View source for Warsaw Pact

==1955-1968 ==
[[File:Heusinger.PNG|right|400px|thumb|'''Warsaw Pact members considered themselves still facing a threat from undefeated elements and allies of the [[Axis Powers]].'''<ref>[https://sonar21.com/the-warsaw-pact-propaganda-and-reality-by-helmholtz-smith/ THE WARSAW PACT – PROPAGANDA AND REALITY (BY HELMHOLTZ SMITH)], by HELMHOLTZ SMITH, 30 December 2023. sonar21.com</ref> {''Left'') Chief of the General Staff of the German Army Gen. Adolf Heusinger, [[Gen. Friedrich von Paulus]] who was captured at [[Stalingrad]], and [[Adolf Hitler]]; (''right'') Gen. Adolf Heusinger as Chairman of the NATO Military Committee (1961-1964).]]
During the Organisation's first thirteen years the Ministers of Defence of the sovereign states, whether they were pro-Soviet puppets or actual Soviet generals and Marshals, were subordinated to the Commander-in-Chief, who was appointed by the Soviet government and who was himself Deputy Minister of Defence of the USSR. Thus, even in a legal sense, the Ministers of these theoretically sovereign states were directly subordinated to a Soviet Minister's deputy. 

After the Prague Spring in 1968, the Consultative Committee was set up. In this committee, Ministers of Defence and Heads of State from the Central European occupied countries gathered to talk as equals and allies, but in reality all decisions were still made in the Kremlin. During [[Czech Republic#The 1968 Soviet Invasion|'Operation Danube']], the 1968 Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, the `allied' divisions of the Warsaw Treaty Organisation were integrated in the Soviet Armies. None of the Central European countries had the right to set up its own Corps, Armies or Fronts. They had only divisions commanded by Soviet generals. In the event of war with [[Nato]], they would be fully integrated into the United (or Soviet) Armed Forces.