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The nervous geopolitical tension between East and West, the Cold War, emerged before the end of the Second World War and lasted until 1991 with the collapse of the Soviet Union. The British Army of the Rhine was born in 1945 out of the British Liberation Army at the close of the war as the military government of the British zone of occupied Germany. As the Soviet threat increased, so BAOR became less of an occupational army and assumed the role of defender of Western Europe, and as a major contributor to NATO after 1949.This book traces and examines the changing role of BAOR from 1945 to its demise in the 1993 Options for Change defence cuts. It looks at the part it played in the defence of West Germany, its effectiveness as a Cold War deterrent, the garrisons and capabilities, logistics and infrastructure, its arms and armour, the nuclear option and the lives of the thousands of families living on the front line.
For nearly 40 years, since the immediate aftermath of Allied victory in May 1945, the Brit. Army of the Rhine (BAOR) formed a major pillar of the NATO defenses facing the Warsaw Pact. With a peak strength of 60,000 men in 4 armored and mechanized Div., BAOR represented the greater part of the Brit. Army's heavy war-fighting capacity; and Territorials frequently transferred to West Germany to play their part in NATO exercises. Now, the Brit. Army is reshaping its capability in Europe. As BAOR gives place to the new British-led Allied Rapid Reaction Corps, this book in 120 color photos, records the last days of this historic Army, its units, men and equipment.
Between 1945 and 1957, West Germany made a dizzying pivot from Nazi bastion to Britain's Cold War ally against the Soviet Union. Successive London governments, though often faced with bitter public and military opposition, tasked the British Army of the Rhine (BAOR) to serve as a protecting force while strengthening West German integration into the Western defense structure. Peter Speiser charts the BAOR's fraught transformation from occupier to ally by looking at the charged nexus where British troops and their families interacted with Germany's civilian population. Examining the relationship on many levels, Speiser ranges from how British mass media representations of Germany influenced BAOR troops to initiatives taken by the Army to improve relations. He also weighs German perceptions, surveying clashes between soldiers and civilians and comparing the popularity of the British services with that of the other occupying powers. As Speiser shows, the BAOR's presence did not improve the relationship between British servicemen and the German populace, but it did prevent further deterioration during a crucial and dangerous period of the early Cold War. An incisive look at an under-researched episode, The British Army of the Rhine sheds new light on Anglo-German diplomatic, political, and social relations after 1945, and evaluates their impact on the wider context of European integration in the postwar era.
"When the First World War ended, British troops crossed the Rhine into Germany and entetred a country torn apart by violence and unrest, where revolution was a constant threat, and civil war seemed more likely every day. There was also the risk of the war resuming if Germany refused to accept Allied terms. The British forces were plunged into the turmoil of a defeated country, facing political unrest and the expectations of a hostile German public, who were facing the victorious Allied forces taking over their country. The British troops were also disillusioned with their continued service as the majority of them has expected to be demobbed as soon as the war was won."--Back cover.
No.19: The British Army of the RhineSchulzeA vivid, all-color essay supported by detailed captions showing the combat arms and major support services of the British 1st Corps on major maneuvers.
When the Allies occupied Germany at the end of the Second World War, there were two million men present to witness the devastating end of the Third Reich. Few of them could have imagined just how long this occupation was going to last - right up to the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and well into its aftermath. Today some 17,000 British troops remain in Germany. But over the past four and a half decades, tens of thousands of British men and women have alived and worked in British Zone as members of the British Army of the Rhine (BAOR) some for relatively short periods, many for much longer. Long enough, though, for the experience to have a profound effect on their lives and on their attitudes.THE LONG PATROL reveals what life has been like in the British Zone for those men and women and their families. As the post war worlds of Britain and Germany had little in common, they had to find their own identity, often suspended between the two. And what did the Germans make of the British? How did they react when whole streets, sometimes whole districts, were requisitioned and occupied? What were the psychological effects of a foreign army taking over the barracks of what had been, until so recently, the homes of the warriors of the 1,000 Year Reich? Eventually the British became more and more insulated against the culture around them, building their own camps, their own cinemas. In major centres like Berlin they lived a seperate life whilst all around them Germany got on with the massive task of reconstruction. In the background there lurked the ever-present spectre of a possible Third World War. Based largely on interviews and information culled from personal diaries and letters. THE LONG PATROL is primarily an oral history of the British in Germany. It also analyses and interprets experiences in an attempt to begin to make sense of an unusual, and still significant, part of British history in the twentieth century. Funny, tragic, bizarre and poignant in equal parts, THE LONG PATROL is an important contribution to the social history of post-war Britain and Germ