It all began with one wrong push of an enemy who never really even gave the order to do said push, and it caused everything to unravel so quickly, that by the end of the war, nothing really remained, that symbolized the old world anymore, besides the ruins and the vaults that were made in case this ever happened, which it well..did happen.
The soviets by the 1980's were on the verge of economic and social collapse due to the social and economic stagnation that had been taking place over there for some time now, however brezhnev did next to nothing to mend these social ills which were very clearly visible to even the most unaware of outsiders, and much more to the ordinary men of the union and the eastern bloc.
By 1989, things had started to go bad, really bad, for the soviets that is, with the eastern bloc nations facing protests and unrest was common all across eastern europe, and to make things worse, the people were fed up with all of the lies the government had told them, and the place that had it the worst was germany.
Firmly sandwiched between two worlds, the people there had wanted to unite with their families for far too long and by the time the protests started happening, it was already too late to stop the wave of rebirthed nationalism that had already started to appear..
And as such people began to cross the borders more and more frequently from the east to the west, and people began to protest and demand the removal of the wall as well, and it seemed as if the survival of the German regime was no longer certain, with pressure from both it's own subjects and the west being all too common.
With the crossing of people more frequently from the east to the west becoming more and more commonplace, the gdr implemented more stringent border checks and closed borders for everyone, but people began to drive to Yugoslavia and go to Italy and from there to germany, to meet and unite with their familymen, for they had been seperated from each other for far too long.
Unable to control the situation, the Germans asked the soviets for aid, and aid they provided, they sent tanks to the border for military postering and the Americans responded in kind, by sending their tanks to the Berlin wall as well.
And that's where it all went wrong, terribly wrong, since the soviets assumed (after a short standstill between a soviet and american armoured platoon) that war had begun, and that the Americans were going to invade Berlin, and ordered the troops to cross the checkpoint where the two forces had come to a standstill and March towards the western parts of the city.
And chaos unfolded, nato troops began to fire on the soviet troops and before long the city was an active warzone, news stationed blared stating that ww3 had begun, and that with the weapons that both the sides did possess, and that it would be a sort of "Final war" of humanity, and that no one would live to tell the tale.
Well...let's just say it was somewhat like that, after the Battle of Berlin, things became hot, (and by hot, we do mean hot), since after the battle, in an effort to protect their frontlines, and in order to aid their puppets, both sides activated their nuclear sites, and decided to nuke one another, and by the end of that day, no place was untouched by the war.