East and West German armies during the Cold War

NARRATOR: Two armies standing opposite each other in the middle of Germany for 35 years - in the West, the Bundeswehr, in the East, the Peoples' Army of the GDR. Heavily armed adversaries at the interface of political blocs. At the end of World War II hardly anyone could imagine that only 10 years later there would be two new German armies.

WOLF VON LOJEWSKI: "The Germans themselves had intended never again to take up arms. Even Franz Josef Strauss, who later became Defense Minister, was quoted as saying that if any German were to pick up a rifle or other weapon again, his hand should rot."

NARRATOR: But just as the polarization between East and West could turn into war, just as in Korea in 1950, German rearmament is subject to discussion. Paris 1955 - The Federal Republic joins NATO as an equal partner in the West. Soon after the Adenauer government begins to rebuild the Bundeswehr. Violent protests accompany the implementation. "Count me out" was the slogan of the opponents of rearmament. No other question causes more controversy in the young Federal Republic than this one.

HILDEGARD HAMM-BRÜCHER: "I was no fan of Adenauer so the idea of compulsory military service was hard for me to swallow. That the praise for German military virtues started up again so quickly."

NARRATOR: In January 1956, the Chancellor welcomes the first 1,600 volunteers. Some had already served in Hitler's Wehrmacht. Along with the new recruits they are now citizens in uniform.

LOJEWSKI: "When we entered the barracks as the first conscripts of the Bundeswehr, the officers were unusually polite to us. We were a new kind of soldier, something completely democratic - citizens in uniform."

NARRATOR: The GDR presents its new army at a military parade on May 1, 1956. The National People's Army is officially founded in response to the threat from the class enemy in the West. But from the beginning it also serves to bolster the ruling Party's power.

RAINER EPPELMANN: "The National People's Army officers always considered themselves as party comrades. So they always addressed each other and all soldiers as comrade."

NARRATOR: But after all, it is Germans who are facing Germans.

JÖRG SCHÖNBOHM: "We had a discussion in the Bundeswehr, which they could never have had in the National People's Army. What does civil war actually mean? If Germans shoot at Germans, is that civil war? But then we always consoled ourselves that the first troops to attack would be Soviets, not Germans."

NARRATOR: Germans would have had to shoot at Germans. In a war between West and East, central Europe would have become a battleground. The danger only passes when the Cold War comes to an end. The National People's Army is dissolved after the Reunification in 1990. The unified German state integrates soldiers from East and West into the Bundeswehr.