ABSTRACT
From the beginning of 1950 onwards, credible intelligence reports warned that the SED was planning to use massed ranks of People’s Policemen in order to invade West Berlin. After infiltrating, they would organize riots and disorders. Outbreaks of shooting and attacks on Communists in West Berlin would give the East German forces the excuse they needed to invade. While the western authorities had prepared for the worst, they had also taken the decision to be generous and as open as possible to curious visitors from the East. While maintaining a close eye on the border, within the western sectors they decided to keep the police in reserve. The invasion scare of spring 1950, exposed how thin and overstretched the police would be in an emergency. Western forces were protected in part by the existence of a nuclear arsenal, but fears of a surprise attack remained palpable up to the building of the Berlin Wall.
