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In October 1990 West German general Jörg Schönbohm and a small team of experts moved into the headquarters of the former East German army to effect the unprecedented: the takeover, in peacetime and without the firing of a single shot, of a well-equiped army that had been the Bundeswehr's main enemy only a few months earlier. What Schönbohm discovered and recorded in a diary was almost incredible: plans to conquer West Germany's major cities; blueprints for a surprise attack on West Berlin through the city's subways and sewer systems; papers documenting the planned use of chemical weapons. But there were also the more mundane problems of what to do with those 100,000 men whom the end of the Cold War had made superfluous. It is through accounts like this one that we are reminded of how dangerous a world we all lived in between 1945 and the fall of Communism.
List of contents
Foreword
John M. Shalikashvili, General U.S. Army
Preface
Chapter 1. First Experiences in Moscow
Chapter 2. Developments in Security Policy after 1988
Chapter 3. First Talks with the GDR Leadership
Chapter 4. The NVA Prior to 3 October 1990
Chapter 5. Last Days Before Unification
Chapter 6. In the Bundeswehr-Kommando Ost
Chapter 7. Daily Routine
Chapter 8. First Decisions on Disbanding Units
Chapter 9. An Interim Balance Sheet - Between Hope and Resignation
Chapter 10. Optimism Spreads
Chapter 11. Questions of Social Welfare
Chapter 12. The New Era Becomes Apparent
Chapter 13. The Reconstruction
Chapter 14. The Federal President Visits the Eastern Headquarters
Chapter 15. Visible Progress
Epilogue
Select List of Names
Index
About the author
Jörg Schönbohm, General staff training at the Bundeswehr Führungsakademie; from 1978 with the Ministry of Defense in Bonn before being put in charge of the new Bundeswehr CommandEast in 1990. Having served as Inspector of the Army in 1991 he assumed the position of Staatssekretär in the Ministry of Defense a year later.
Summary
In October 1990 West German general Jorg Schonbohm and a small team of experts moved into the headquarters of the former East German army to effect the unprecedented: the takeover, in peacetime and without the firing of a single shot, of a well-equiped army that had been the Bundeswehr's main enemy only a few months earlier.
Additional text
About the German edition:
"... excellent and very helpful." · John R. Galvin, Gen. (Ret.), US Military Academy, West Point
"[This book] is worth reading. It is honest and does not hide anything ... it contains many interesting dates and facts." · Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
