that since Eastern European armies were largely equipped with Soviet weaponry and operated on the basis of WP defense plans it made sense to continue the existence of the WP for at least a few more years, while some Eastern European leaders were concerned about a political and/or security vacuum that might emerge if the WP were suddenly disbanded.
So yeah pretending that the WP would just sit by and watch an armed Western incursion into the GDR is silly. If anything the WP would be likely to send in troops to "restore order" if the situation got really bad, getting rid of Honecker and putting in an interim government which would accede to the demands of protestors for new elections, disbanding the Stasi, etc. Said elections would result in the victory of pro-"let's reunify at once" forces just as IRL as East Germany joins with the West.
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Tyr Anazasi
Banned
I agree that W Germany would not invade, unless something happened. However, the GDR were considered as own territory and not a foreign one. Thus there was a legal base to intervene.
Wow. I certainly did not imply that you were a Nazi sympathizer. I just get annoyed with people throwing around wild theories about a West German war of aggression while knowing nothing about the legal impossibility. There seems to be some kind of atavistic thrill for some imagining Germans on the warpath. To me, the equation germans + invasion = Nazis. That's what my Nazi comment was for. Sorry though.
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If Honecker and Mielke had opted for the chinese solution the most likely result would have been a situation like in Romania with the army switching sides which would have ended badly for the Stasi forces backing the old guard. We'd likely have ended up with an amateurish video of a drumhead trial against Erich Mielke as well as Erich and Margot Honecker for crimes against the people of the GDR and their subsequent execution by a firing squad.
But even in the highly unlikely event that the chinese solution succeeds in the GDR there's no hope to keep the system alive. By 1989 the GDR was really scraping the bottom of the barrel, it was utterly bankrupt in every sense of the word. Its' infrastructure was falling apart, the industrial sector was obsolete, unproductive and run down, the housing situation was becoming untenable, the budget and economic plan for 1990 were little more than a pipe dream and the country was struggling to meet the most basic needs of its' population.
But even in the highly unlikely event that the chinese solution succeeds in the GDR there's no hope to keep the system alive. By 1989 the GDR was really scraping the bottom of the barrel, it was utterly bankrupt in every sense of the word. Its' infrastructure was falling apart, the industrial sector was obsolete, unproductive and run down, the housing situation was becoming untenable, the budget and economic plan for 1990 were little more than a pipe dream and the country was struggling to meet the most basic needs of its' population.
Realpolitik
Banned
"Ich liebe - Ich liebe doch alle - alle Menschen! Na liebe doch! Ich setze mich doch däfur ein!"
That would make for a very famous last line in front of a firing squad.
And along with all of those troubles for the SED, the East German state was discredited and clearly was doomed. The whole thing was coming apart all over the region, and more than any other state, it relies off of the ideology to justify its existence along with another Germany. Nobody outside of the Stasi and SED was willing to fight for it anymore, unlike China. It's ideology, its CONCEPT, was bankrupt. The NVA knows where the wind blows, and once you lose the army, you lose the state 9 times out of 10. Checkmate.
That would make for a very famous last line in front of a firing squad.
And along with all of those troubles for the SED, the East German state was discredited and clearly was doomed. The whole thing was coming apart all over the region, and more than any other state, it relies off of the ideology to justify its existence along with another Germany. Nobody outside of the Stasi and SED was willing to fight for it anymore, unlike China. It's ideology, its CONCEPT, was bankrupt. The NVA knows where the wind blows, and once you lose the army, you lose the state 9 times out of 10. Checkmate.
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Realpolitik
Banned
Sorry I overreacted.
It'll be interesting to see the arguments that take place over that, especially when the US and USSR make it clear they will not interfere with East Berlin's fall and that London and Paris want East Germany around for their own peace of mind-and that the German extreme left is taking their side. I don't think they will overturn it and invade now, but East Germany will fall anyway, and it might have some interesting butterflies.
There will be a public outcry in W.Germany if the DDR police/stasi or hard-line NVA troops start massacring protesters. The W.Germans will try to intervene and they may simply ask the Soviets for permission.
Gorbachev may simply order Soviets units in the barracks and ask for compensation fron the post-unified Germany (which will at sone point come, no matter how little everyone wanted it).
I can see it happening among these lines, no matter what the British, French and US say. Kohl will not tokerate it, the W. Germans won't either.
Gorbachev may simply order Soviets units in the barracks and ask for compensation fron the post-unified Germany (which will at sone point come, no matter how little everyone wanted it).
I can see it happening among these lines, no matter what the British, French and US say. Kohl will not tokerate it, the W. Germans won't either.
Realpolitik
Banned
A North Korea-like DDR witeh the 2000 AD version of the Berlin wall.
But who would play China for East Germany? And that's just the first question. East Germans knew a lot more about the West and weren't used to complete famine/repression, unlike the North Koreans. Not many East Germans were willing to believe in 1989.
I would expect Gorbachev to publicly distance himself from Honecker and his friends and to try to threaten them to step back. A German Tianamen could be a huge problem for his reform policies and he would want to either stop it or at least to be seen as an opponent of these acts.
Something like Romania could follow, or the GDR government steps back and flees before it comes to this. A surviving GDR is very much unlikely.
Something like Romania could follow, or the GDR government steps back and flees before it comes to this. A surviving GDR is very much unlikely.
IIRC in 1972 both the FRG and GDR were like "we recognize there's two different governments claiming to represent the German nation; we will respect this fact even though we don't like it" and found ways to establish relations with each other that stopped short of formal diplomatic relations between independent countries, which was still a significant upgrade from basically ignoring the GDR's existence and claiming that East Berlin and whatnot were under nothing more than Soviet occupation.
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