Zachodnioniemiecka dyplomacja o zagrożeniu radziecką interwencją zbrojną w Polsce - jesień 1980 r.
West German Diplomacy on the Threat of Soviet Military Intervention in Poland - Autumn 1980

Summary/Abstract: Based on German archival materials, above all from the Political Archive of the Federal Foreign Office in Bonn and declassified materials of the Federal Intelligence Service, an attempt was made to answer three fundamental questions: Did the German government reckon with the USSR’s intervention in Poland? What conditions had to be met for the USSR to decide on armed intervention in Poland? Did the situation in Poland show similarities to the situation in Czechoslovakia in 1968? The analysis showed that from the first days of the unrest in Poland, Western countries considered the possibility of disciplining the Polish nation by force, according to the previous Soviet practice of pacifying rebellious people (Berlin 1953, Budapest 1956, or Prague 1968). The situation was assessed as very dynamic and encouraging to take decisive actions. The Polish reality showed certain similarities to the situation in Prague in the period preceding the Warsaw Pact interventions. In Germany, it was expected that both Soviet, East German, and Czechoslovakian troops might be involved in the intervention in Poland. A potential impulse triggering military action by Moscow could have been the threat of giving up the monopoly of power by the Polish United Workers’ Party or a decision on a genuine political pluralism in the Polish People’s Republic. After December 1980, top-secret work began in the so-called small NATO group on a scenario for the North American Pact’s reaction to a Soviet intervention or other war events in Poland (Eventualfallplan). These plans were primarily applied after the introduction of martial law in Poland on 13 December 1981.

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