American Base Story

There is a great piece over at Focus today, which chats to the topic of American forces in Germany, and the various impacts....when 9,500 troops leave later in the year.  I would strongly recommend a read of the article.

I sat and watched the German-American military 'relationship' over a period of twenty years (coming and going on several occasions). 

When I arrived in 1978, you could still wander around Frankfurt and a few other cities....to see areas that hadn't been renovated yet from WW II.  Frankfurt was undergoing a vast construction phase, which even today in 2020.....locals would grin and say that it's still NOT done yet.

AFN-radio in 1978?  A lot of Germans within 20 miles of Frankfurt would tell you that they used the American entertainment portion more, than they used German public radio. 

American GI's spending money?  Frankfurt was turning a ton of money over in terms of food, beer, and entertainment. 

As the 1980s went by.....it didn't matter where you went in central or south Germany....any American installation was a 'treasure' to the local establishment because of cash-flow. 

As unification occurred and troop cuts were on the agenda....some communities woke up and watched US bases shutdown, and in a short period of time....the cash-flow dropped to virtually nothing. 

Today?  There's probably a dozen German communities left, which have a presence noted, and the local mayor will be blunt in their assessment.....if the installations close, a major part of the financial success of the community will go away as well. 

In the Wiesbaden area that I reside today....they might argue that they have the capability to re-use the property and come out even in terms of cash-flow.  They would also admit that they really don't want the runway problem that the Americans would leave them, and worry somewhat about some commercial use coming to the medium-length runway. 

So to the obvious question....did Americans just freely spend and filter US cash into these various communities since 1945? 

The simple answer here?  Yes. 

It doesn't matter if you talk West Berlin, Frankfurt, Stuttgart, Heidelberg, Ramstein, or Hahn....a ton of cash flowed through the system.  In the Bitburg area before the closure came....several hundred local apartments/houses were rented out to Americans at the installation, and Germans had the properties as investment situations.  Rent was probably higher than it ought to be, but this was part of the 'game'.  When the closure came?  Well....those investment situations dried up pretty quickly, and you were left with a house that had lost probably one-third of its value.

The negative side?  You as a community had to put up with potential drunken fights involving US Army characters in local clubs and bars.  You had to put up with significant traffic flow in highly rural areas.  You had to bear stupid questions asked by a continual flow of Americans....asking why this works this way, or why such-and-such is mandated.  The fact that some of the cash-flow was not reported as income or taxed?  This disturbed a number of Finanazamt people that some German businesses simply weren't reporting their true income. 

If you went out across Germany though and asked regular Germans (not politicians or journalists or intellectuals)....I suspect it'd be roughly two-thirds of the nation who'd say that this isn't a big deal and if the US military left, they wouldn't worry about it.  Maybe in the Kaiserslautern or Spangdahlem area, it'd matter differently because they really need the extra cash-flow.

As for the Cold War necessity to exist?  It's not even worth a discussion to bring up this evil Soviet empire threat discussion.  Everyone buys natural gas from the Russians, and via taxation on the Russian gas empire....we all sit here in Germany....sponsoring the Russian Army, it's tanks, with the missiles and submarines.  Then we pay German taxes which support the US basing situation, and even more to support the German Army having it's own tanks and missiles.