The Nuclear Battlefield
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| Original title | The Nuclear Battlefield |
| Country of production | United States |
| original language | English |
| Publishing year | 1982 |
| length | 52 minutes |
| Rod | |
| Director |
Judy Crichton Leslie Cockburn |
| script |
Howard Stringer Judy Crichton Leslie Cockburn |
| production | Howard Stringer Andrew Lack |
| occupation | |
|
Dan Rather (Reporter) | |
The Nuclear Battlefield ( Engl. :, The nuclear battlefield ') is a 1981 in the United States by the television channel CBS produced and first radiated documentary in which the nuclear defense strategy of NATO in an attack of the Warsaw Pact in the Fulda Gap is described. The broadcasting rights in Germany had been secured by Bayerischer Rundfunk , which refrained from broadcasting the program. The first two parts were shown on Austrian radio in August 1981 . The second part reached members of the East Hessian peace movement as a copy and, after being shown there, sparked a social debate about retrofitting .
action
The film describes the approach of the NATO troops in the case of the Warsaw Pact attack in the Fulda Gap , which has been taught since the mid-1970s in the tactics textbook for American general staff officers at the Fort Leavenworth training facility under the subtitle "Conventional Nuclear Operations". The Fulda and Kinzig valleys were assumed to be the most likely location for a possible rapid advance by opposing troops to the Rhine. The use of the so-called zebra package was described in detail in the film . This was a system of 141 nuclear warheads , of which 114 were to be ignited within two hours as a “nuclear barrage ” in the Fulda Gap and another 27 in the Kinzig valley in the event of a defense .
In the film, the community of Hattenbach was shown and referred to as the ground zero of a nuclear war. Afterwards, course participants were seen in Fort Leavenworth in front of a large model of the terrain of Hattenbach and its surroundings. During this scene, the narrator in the film comments:
“(…) This sandpit game looks innocent enough until you realize that it is a model of a real city and that this city will be destroyed in the course of the war game. We were looking for this city: It's called Hattenbach and is about 30 km from the East German border. She survived two world wars, but would perish the next. From the east they have the Soviets with their tactical nuclear weapons in their sights, and to the west they have the US nuclear artillery. Hattenbach is at point zero. Exactly at zero point, temperatures of over 7000 degrees Fahrenheit (≈ 3871 degrees Celsius) can be expected with a 10 kiloton weapon. There will be nothing left around point zero. What is there would literally be blown away - no longer a town, just a heap of flat rubble. "
Shown people
In addition to Dan Rather and Harry Reasoner shown as reporters in the film, Pierre Callois (then French General Staff General ) and Caspar Weinberger (then Secretary of Defense of the United States ) can be seen in the film.
effect
In addition to the board game Fulda Gap: The First Battle of the Next War , which in 1977 "playfully" implemented the plans of the above-mentioned tactics textbook as a conflict simulation game, the film was instrumental in making the term Fulda Gap known, which was used extensively by the peace movement to point out the regional references of the plans at that time in the context of the retrofitting debate . In Germany, Der Spiegel reported for the first time in the summer of 1981 in a very general article about the film.
Awards
- 1981 Peabody Award
Web links
- The American television station CBS shows a documentary on the planned use of tactical nuclear weapons in the "integrated battlefield of East Hesse", June 15, 1981. Contemporary history in Hesse. In: Landesgeschichtliches Informationssystem Hessen (LAGIS).
- The community of Hattenbach in the district of Hersfeld-Rotenburg as "point zero" of a nuclear weapon attack on US television, June 15, 1981. Contemporary history in Hesse. In: Landesgeschichtliches Informationssystem Hessen (LAGIS).
- The news magazine DER SPIEGEL reports on the "nuclear target" Hattenbach, March 1, 1982. Contemporary history in Hesse. In: Landesgeschichtliches Informationssystem Hessen (LAGIS).
- Document - "The Defense of the United States" , transcribed on danratherjournalist.org (accessed October 9, 2018)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Information in the info box from: CBS REPORTS: THE DEFENSE OF THE UNITED STATES, PT. 2: THE NUCLEAR BATTLEFIELD (TV) on paleycenter.org (accessed September 8, 2018)
- ↑ Knut Krusewitz , Heike Maul: From the Fulda Gap to the UNESCO Model Region , Niederaula 2001, ISBN 3-936201-00-5 , p. 13
- ↑ Helmut R. Hammerich : Fulda Gap: Focus of the Cold War between myth and reality in Thomas Heiler , Udo Lange, Gregor K. Stasch, Udo Verse: The Rhön - History of a Landscape , Michael Imhof Verlag, Petersberg 2015, ISBN 978-3 -7319-0272-0 , pp. 294/295
- ↑ CBS REPORTS: THE DEFENSE OF THE UNITED STATES, PT. 2: THE NUCLEAR BATTLEFIELD (TV) on paleycenter.org (accessed September 8, 2018)
- ↑ The Defense of the United States / CBS News on beta.worldcat.org (accessed September 8, 2018)