17:12 Mar 11, 2011 

'a sitting duck' might be good for 'vollkommen ausgeliefert.

13:12 Mar 11, 2011 

Would be interested to hear more about your NVA experience and Soviet/NVA morale and motivation but this is perhaps not the right place.
Yes, nobody seriously imagined West Berlin could not be overrun but as your link indicates, one aim was apparently to slow down any attack (and buy time for potential response or countermeasures by the three Western Allies and, more widely, NATO).
I am truly thankful that arguably through alliance, diplomacy, firmness and wise leadership the Cold War is consigned to history without bloodshed (other than those who died or were wounded while trying to cross the border installations).

14:11 Mar 10, 2011 

... the Allied Forces were in a very bad position there, and that they would have been swept away, at least initially. (That's why I misinterpreted the original phrase at the outset.) There was a song by Udo Lindenberg which went like "in fünf Minuten sind die Russen auf dem Kurfürstendamm".

However, as someone who had to serve in the NVA as a soldier (and whose father was an officer of that army), I can assure you that things were really a bit more complicated ;-] Especially if you consider the morale of Soviet soldiers (we were aware their conditions where horrible even compared to ours).

Be it as it may, if you follow the reference provided by me, you'll see that NATO really believed they could defend this tiny patch of terrritory, and that they were planning for it throughout the decades they maintained their presence in the city :-]

We should remember that the Cold War was pure madness -- only that we had all grown accustomed to it -- East and West. Looking back we are all happy having survived this.

Ok, back to the topic.

14:10 Mar 10, 2011 

13:56 Mar 10, 2011 

Perhaps you should just accept that it is your unbirthday and move to satisfy your supporters here. Though I see the community will decide and you'd have to garner 12 votes. Are you up to the job?

13:49 Mar 10, 2011 

The odds against having a birthday in any 72-hour period are over a hundred to one!

13:40 Mar 10, 2011 

I prefer Andrew's answer, too. "armed to the teeth" sounds very American, and sounds as if even the children are carrying machine guns. Bristling with weaponry is closer to the original both linguistically and factually - it suggests that there are a lot of weapons, but not that they are constantly on show.

00:21 Mar 10, 2011 

Once I discovered that it was Nicole's birthday (give or take a day), I really didn't have the heart to rain on her parade.

00:16 Mar 10, 2011 

I like Andrew's "bristling with weaponry" best, although Nicole's answer is very similar.
I disagree with the author (or the impression of the man from Steglitz), however. The Western Allies (US, UK, France) were but a token presence (at best, three brigades plus support) compared to the military might of the NVA (East German Armed Forces) and the Group of Soviet Forces in Germany. The map on the wall of the Checkpoint Charlie "escape museum", for instance, clearly showed this stark imbalance. The overwhelming majority of "bristling weaponry" was on the side of the GSFG and NVA. Nevertheless it was arguably the Allies' political will to regard any attack on West Berlin or its access routes as an attack on their own sovereign territory that helped perhaps to deter a Soviet invasion of West Berlin.
"Waffen starrend"? - eben nicht. "vollkommen ausgeliefert" - militärisch vielleicht ja, politisch nein.

18:57 Mar 9, 2011 

I agree that this is about the city and not the populace. I wish Andrew had posted his idea. The term gives the image of a city bristling like a hedgehog with arms/weapons/anti-aircraft guns aloft.

13:02 Mar 9, 2011 

@ opolt: I just feel that "armed to the hilt" is more appropriate for a town and it would give Edwin an alternative.

12:57 Mar 9, 2011 

Thanks, I know that the expression is quite frequent, but do you think it is much different from "armed to the teeth"? I'm obviously not a native speaker of E, but it seems to me that the difference is negligible. Or maybe it's a bit more colloquial and works better with a town?

Currently, I just see it as a synonym (more or less) of what Nicole has proposed. At any rate, I have already been messing around enough here ;-), and I would encourage you to submit it as an answer if you're really conviced it's better!

12:46 Mar 9, 2011 

@ opolt: Why don't you suggest "armed to the hilt"? There are plenty of examples of the expression applied to towns/regions etc.

01:04 Mar 9, 2011 

it should indeed be "bristling with weaponry"; also, I do remember saying "bis auf die Zähne bewaffnet."

23:42 Mar 8, 2011 

... because the Western Allies did plan and prepare for the defense of the city, and very much so. Mea culpa ... so in a way "armed to the teeth" is valid.

(read from page 184:)
http://books.google.com/books?id=DN9KJ7VvQWIC&pg=PA526&lpg=P...

Pls. forgive my ignorance -- I grew up far from this mess and did not arrive in (East) Berlin until 1985. :-]

23:21 Mar 8, 2011 

22:57 Mar 8, 2011 

... my original ideas are not really good, far from it -- I only wanted Edwin to note that "staring down the barrel of a gun" was probably not what is meant here. It's more about the "perceived militarization" of the city, I think.

22:56 Mar 8, 2011 

Why don't you post it? Since it is the city and not the man that is being described....

22:52 Mar 8, 2011 

bristling with weaponry

22:27 Mar 8, 2011 

... "waffenstarrend" [sic] -- blame the neue Rechtschreibung :-]

Basically, in this case, it means: "full of/replete with weapons", "boasting lots of weapons", along those lines ...

PS My guess is that he's referring to the heavy presence of the Allied Forces at the time, all the barracks and uniforms and things, including Russian patrols now and then. And of course, later on the East/West border became militarized. So this is not so much about W Berlin being armed to the hilt to in order defend itself. The latter wasn't possible AFAIK due to the status of the city.