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Special Forces Berlin: Clandestine Cold War Operations of the US Army's Elite, 1956–1990
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About Special Forces Berlin: Clandestine Cold War
Product Description Highly classified until only recently, two U.S. Army Special Forces detachments were stationed far behind the Iron Curtain in West Berlin during the Cold War. The units' existence and missions were protected by cover stories, their operations were secret. The massive armies of the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact allies posed a huge threat to the nations of Western Europe. US military planners decided they needed a plan to slow the juggernaut they expected when and if a war began. The plan was Special Forces Berlin. The first 40 men who came to Berlin in mid-1956 were soon reinforced by 60 more and these 100 soldiers (and their successors) would stand ready to go to war at only two hours' notice, in a hostile area occupied by nearly one million Warsaw Pact forces, until 1990. Their mission should hostilities commence was to wreak havoc behind enemy lines, and buy time for vastly outnumbered NATO forces to conduct a breakout from the city. In reality it was an ambitious and extremely dangerous mission, even suicidal. Highly trained and fluent in German, each man was allocated a specific area. They were skilled in clandestine operations, sabotage, intelligence tradecraft and able to act as independent operators, blending into the local population and working unseen in a city awash with spies looking for information on their every move. Special Forces Berlin was a one of a kind unit that had no parallel. It left a legacy of a new type of soldier expert in unconventional warfare, one that was sought after for missions such as the attempted rescue of American hostages from Tehran in 1979. With the U.S. government officially acknowledging their existence in 2014, their incredible story can now be told. Review James Stejskal has performed a great service to not only Special Forces but to the national security community by researching and writing this highly readable and anecdote filled history of one of the most unsung military organizations in the Cold War. I strongly recommend this book and I intend to use it in my Georgetown course Unconventional Warfare and Special Operations For Policy Makers and Strategists because this is one of the best examples of applied unconventional warfare in special operations history. - Colonel David S. Maxwell, U.S. Army Special Forces (Ret), is the Associate Director of the Center for Security Studies in the Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. The reader learns not only the history, but also the individual soldier s motivations and way of thinking. The work leaves nothing to be desired and closes gaps in the history of the Cold War...I recommend this book highly. - Colonel Friedrich Jeschonnek (Bundeswehr a.d.), Editor, Hardthöhenkurier ...part of the book is straight out of a le Carré plot. The Cold War in Europe is an often overlooked part of American military history because it stayed cold. But as this book shows, for the men serving on the front lines next to the Iron Curtain, conflict was always a real possibility that could happen at any time. Their sacrifice and service helped ensure the eventual collapse of communism in Eastern Europe and the peaceful reunification of Germany. - New York Journal of Books From the Author Their enemy: the Armies of the Warsaw Pact - over 1 million strong. Their mission: Buy NATO time in the event of a Soviet attack against Europe. The odds against them: Suicidal. These days we often hear of the exploits of special military units like "Delta" and the SEALs. But what about the unit that led the way in the field of unconventional warfare and counterterrorism? "No force of its size has contributed more to peace, stability and freedom." That's what the former head of US Army Special Operations Command, Lieutenant General Charles Cleveland said about the unique subject of this book. This is the history of a unique US Army Special Forces Detachment and the men who ser
