Not many people know how close the world came to WW3 during the cold war in Europe, and who was the man who prevented it.
According to Soviet plans, the USSR had envisioned a quick takeover of the European NATO member states and planned to use Polish territory as a marching ground for more than 3 million Soviet soldiers, a million tanks and 3,200 military trains transporting weapons and explosives, all aimed at Western Europe.
Ryszard Kuklinski, a Colonel in the Polish army, was the person who revealed those plans to the West.
Colonel Kuklinski realized that being outnumbered in the arsenal of conventional weapons, the West would have no choice but to resort to nuclear warheads, which would obliterate Poland, huge parts of Europe and would cause WW3.
Documents confirming the USSR's readiness to go into a nuclear war have been found in the East Germany's archives. The Soviets had planned to launch about 60 nuclear weapons, each of them 10 times as powerful as the one the U.S. had dropped on Hiroshima.
In his decision to expose Soviet strategic plans to the West, he made it virtually impossible for the USSR to execute their invasion plans, and stopped WW3 from happening.
more: Col Ryszard Kuklinski
According to Soviet plans, the USSR had envisioned a quick takeover of the European NATO member states and planned to use Polish territory as a marching ground for more than 3 million Soviet soldiers, a million tanks and 3,200 military trains transporting weapons and explosives, all aimed at Western Europe.
Ryszard Kuklinski, a Colonel in the Polish army, was the person who revealed those plans to the West.
Colonel Kuklinski realized that being outnumbered in the arsenal of conventional weapons, the West would have no choice but to resort to nuclear warheads, which would obliterate Poland, huge parts of Europe and would cause WW3.
Documents confirming the USSR's readiness to go into a nuclear war have been found in the East Germany's archives. The Soviets had planned to launch about 60 nuclear weapons, each of them 10 times as powerful as the one the U.S. had dropped on Hiroshima.
In his decision to expose Soviet strategic plans to the West, he made it virtually impossible for the USSR to execute their invasion plans, and stopped WW3 from happening.
more: Col Ryszard Kuklinski
