I got the impression that the Germans and Brits and for the most part the Dutch were very serious about resisting a Soviet invasion. The Germans especially understood it was an existential threat.
We Americans were also quite concerned about a Warsaw Pact conventional invasion. This was the era of the Brezhnev Doctrine and communism was on the march. If you talked to an officer privately, few of us thought Carter had the balls to use nuclear weapons, which had kept the Russians behind the Iron Curtain since Eisenhower. So, Fort Knox and TRADOC closely studied the 1973 war because the Israelis had faced and defeated similar odds. They let us look at the crap Russian equipment and had us listen to defectors who talked about the crap morale among the Russian conscripts. Still, we thought hard about 6-1 odds in a Russian breakthrough attack with a President we were not at all certain had our back.
I no longer have direct sources, but my impression is the current German reluctance to fight, if not pacifism, set in after the fall of the Soviet Union and the wolf was no longer at the door.
Another trend was happening in the 70's, however. The German economic miracle was in full swing and Germany had a labor shortage. So, they started importing poor Turks to make up for it. Of course, Turks from the Ataturk era in Turkey are quite different from the Islamist trash that is now invading Europe. Plus, there aren't any jobs for them.
Do you think Germany is blind to the threat because of the way they have internalized nondiscrimination based on religion after they were forced to confront their role in the Holocaust?
We are contributing to the financial support of a young man and his wife as missionaries in Berlin of all places. He grew up two doors down from us, his parents are very good friends and he and his brothers are all very good friends with my sons. He was back home visiting this summer and we had a long talk about his mission trip to Germany. The Germans are the most atheist country in Europe right now, but they are polite atheists unlike our own home-grown militant evangelical atheists.
I told him it was my opinion this atheism stemmed from lack of organized religious objection to the Nazi movement, and it’s participation in supporting the Wehrmacht during the war. “Gott mit uns” was inscribed on every Landser’s belt buckle. Now, I’m sure the German clergy felt a need to provide spiritual support for the young German soldier, but it tainted them as an institution. After the horror of the war, the defeat, and the confrontation of the Holocaust, the Germans were and still are spiritually spent. Religion was discredited. My young missionary friend confirms this; the Germans don’t know about Christ, have completely lost touch with their Christian heritage, and simply don’t care about renewing it.
Because the Germans live in a spiritual vacuum, they don’t see Islam as a threat. They don’t “get” the concept of religious zealotry.