5 - The Shifting Military Balance in Central Europe

Summary

After the onset of the Cold War, Western force deployments in Central Europe shifted not simply because of perceived changes in the Soviet military threat but also because of technological developments, changes of political leadership, budgetary constraints, and the granting of sovereignty to the Federal Republic of Germany in 1955. On the Eastern side, shifts in military formations and technologies stemmed from changes in the Soviet political leadership and from Soviet military policy, strategy, and doctrine, which called for the Soviet armed forces not only to maintain their superiority in conventional combat power but to attain nuclear superiority as well.

The German-American security relationship remained relatively constant from 1945 to 1968. The Western occupation zones of Germany and, after 1949, the Federal Republic were dependent on NATO and, therefore, ultimately on the United States for their fundamental security. Continuity was also ensured, despite inevitable frictions, by the tenure of Konrad Adenauer, who served as chancellor from September 1949 to October 1963. But even during the government of Ludwig Erhard (1963-6) and the Christian Democratic-Social Democratic “Grand Coalition” under Kurt Georg Kiesinger (1966- 9), there was no genuine alternative to alignment with the West under the leadership of the United States.