Battle for Berlin

Was there a plan by Eisenhower to arm Germans "again" to fight the Red Army if necessary?

 

No : operation Unthinkable was one of Winston's ideas : not one of his bests.And Winston made it public in 1952,the result was a very negative reaction of the public opinion .

 

Interesting. This scenario implies Eisenhower coordinating actions with Generalfeldmarschall Ferdinand Schörner, L&L re-directed to Berlin and Postdam conferrence presided by Churchil, Truman and ... Hitler himself discussing borders of the post-war Europe. Indeed unthinkable but for Churchill, the Red Army was stronger than he wished at the beginning of the Alliance with Russians. Therefore he strongly opposed operation Dragoon and considered attacking the Balkans as better option to achieve a superior negotiating position in post-war Europe. But Europe was divided according to balance of power after the war.

 

It's not clear to me whether he actually thought of that as a real possiblity or wanted the study in his "hip pocket" in case he got flak for not doing it at a later date.

 

Man I'm missing some fun I see!

 

Well, it seems unlikely that Soviet troops would hand weapons over to German civilians, no matter how friendly they were. To start with, there was no shortage of Soviet soldiers, so why would they take the risk?

On the other hand, in his book The Battle of Berlin, Antony Beevor stated (and documented his claim) that some British Army officer POWs, after they were freed by the German captors, took part in the Battle of Königsberg, fighting on the German side, rather than allowing themselves to be captured by the Soviets. Presumably they were all killed in the battle, but this would have been better than what would likely have happened if captured by the Soviets. There is good evidence that the Soviets murdered a number of French and Belgian POWs in the Nemmersdorf Massacre, in October 1944.

So, it seems unlikely that the Soviet troops would have handed weapons to German civilians -- but stranger things have happened, so I wouldn't dispute this claim vehemently.

And I do have some personal evidence that Soviet troops were not necessarily above fraternizing. When my wife's family briefly lived in a house occupied by a Soviet military staff in Preussisch Holland (my mother-in-law cooked for them) in January 1945, and when the staff officers had dinner in the evening, they frequently invited my parents-in-law and their children, including my wife (age 4), to partake with them, and socialize. Later, after my wife and her sisters were virtually orphaned (by their parents being taken for forced labor), there was a pair of Russian soldiers that visited them a couple of times a week to sing and drink and play with the little girls. My sister-in-law, who was older and remembered more than my wife, has kept a favorable opinion of Russians due to these experiences.