For 48 hours last week, British and Russian soldiers faced each other from foxholes across the border between East and West Germany (see above), ready to shoot at the drop of an order. With each of the former allies flanked by armed support from the nation they had fought in World War II (Volkspolizei on the East, German frontier guards on the West), the stage was set for a serious clash of arms. But the order never came.
The crisis rose when a detachment of Red soldiers and Volkspolizei rounded up a locomotive, its driver and 40 West German laborers on...
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