![Fulda gap 85](https://kumkoniak.com/114.png)
![fulda gap 85 fulda gap 85](https://www.hexasim.com/images/CPG/CPG-Fuldabig.jpg)
A third, less likely, route involved travelling up through the Danube River valley through neutral Austria. ĭuring the Cold War, the Fulda Gap offered one of the two obvious routes for a hypothetical Soviet tank attack on West Germany from Eastern Europe (especially from East Germany) the other route crossed the North German Plain. withdrawal (July 1945) from this territory. This in turn did much to compel the Soviets to honor their commitment to allow the Western Allies access to Berlin in exchange for U.S. advance had little consequence for Germany's strategic position (which was indeed hopeless by that point), but it allowed the Americans to occupy vast swaths of territory which the Yalta Conference of February 1945 had assigned to the Soviet occupation zone. XII Corps used it in their advance eastward in late March and early April 1945. The route became important again at the end of World War II when the U.S. Napoleon succeeded in defeating a Bavarian- Austrian army under Wrede in the Battle of Hanau (30–31 October 1813) not far from Frankfurt from there he escaped back to France.įrom 1815, the area appeared of minimal strategic importance, as it lay deep within the borders of the German Confederation and (from 1871) of the German Empire, and German military planning presumed any war would be effectively lost long before an enemy reached that far into the homeland. The Fulda Gap roughly corresponds to the route along which Napoleon chose to withdraw his armies after defeat (16–19 October 1813) at the Battle of Leipzig. Named for the town of Fulda, the Fulda Gap became seen as strategically important during the Cold War of 1947–1991. The Fulda Gap ( German: Fulda-Lücke), an area between the Hesse-Thuringian border (the former Inner German border) and Frankfurt am Main, contains two corridors of lowlands through which tanks might have driven in a surprise attack by the Soviets and their Warsaw Pact allies to gain crossing(s) of the Rhine River.
![fulda gap 85 fulda gap 85](https://picoarmor.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/MC-Fulda-2-500x500.jpg)
Soviet units are 8th Guards Army, US units are V CorpsĪCR = armored cavalry regiment (US) | CAS = close air support | CSS = combat service support | D= Division | G = Guards | MR = Motor Rifle | Regt Hq = regiment headquarters | RHQ = regional headquarters | T = Tank RHQ – Regt Hq, 1/11 – 1st Squadron / 11th ACR, CAS – aviation, CSS – support
![Fulda gap 85](https://kumkoniak.com/114.png)