What does the North Vietnamese Army have to do with a battlefield in Germany? Nothing, of course, though “NVA” is also the acronym for the National People's Army of the former socialist state in East Germany. This point of linguistic confusion may be of minor importance, but it does touch on the crux of this book, which is nothing less than the first detailed description of actual operational plans drafted for the Warsaw Pact. Unfortunately, it is available only in German. This is why many potential readers will likely avoid it and will thus be deprived of its plethora of interesting maps, tables, and charts. Even so, readers with an affection for the military history of the Cold War will now ask themselves where this material and the plans actually come from. They come from Siegfried Lautsch himself: Until 1990, Lautsch was a coronel in the East German NVA and...

You do not currently have access to this content.