North German Plain

The location


The aria is roughly encompassed by Lower Saxon Hills, the Teutoburg Forest, the Wiehen Hills, the Weser Hills, Lower Saxon Börde, the Westphalian Lowland, the Rhenish Massif, the Eifel, Bergisches Land, the Sauerland,  East Brandenburg Plateau, Westphalian Lowland or Basin, Schleswig-Holstein Upland, East Frisian Geest, Upper Lusatian Plateau, Lower Rhine Plain, the Harz mountains, Kyffhäuser, Central Saxon hill country, the Ore Mountains, Szczecin Lagoon and the northern coastline with the North Sea and Baltic Sea.

It was formed during the Pleistocene era by glacial advances of terrestrial Scandinavian ice sheets. The region is drained by rivers that flow northwards into the North Sea or the Baltic. The important rivers Rhine, Ems, Weser, Elbe and Havel drain water from the North German Lowlands into the North Sea. This created woods in the rivers' flood plains and folds like the Spreewald ("Spree Forest"). Only a small area of the North German Plain falls within the catchment area of the Oder and Neiße rivers which drain out into the Baltic.

It has several distinctive salt marshes, tide-flats and tidal reed beds in the estuaries existed permanently in the tidal zone of the North Sea coast. Special micro-climates occur in bogs and heath-lands and, for example, in the Altes Land near Hamburg. The local variety of beach trees dominate in the remaining forested places, whilst other places have bountiful orchards. Human intervention caused the emergence of open heath such as the Lüneburg Heath and measures such as deforestation and the so-called Plaggenhieb (removal of the topsoil for use as fertiliser elsewhere) caused a wide impoverishment of the soil (AKA-Podsol).

The lowest points are low moorlands and old marshland on the edge of the ridge of dry land in the west of Schleswig-Holstein called the Wilster Marsh. It is 3.5 metres below sea level and prone to flooding in stormy weather. Similar terrain and depths are found in the north west of Lower Saxony at the Freepsum. 2.3 metres below sea level and prone to flooding in stormy weather. The highest points are the Vistula and Hall glaciation terminal moraines on the Fläming Heath which is 200 metres above sea level and the Helpt Hills which is 179 metres above sea level. It has a maritime to sub-maritime climate.

The plan
The North German plain was identified as a geographic area which might be used as a Eastern Block major invasion route into Western Europe. Such a invasion Warsaw Pact forces would have led by the Soviet Third Shock Army and several East German border units, followed up by more Soviets, any spare East German units and some initial Polish units.

Unlike Germany's Fulda Gap, the plain's geography which makes it suitable for the deployment of armoured and mechanized manoeuvre, so mass tank formations could vomit in to Germany and go on in to the Netherlands (AKA- Holland). This lead to it being identified as a slightly more significant risk.

The defence of the Plain was the responsibility of NATO's Northern Army Group and Second Allied Tactical Air Force, made up of German, Dutch, Belgian, British and U.S. forces including 1st British Corps. The British Army Of the Rhine were at Osnabrück, and the Americans were at Darmstadt and Münster amongst other places.

NATO military strategists had the idea that they could drive in and take either Mecklenburg or

Northeast Mecklenburg Lowland

Oder Valley

Also see

 * 1) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osnabrück
 * 2) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_German_Plain
 * 3) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darmstadt
 * 4) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Army_of_the_Rhine