Operation Unthinkable

Would then the people who ordered and conducted War Plan Red for instance also be guilty of this then? Or when the Israeli's orchestrated a surprise attack against the Arab states planning to attack them, was that also liable for prosecution?

On paper yes, but it was one of those charges along with a few others that the even the WAllied officers weren't all that comfortable with because the U.S. and Britain and all other states have planned what could be labeled wars of aggression. Even the big three against each other drew up plans at various points in time during WW2 (especially Britain and the Soviets) If they execute those plans or not of course is up to the political leadership, but the judges didn't make that distinction either.

Actually executing an aggressive war was also an offensive, but there too you had one of the big three who executed a number of aggressive wars in the course of WW2. And, France and Britain who almost executed an aggressive war on the USSR.

Those parts of the charges gave a portly drug addicted head of Luftwaffe something he could actually put up some defense against arguing that wars of aggression being suddenly illegal will not stop them and will now and only ever be tried against the vanquished not the victors.

I would say Rommel had a better finger on the pulse of soldiers on both sides then Churchill and told his family that a third world war wasn't going to happen right after WW2 because the people who would fight such a war are exhausted and the world is right now sick of war in his words.

But, he said the threat of war between the West and the Soviets would come after a few years, because he believed human nature of people to forget what war is like with time and start to itch for another fight and referred to Russia and the West as like fire and water.

If they came to blows he was convinced that American air supremacy and industrial power would win the day by out producing the Soviets and using its massive Air Force to tie down the Soviet armies, destroy their industry, cities and oil production facilities.

Ironically it was the cabal of scientists that created the first atomic bomb that were the ones who likely prevented such a war by raising the stakes so much in that the USSR who would have I believe likely have gambled they could brush away the few WAllied divisions in Europe by the end of the 40s or early 50s without nukes on the table were deterred from doing so by America's large and ever growing nuclear stockpile.
 
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I read somewhere (can't find it!) that UK was starting to 'comb' the prisoner camps to find the 200,000 German soldiers who could be rounded up for Barbarossa V2.0

Is it an Urban Myth?

If not, that would be the 10 divisions required.

Agree, Yalta was probably the time to tell Stalin off. That said, Stalin was trying to create a buffer zone, a glacis, to make any more invasions difficult.

With a Germany having a habit of invading every 25+ years and a Poland not overly trusting USSR (wonder why?), USSR surely needed something.

Why should Stalin trust Churchill (and Truman)? Especially if he had heard about Unthinkable.
 
I read somewhere (can't find it!) that UK was starting to 'comb' the prisoner camps to find the 200,000 German soldiers who could be rounded up for Barbarossa V2.0

Is it an Urban Myth?

Yes; see the earlier quote from Brooke's diary that I posted. :rolleyes:

Operation Unthinkable was restricted to a short investigation by UK planning staff in London who had lots of practice shooting down Churchill's madder ideas. Barbarossa V2.0 was not going to happen.
 
Operation Unthinkable was restricted to a short investigation by UK planning staff in London who had lots of practice shooting down Churchill's madder ideas. Barbarossa V2.0 was not going to happen.

For general info purposes to the broader readership; The Allies had several clear levels of 'planning'.

At the most informal level would be verbal mention in a staff or commanders meeting. ie: Joint Chief #1 "Here is Churchills latest madness." JC #2 "Ha! Thats a funny one." JC #3 "Indeed. Moving on, what is to be done about..."

That could extend to a memo to a commander of staff officer asking a opinion.

A 'Appreciation' paper or memo was when ideas actually saw some degree of real consideration. This was a brief prepared to raise basic questions and assess the rough practicality of a proposal. It usually represented the opinon/s of a few or just one staff officer.

After that came a outline plan. This was to guide the serious staff work by the senior HQ and the subordinates in preparation for a finished plan. This stage still does not imply a decision, or firm commitment. Just that more hours are spent outlining requirements, identifying questions, and listing tasks.

Finished plans were rarely finished. Many were started from outlines or appreciations. Most were decided against and dropped at some point, usually incomplete. (Note: Occasionally the Deception Committie, that coordinated deception operations would pick up these discarded plans and use them as a basis for their operations.)

I expect Chuchills proposal hardly got past the 'appreciation' brief level.
 
Ok, urban myth.

HOWEVER: how far did the planning go? if Monty is starting to store equipment, it is more than just a staff officer quickly putting a few lines together.

That is where I am a bit curious. Also if Stalin had heard about it, it must have been a few people involved here and there.

Carl: any idea where in the planning sage this really got?

Ivan
 
And Monty is not coming out in force either.

The only thing is his 'missing' letter, but it does not mention Unthinkable in any explicit terms.

Conspiracy anyone?

Ivan
 
Churchill as PM

...Churchill wasn't PM in July '45...
In the original timeline, Churchill was Prime Minister for most of July, 1945. Although the General Election took place at the start of the month, due to the length of time taken to collect, ship, and count votes from service personnel posted overseas, the results weren't actually declared until July 26th.
 
now in yalta the west could have told stalin tough shit and we will fight for a free poland and we mean all of poland.. as that is why we are in this damn mess in the first place and have "d-day 2 the invasion of poland" waiting in the wings and see what he said...

What would he say, especially after the scatological reference?
 
Ok, urban myth.

HOWEVER: how far did the planning go? if Monty is starting to store equipment, it is more than just a staff officer quickly putting a few lines together.

That is where I am a bit curious. Also if Stalin had heard about it, it must have been a few people involved here and there.

Carl: any idea where in the planning sage this really got?

Ivan

Storing equipment is a bit of a red herring as well.

The occupation forces have a lot of things to do, including transferring units to the Far East, demobilising, denazification and rebuilding basic infrastructure. Destroying captured equipment would not have been high on the priority list - much easier to pile it up in a 'store'.
 
Some German leaders 'stored' weapons as well. When the order to surrender came more than a few Germans assumed the Allies would imeadiatly start fighting the Red Army. I suspect much of this Unthinkable legend originates with this German missaprehension. I recall one case where a German army commander defending Austria rushed off t his US counter part (7th Army?) with a long list of things he needed to continue fighting the Bolshivks. Fuel. trucks, mortars, AT guns, artillery ammunition, medical supplies, food, .... As the story goes he was nonplussed to learn he was now a prisoner, there would be no supplies, and his men were to surrender their weapons imeadiatly.

The Donitz government limped on for some ten days. They kept busy issuing instructions for safeguarding weapons and material until the Allied soldiers showed up & directed units remain together intact until taken into custody.

Given the general German habit of order and neatness I'd not be supprised at all to see examples of German commanders tidily storing arms & material as the Allied soldiers approached.
 
Storing equipment is a bit of a red herring as well.

The occupation forces have a lot of things to do, including transferring units to the Far East, demobilising, denazification and rebuilding basic infrastructure. Destroying captured equipment would not have been high on the priority list - much easier to pile it up in a 'store'.

You don't even have to be planning another war to think "here is an entire peacetime army's worth of kit, much of it better than ours, it seems a shame to just scrap it when so many of our lads have died for want of its like, and there's bound to be another war somewhere sometime where it might come in handy - even if there isn't, it's worth a bob or two to an allied army." That's surely the natural reading of an order to (or by) Monty to preserve captured equipment, not that anyone was serious about Unthinkable.
 
I found this on a website: www.howitreallywas. It is an article by Goronwy Rees:


"""""
Firstly, the curious incident of the missing telegram. In 1954 Churchill said, in a speech in his constituency at Woodford in Essex that, even before the war was over, he had “telegraphed to Lord Montgomery directing him to be careful in collecting the German arms, to stack them so they could easily be issued again to the German soldiers whom we should have to work with if the Soviet advance continued.”

This caused a furore in the British press, and rather spoilt the celebrations for Churchill’s 80th birthday, as a number of Labour MPs, including Barbara Castle, refused to sign a Birthday Book in his honour because he had been willing to “use Nazi soldiers against our war allies.”

Montgomery, when asked about this, at first said he had received the telegram, but then could not find it in his papers. Churchill withdrew the remark saying he must have confused one telegram with another and the matter died down.

However, as David Reynolds and other historians have found, in Montgomery’s papers at the Imperial War Museum archives there is a handwritten note, dated June 1959, entitled “The Truth about the Telegram”, in which Montgomery confirms he received a verbal, but not written, order from Churchill to ‘stack’ German weapons, in case they might be needed to fight the Russians.

“On 14th May 1945 I flew to London from Germany to see the Prime Minister to tell him that the problems of government in Germany were so terrific that he must at once appoint a C-in-C and Military Governor…. The announcement was made on 22nd May.

At our meeting in Downing Street the P.M. got very steamed up about the Russians and about the zones of occupation – which would entail a large scale withdrawal on our part. He ordered that I was not to destroy the weapons of the 2 million Germans who had surrendered on Luneburg Heath on the 4th May. All must be kept, we might have to fight the Russians with German help.”


A month later no further instructions had been received, so according to Montgomery:

“On 14 June I got fed up with guarding the weapons. We had signed the surrender in Berlin on 5th June and agreed to set up the Control Commission for 4-Power Government of Germany. So I sent the attached telegram to the War Office on 14 June 1945. Things were pretty hectic in Whitehall in those days, the Coalition government was coming to an end; a general election was announced; it was impossible to get a decision, a firm one, on anything. I got no answer.

I waited for one week. I then gave orders for all the personal weapons and equipment to be destroyed!!

Then in November 1954, Winston Churchill in a speech at Woodford referred, unwisely to the order he had given. He said he had sent me a telegram. It could not be found. There was no telegram.”
""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""

It was more than just collecting things.

This is also where I don't get it: Churchill sending letters off to a field commander behind the back of Brooke would be unlikely.

Was Brooke trying to leave this little episode out of history (or his books at least) because it would be a bit too embarrassing?

Ivan
 
Churchill's Woodford speech said, according to that article "if the Soviet advance continued" i.e. if the Red Army just kept rolling right over the WAllies. Which is a reasonable fear to have. At the point where the Soviets have chucked out four years of alliance and gone full-on conquering Western Europe, of course Churchill would conscript German veterans. He'd be calling out the Scouts and the Cadet Corps at that point.

Did the zones of occupation entail large-scale withdrawals in the North? I was under the impression the armies met up not terribly far from the eventual internal border and frequently west of it.

"In case we might have to fight the Russians" - again, I think this sounds more like contingency planning for 'what if Stalin doesn't stop marching West?' than a serious plan to execute an offensive Op. Unthinkable.


I found this on a website: www.howitreallywas. It is an article by Goronwy Rees:


"""""
Firstly, the curious incident of the missing telegram. In 1954 Churchill said, in a speech in his constituency at Woodford in Essex that, even before the war was over, he had “telegraphed to Lord Montgomery directing him to be careful in collecting the German arms, to stack them so they could easily be issued again to the German soldiers whom we should have to work with if the Soviet advance continued.”

This caused a furore in the British press, and rather spoilt the celebrations for Churchill’s 80th birthday, as a number of Labour MPs, including Barbara Castle, refused to sign a Birthday Book in his honour because he had been willing to “use Nazi soldiers against our war allies.”

Montgomery, when asked about this, at first said he had received the telegram, but then could not find it in his papers. Churchill withdrew the remark saying he must have confused one telegram with another and the matter died down.

However, as David Reynolds and other historians have found, in Montgomery’s papers at the Imperial War Museum archives there is a handwritten note, dated June 1959, entitled “The Truth about the Telegram”, in which Montgomery confirms he received a verbal, but not written, order from Churchill to ‘stack’ German weapons, in case they might be needed to fight the Russians.

“On 14th May 1945 I flew to London from Germany to see the Prime Minister to tell him that the problems of government in Germany were so terrific that he must at once appoint a C-in-C and Military Governor…. The announcement was made on 22nd May.

At our meeting in Downing Street the P.M. got very steamed up about the Russians and about the zones of occupation – which would entail a large scale withdrawal on our part. He ordered that I was not to destroy the weapons of the 2 million Germans who had surrendered on Luneburg Heath on the 4th May. All must be kept, we might have to fight the Russians with German help.”


A month later no further instructions had been received, so according to Montgomery:

“On 14 June I got fed up with guarding the weapons. We had signed the surrender in Berlin on 5th June and agreed to set up the Control Commission for 4-Power Government of Germany. So I sent the attached telegram to the War Office on 14 June 1945. Things were pretty hectic in Whitehall in those days, the Coalition government was coming to an end; a general election was announced; it was impossible to get a decision, a firm one, on anything. I got no answer.

I waited for one week. I then gave orders for all the personal weapons and equipment to be destroyed!!

Then in November 1954, Winston Churchill in a speech at Woodford referred, unwisely to the order he had given. He said he had sent me a telegram. It could not be found. There was no telegram.”
""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""

It was more than just collecting things.

This is also where I don't get it: Churchill sending letters off to a field commander behind the back of Brooke would be unlikely.

Was Brooke trying to leave this little episode out of history (or his books at least) because it would be a bit too embarrassing?

Ivan
 
It was more than just collecting things.

This is also where I don't get it: Churchill sending letters off to a field commander behind the back of Brooke would be unlikely.

Was Brooke trying to leave this little episode out of history (or his books at least) because it would be a bit too embarrassing?

Ivan

Brooke's diary is clear about Churchill's enthusiasm for fighting the Russians (plus there were serious difficulties at the same time with the Yugoslav's in Istria).

Montgomery's lecture to the British Control Commission on 25th May:

Our immediate object was twofold:
to disarm and disband the German armed forces
to re-establish civil control sufficiently to enable the people to live decently, and without disorder and disease

Churchill is the one who requested the staff appreciation for Operation Unthinkable - there is no evidence that anyone else thought it was feasible or sensible, or that any preparations were made.

If you want to continue with this, take it to ASB.
 
Since neither the Soviets nor the WAllies were so stupid as to purposely start WWIII immediately after WWII, the only way it's going to happen is if incidents escalate and get totally out of hand. Giving BOTH sides the impression the other guy stabbed them in the back.

Still unlikely, as saner heads are likely to prevail.
 
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