The
Cuban Missile Crisis was not the first time
Nikita Krushchev threatened
the western world with
nuclear missiles. Barring the later release of secure
documents by western governments, it seems that Krushchev's first attempt to
bring opposing capitals into his sight went totally unnoticed and unremarked upon in
the cities in question. According to a
German TV documentary entitled
The
Atom Project, broadcast on
February 28, 2002,
Stasi secret police files
show that
London,
Paris,
Bonn and
Brussels were vulnerable to nuclear
attack by May
1959. Order 589-365, bearing Krushchev's signature, authorised
twelve nuclear-armed
R5M rockets to be deployed to target the west European
cities.
Two divisions of the
72nd Brigade, based at
Novgorod, were dispatched to join
the East German
Second Guard Tank Army at
Fürstenberg and
Vogelsang, near
Berlin. According to reports submitted to
Moscow, the
missiles could have been fired within five hours of Krushchev giving the order.
Each rocket had an operational range of 745 miles (1192 kilometres), and carried
a one
megaton nuclear
warhead. Four of the missiles targeted London alone.
But in August of the same year, Krushchev gave the order to withdraw, and by
early next month, the 72nd Brigade and their missiles were at
Kaliningrad, too
far away to target any of the original destinations except, perhaps, for Bonn.
The specially-constructed bunkers were simply abandoned as the experimental
deployment came to an end, and are now completely overgrown. Our very own
wertperch lived in the area for a while, and recalls visiting the overgrown bunkers before their original purpose was made public.