Group of Soviet Forces in Germany
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The Group of Soviet Forces in Germany (1949–1988) (ГСВГ, Группа советских войск в Германии), also known as the Group of Soviet Occupation Forces in Germany (1945–1949) and the Western Group of Forces (1988–1994) were the troops of the Soviet Army in East Germany.
The Soviet armies permanently stationed in Germany were the predominant land-based military threat to NATO from the late 1940s until 1989, a primary factor in the military situation during the Cold War. The possibility of a Soviet invasion of West Germany and other Western European countries (or a corresponding NATO eastward incursion) was however kept low due to the dangers of nuclear escalation.
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[edit] History
The GSFG was formed after the completion of the Second World War from formations of the First and 2nd Belorussian Fronts. These troops had the task, for the adherence to the regulations to ensure the Potsdam Agreements. Furthermore they represented the politico-military interests of the Soviet Union. In the year 1957 an agreement between the governments Soviet Union and the GDR in laid out the arrangements over the temporary stay of Soviet armed forces on the territory of the GDR, the numerical strength of the Soviet troops, their assigned posts and exercise areas. It was specified that the Soviet armed forces were not to interfere into the internal affairs of the GDR.
Following a resolution of the government of the USSR 1979/80 20,000 army personnel, 1,000 tanks and much equipment was withdrawn from the territory of the GDR. In the course of Perestroika the GSFG was realigned as a more defensive force regarding strength, structure and equipment. This entailed a clear reduction of the tank forces in 1989 . The withdrawal of the GSFG was one of the largest troop transfers to times of peace in military history. Despite the difficulties, which resulted from the dissolution of the Soviet Union in the same period, the departure was carried out according to plan and punctually until August 1994.
The return of the troops and material took place particularly by the sea route by means of the ports in Rostock and the island of Ruegen as well as via Poland. The Russian Ground Forces said good-bye on 25 June 1994 with a military parade of the 6th Guards Motor Rifle Brigade in Berlin. The parting celebrations in Wuensdorf on 11 June 1994 and in the Treptower park in Berlin on 31 August 1994 marked the end of Soviet military operational readiness on German soil.
In addition to German territories, Group of Soviet Forces in Germany operational territory also included the region of town of Szczecin (Settin), part of the territories transferred from Germany to Poland following the end of the Second World War. Rest of Poland fell under the Northern Group of Forces, while the southern regions (Austria, Czechoslovakia) were under the Central Group of Forces.
[edit] Structure and Equipment
The Soviet troops occupied 777 barracks plants at 276 locations on the territory of the GDR. This also included 47 airfields and 116 exercise areas. At the beginning of 1991 there were still about 338,000 soldiers in 24 divisions, distributed among five land armies and an air army in what was by then the WGF. In addition there were still about 208,000 relatives of officers as well as civil employees came, among them were about 90,000 children. Most locations were in the area of today's Brandenburg Lander.
In 1991 there were approximately:
- 4,200 tanks
- 8,200 armored vehicles
- 3,600 cannons
- 106,000 other motor vehicles
- 690 airplanes
- 680 helicopters
- 180 rocket systems
At the end of the 1980s, the primary Soviet formations included:
- 1st Guards Tank Red Banner Army, Dresden (1 гвардейская танковая Краснознаменная армия)
- 2nd Guards Tank Red Banner Army, Fürstenberg/Havel (2 гвардейская танковая Краснознаменная армия)
- included 94th Guards Motor Rifle Division, 21st, 207th Motor Rifle Divisions
- 3rd Red Banner Army, Magdeburg (3 общевойсковая Краснознаменная армия)(often known as '3rd Shock Army')
- 10th, 12th, 47th Guards Tank Divisions
- 8th Guards Order of Lenin Army (Nohra) (8 гвардейская общевойсковая ордена Ленина армия )
- 20th Guards Red Banner Army, Eberswalde-Finow (20 гвардейская общевойсковая Краснознаменная армия )
- 16th Air Red Banner Army, Wünsdorf (16 воздушная Краснознаменная армия )
- A number of separate regiments of Group subordination (sapper, communications, rocket, artillery, etc.)
This list of divisions includes all the manoeuvre formations of the GSFG.
[edit] Commanders-in-Chief of the GSFG
The first three Commanders-in-Chief were also Chiefs of the Soviet Military Administration in Germany.
- Georgy Zhukov 9 June 1945 to 21 March 1946
- Vasily Sokolovsky 22 March 1946 until 31 March 1949
- Vasily Chuikov 1 April 1949 until 26 May 1953
- Andrei Grechko 27 May 1953 until 16 November 1957
- Matvei Zakharov 17 November 1957 until 14 April 1960
- Ivan Ignatyevich Yakubovsky 15 April 1960 until 9 August 1961
- Ivan Konev 9 August 1961 to 18 April 1962
- Ivan Ignatyevich Yakubovsky 19. April 1962 to 26. January 1965
- Pyotr Koshevoy 27. January 1965 to 31. October 1969
- Viktor Kulikov 1. November 1969 to 13. September 1972
- Semyon Kurkotkin 14 September 1971 to 19 July 1972
- Yevgeni F. Ivanovski 20 July 1972 to 25. November 1980
- Mikhail M. Zaytsev 26. November 1980 to 6. July 1985
- Pyotr G. Lushev 7 July 1985 to 11 July 1986
- Valeri Belikov 12. July 1986 to 12. November 1987
- Boris W. Snetkow 26. November 1987 to 13. December 1990
- Matvei Burlakov 13 December 1990 to 31 August 1994
[edit] References
- Lutz Freundt, Sovetskiye voyska v Germanii, 1945-1994 (Soviet Troops in Germany 1945-1994), Molodaya Gvardiya Publishing House, 1994.
- Scott and Scott, The Armed Forces of the USSR, Westview Press, Boulder, Colorado, 1979
- Roter Stern über Deutschland, Ilko-Sascha Kowalczuk und Stefan Wolle, Ch. Links Verlag, Berlin, 2001, ISBN 3-86153-246-8. This German book, The Red Star over Germany, Soviet troops in the GDR, presents 49 years of the Soviet Army stationed in East Germany. The 256 pages of the book cover it all: from 49,000 who perished in prison camps of the Soviet zone, to the 18 Russian soldiers who refused to shoot unarmed Germans.
