AHC: An incident at the Fulda Gap does NOT lead to global thermonuclear war

Is it possible that an incident involving soldiers, tanks or any other troops or troop parts, with at least one fatality on both blocks' sides, at the Fulda Gap in the time from August 13, 1961 to November 9, 1989, does not lead to global thermonuclear war?
If this is possible, how? What would such an incident look like? and what would the effects on Europe (territorial changes, regime changes,...) and the world be?
 
Sure! Planes shot each other down all the time during the Cold War. A few guys shooting each other by mistake doesn’t have to escalate beyond that. Even a big skirmish doesn’t have to if no one involved wants it. Just look at the Korean border as a model.
 

Nebogipfel

Monthly Donor
Is it possible that an incident involving soldiers, tanks or any other troops or troop parts, with at least one fatality on both blocks' sides, at the Fulda Gap in the time from August 13, 1961 to November 9, 1989, does not lead to global thermonuclear war?
If this is possible, how? What would such an incident look like? and what would the effects on Europe (territorial changes, regime changes,...) and the world be?

As long as it is just an isolated event at the Inner German Border, I guess its difficult to trigger any larger conflict. People during the cold war were not that trigger happy, especially in that place.
 
Ooc:. This needs to be a DB (dwahc or dbwi) since no wwiii is otl.

No. I wanted to inquire whether any incident at the Fulda Gap is possible without it leading to global thermonuclear war. I was not looking from the perspective of a TL where something did lead to World War III/Global Thermonuclear War.
 
Is it possible that an incident involving soldiers, tanks or any other troops or troop parts, with at least one fatality on both blocks' sides, at the Fulda Gap in the time from August 13, 1961 to November 9, 1989, does not lead to global thermonuclear war?
If this is possible, how? What would such an incident look like? and what would the effects on Europe (territorial changes, regime changes,...) and the world be?

If there’s not a genuine desire for war, and the incident can be covered-up or otherwise smuggled under the radar, sure. If it gets into the media it might be a bit harder to excuse, but I imagine a diplomatic crisis would be the extent of it.
 

Puzzle

Donor
If there’s not a genuine desire for war, and the incident can be covered-up or otherwise smuggled under the radar, sure. If it gets into the media it might be a bit harder to excuse, but I imagine a diplomatic crisis would be the extent of it.
Well no one really wanted a giant nuclear war, any excuse to back down would be taken. As long as there’s at least a chance for people to try to slow down they will.
 
There were evidently all sorts of incidents. Soviets and East Germans shot defectors in sight of NATO troops quite a bit.

As viperzero said, the DMZ is a great example. The US/ROK and the DPRK shot at and killed one another's soldiers plenty of times without sparking a war.
 

James G

Gone Fishin'
It's very hard to start a war by accident. Any incident at the fulda gap, which got it's public prominence post cold war, could only lead to war if politicians wanted it to.
A clash there is hard anyway as both sides sat back from it leaving it to a tripwire force in place.
In short, to the OP, very easy.
 
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