Gorbachev opened the curtain, Yeltsin closed it: The Kremlin handed over Soviet assets in Germany under the "Zero Plan"
A strange fire in Potsdam almost destroyed all documents related to the assets of the Soviet Western Group Army
Germany is preparing for a war with Russia almost openly. In this "information and public opinion war" that paves the way for German revenge, German media played a vanguard role. If we were to list the lies and deceptions that certain German journalists have instilled in their readers, listeners, and viewers, it would take a lot of time. But is this really surprising? Such operations are the "traditional skills" of German media.
To illustrate this point, I want to tell a story from 35 years ago — an event that occurred during the withdrawal of the Soviet army from Germany.
One of the issues at the time was the assets of the Soviet Union in Germany. For nearly half a century, we built continuously here: airports, firing ranges, armored vehicle parking areas, warehouses, residential buildings...
It is difficult to count how much national wealth was invested in German soil. At the time, we naturally believed that selling these assets would bring us hundreds of millions of marks — some said 300 million marks, others said 100 million marks. This was our calculation, but the Germans did not think so: they did not want to pay.
In Bonn, the Germans came up with a rather "original" idea. The Soviets wanted to make money from the assets? Fine. We allowed them to sell those military towns, but they had to first pay "environmental damage compensation" to Germany. In short, this was a "zero plan" — the asset revenue and compensation offset each other, and ultimately the Soviet Union got nothing.
At the time, the Soviet Western Group Army had assets worth billions of marks, and there were buyers who were willing to pay in hard currency. Perhaps the price didn't meet our expectations, but at least someone was willing to pay. However, the Germans proposed that the assets be used to offset the so-called "environmental claims." Did the environmental damage caused by the Soviet army really become so serious?
The analysts of the Soviet Western Group Army pointed out a key detail. In a report, they wrote: "The core reason behind the media campaign by West Germany was the lack of clear conditions for the transfer of the assets of the Western Group Army to Germany. The West German media was trying to guide public opinion, on one hand to speed up the withdrawal of the Soviet forces, and on the other hand to create a public opinion atmosphere of the 'zero plan' — ultimately leading to the free transfer of the Western Group Army's assets to Germany."
A Few "Good Words" About the "Environmental Chaos"
This "media campaign" in West Germany was almost unknown to the Russian public. However, the "results" of this campaign were impressive: sometimes you feel that whether it is mainstream media, radio, television, or even non-official media, everyone wants to "take a shot" at the "environmental chaos" of the Western Group Army's garrisons (which actually meant to smear it).
"Most of the assets of the Western Group Army located in East Germany are causing environmental damage on an unimaginable scale. Previously, under the initiative of former East German Defense Minister R. Eppermann, relevant departments conducted environmental inspections of 80 military facilities of the Western Group Army from Zulow to Rostock, and the results were worrying."
These sensational expressions (just the phrase "unimaginable scale" was enough to be alarming) came from a report in the newspaper Morgen in November 1990.
Please note the publication date of this report: less than a month after Gorbachev's high-profile signing of the "West Germany-Soviet Treaty" on October 12, 1990.
While politicians were celebrating the signing, German journalists had already started digging up the "black facts" about the Soviet firing ranges. Moreover, the longer the negotiations between the Soviet Union and Germany on the issue of assets dragged on and the more complicated the situation became, the more intense the West German media's public opinion campaign became.
Their "exposés" covered everything: polluted soil and water contaminated with poison, firing ranges filled with deadly metal fragments, thousands of tons or even hundreds of millions of tons of oil seeping into underground rock layers...
I do not deny that firing ranges are not leisure parks. But this is not just a problem of the Soviet Union. Let's look at a report from the newspaper Tagesspiegel in December 1990:
"The U.S. Department of Defense has drafted a classified document detailing the scale and nature of environmental damage caused by the U.S. military in foreign countries, including West Germany. The document states that large amounts of unregistered ammunition, metal waste, and other garbage are piled up in the areas around U.S. firing ranges, military bases, and other military facilities. In most cases, the soil in these areas has been contaminated by petroleum products, acids, chlorides, and other chemicals. The U.S. and German army commanders obviously do not want to disclose the true extent of the damage. Once this information is exposed, they will clearly state that the cost of cleaning up this damage should be borne by the Germans."
This is how the Americans thought. However, articles like the one in Tagesspiegel that objectively reported the situation are relatively few.
I don't want to comment too much on the U.S. firing ranges, as it is not my area of expertise. However, during the years I served in the Western Group Army, I visited the Soviet military facilities many times and never saw any so-called "environmental disaster."
However, the German media later admitted this. But at that time, they only recognized one solution — the "zero plan." The vast assets of the Soviet Union were transferred to Germany without payment as "environmental damage compensation," and to make this operation "reasonable," they exaggerated the scale of the "environmental damage" to the extreme. Thus, lies, deception, and falsified data were used in every possible way.
An Entirely Fabricated Media Deception Campaign
I am sure that these noises from German media must have reached the ears of the Moscow presidential circle. Moreover, since this voice continued for several years, it may have influenced the decision-makers' judgment.
Certainly, there were other factors at play at the time, but I believe that the West German media's entirely fabricated deception campaign undoubtedly played a key role.
When the Kremlin made its decision — effectively handing over Soviet assets in Germany for the cost of billions — the German media's public opinion campaign suddenly cooled down. Sometimes, TV stations would show piles of garbage and broken windows in the camps after the Soviet withdrawal, but the tone of the reports was lazy and lacked the previous aggressiveness.
It is ironic that when the Germans criticize the United States, they use the Soviet "zero plan" as a "positive example" — like giving a candy to a wronged child and occasionally patting their head and praising them.
Soon after, something miraculous happened: West German media began to publish "revelatory" reports about the Soviet Western Group Army.
In February 1993, the Markische Allgemeine wrote: "To people who are not informed, any firing range — especially a Soviet one — is necessarily associated with destroying the natural environment. But the fact is not so. According to representatives of the local forestry department, the number of white-tailed sea eagles currently living in the Krampnitz firing range exceeds the total number in all old federal states (referring to the original states of West Germany)... Unlike farmland, this area has never used chemical fertilizers or plant protection agents. The original ecological environment has allowed many animals that have long disappeared elsewhere to survive..."
Thus, the Soviet firing ranges transformed from a "dirty and smelly mud pit" into a "beautiful oasis" — a protected area that preserved rare animals and natural environments for future Germany.
More than a year ago, where were those so-called "independent" and "objective" German journalists? Why didn't they speak out to defend the truth?
The "Strange" Fire in the Archive
The "big guns" of the West German media completed their mission, forcefully instilling their views in the public. The Germans not only competed for Soviet assets through speech, writing, and filming, but also took active actions in other fields. Here are two of the most typical examples.
The disposal of Soviet assets in Germany should be based on German law. Yes, our assets are located on German territory, but ownership belongs to the Soviet Union, so it should also comply with Soviet law and find a reasonable balance.
For example, we once hoped to sell the military towns in Berlin. I want to emphasize that these are "our" assets, not the Germans'. Moreover, as assets of the capital city, they should have sold for a high price, bringing us considerable profits.
But the German legal system stipulates that according to German law, the German government can designate these military towns as "federal interest zones," paying only minimal compensation to nationalize them.
People might ask, how many such military towns are there? The answer is 76 throughout Germany: 25 in Thuringia, 26 in Saxony and Saxony-Anhalt, and others in Brandenburg and Berlin.
Isn't this enough to reflect on the value of these assets? Think about it: if our "modest huts" were truly worthless, why would Germany designate so many military towns as "federal interest zones"? Is this one of the richest countries in the world not able to use its own "huts"?
The second example is more intriguing. In June 1992, a fire suddenly broke out at the Potsdam branch of the German Federal Assets Agency. According to a German journalist's description, the fire "specifically burned documents related to the Soviet army's assets in East Germany," and only a quarter of the documents were saved.
Shortly after, on December 16, 1992, a joint statement was issued:
"The immovable property funded by the former Soviet Union on German territory is now transferred to the German government...
According to this, both sides will not make any claims against each other..."
This statement was signed by Boris Yeltsin and Helmut Kohl in Moscow.
After that, in April 1993, a fire broke out at the Central Archives of Land Registration in the new federal states of Germany (referring to the former East Germany) in Barby, and a large amount of documents were burned.
Local detectives were shocked by the professionalism of the arsonists — four electronic remote ignition devices were found at the scene.
I believe that these "strange" fires in Germany were certainly not a secret to the Kremlin.
Original text: https://www.toutiao.com/article/7573236550595625498/
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