Question- what if East Germany invaded the west

What if East Germany invaded West Germany?

  • WW3 everyone dies

    Votes: 42 80.8%
  • United communist Germany

    Votes: 2 3.8%
  • NATO gets involved, Warsaw pact doesnt

    Votes: 8 15.4%
  • NATO doesn't, Warsaw pact does

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    52
Leaders of DDR should be crazy if they even think that it would be possible without very serious consequences.
 
No way they are doing this without Soviet permission. WW3 ensues.

Those people voting "NATO intervenes, Warsaw Pact doesn't" make me lol.
 
This wouldn't happen without a direct order from Moscow. So it's really the USSR invading West Germany, in which case they just started WWIII.
 
It's pretty standard that if East Germany invaded, NATO responds, Soviet forces support them. Eventually to repel the overwhelming conventional forces coming into the border, the West resorts to using nuclear weapons. The Russians respond with the same in full. It would be a global nuclear war.
 
It's pretty standard that if East Germany invaded, NATO responds, Soviet forces support them.
This I very much doubt. The OP states that East Germany attemps an attack on West Germany. Not that Moscow or the Warsaw Pact does so. So there must be a rift between those East Germans who want to start this attack and Moscow in the scenario proposed. But I can only imagine something like this attempted by a group of East German conspirators. Loose canons who (for whatever reason) believe kicking off an incident at the inner German border is something in their interest. Rather deluded interests I would gather.

If some conspiratory group like that in the East German puppet government or East German vassal military starts to plot to incite a war with West Germany (and by extension NATO) the USSR puts down its mighty foot right when it gets wind of this and tells whoever is behind this idea to stop this nonsense. Probably before any troops are even mobilized for such a move or before they reach the border. The higher up in the hierarchy the conspirators are, the more likely and earlier it gets exposed. How the conspirators will be dealt with depends when this happens, who is behind it and for what reasons. None of which may come to light ever and the whole conspiracy hushed up and lost to history.

But lets say these East German conspirators actually do manage to send units into a forray and clashes across the German-German border without alerting their masters in Moscow before it is too late. It will most likely be only rather small units and as such only be able to create an 'incident' - nothing big enough for a proper invasion. But as said above: These conspirators may think an incident is all they need for their aims. Or they overestimate how far they can get with what they have. But with what little they have at hand, they may not even make it past the NATO trip wire units across the border. The lower they are in the East German hierarchy, the less they will have at hand.

Question then is: How does Moscow react to this incident? Not to mention NATO? This is a very volatile scenario in a very volatile area and era. But I do not think nukes will fly right away. My best bet is: Everyone gets away with a mighty scare before this conspiracy fails. How big a scare depends on how big the units are these conspirators can manage to get to the border - a platoon, a regiment, a company - if they even get this far and not get intercepted by other Warsaw Pact forces before (see further up above).

Afterwards the instigators of this incident will be rounded up by the KGB, probably with further purges and witch hunts of the East German government. Warsaw Pact units not stepping to the tune of Moscow is something that can not be tollerated by Moscow. Then the blame game between the US and USSR starts who's fault this all was.

Overall though I think the probablity for nuclear war is rather low in this scenario. Except if NATO is extremely trigger happy - which I also do not see. But the tail (East Germany) will not be able to wag the dog (Moscow) into a nuclear exchange over ... what exactly did these East Germans actually hope to achieve?
 
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No way they are doing this without Soviet permission. WW3 ensues.

Those people voting "NATO intervenes, Warsaw Pact doesn't" make me lol.

I assumed based on the phrasing of the question and answers that it was posited that East Germany was acting without Soviet support or approval, however unlikely that might be. I voted for the NATO intervenes, WP doesn't option only because the following more likely options weren't on the ballot:

  • Whoever ordered the attack dies of a 9mm cerebral hemorrhage within an hour or so of the Soviets finding out the attack is in the works. The East German forces are stopped by the Soviets before they cross the border.
  • Soviets find out too late to preempt the attack, but react by taking out the rogue East German government. The East German troops either withdraw and stand down or surrender to NATO once they realize they're caught between two superpower blocs.
I also consider the possibility of both NATO and WP staying out of it, which would probably result in West Germany handily defeating East Germany (as of 1985, the year I have detailed info handy for, FRG had 2.5x GDR's active military personnel and military budget and a considerably higher standard of training and professionalism), but that would require NATO realizing that GDR was attacking on its own, trusting the rest of the Warsaw Pact to stay out, and FRG accepting their allies' decision to dishonor their treaty obligations (or the rest of NATO not caring that FRG didn't accept it). And the way the defense of West Germany was set up, it would be tricky to get the American and British tripwire forces off the front lines before battle came to them.

A "NATO intervenes, WP doesn't" scenario would probably involve NATO curbstomping the East German spearheads, followed by the Soviets "offering" to mediate a peace treaty on the basis of pre-war borders + reparations.
 
I assumed based on the phrasing of the question and answers that it was posited that East Germany was acting without Soviet support or approval, however unlikely that might be. I voted for the NATO intervenes, WP doesn't option only because the following more likely options weren't on the ballot:

  • Whoever ordered the attack dies of a 9mm cerebral hemorrhage within an hour or so of the Soviets finding out the attack is in the works. The East German forces are stopped by the Soviets before they cross the border.
  • Soviets find out too late to preempt the attack, but react by taking out the rogue East German government. The East German troops either withdraw and stand down or surrender to NATO once they realize they're caught between two superpower blocs.
.......

Also my favorite option:

  • Whenever the East-German military hears that it will be attacking West-Germany without any provocation from the west, they will flat out refuse. The file and rank of their army is made up of draftees doing their military service Even if their superior officers push them forward over the border, there is no guarantee they won't simply disappear into the nearest pub and 'surrender' to the landlord.
 
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