Posted on 08/17/2004 1:41:52 PM PDT by knighthawk
KITZINGEN, Germany - Hans Seitz has sold engraved pewter plates and cuckoo clocks to U.S. soldiers for years. Now he fears some of his best customers may be going if two U.S. divisions pull out of Germany.
Seitz was one of many Germans all the way up to Defense Minister Peter Struck who expressed regret Tuesday at the prospect that the United States will withdraw a large share of its 70,000 troops from Germany under plans announced by President Bush.
"It would be bad. We would certainly miss them," Seitz, 70, said of the soldiers of the 1st Infantry Division, some 2,600 of whom are stationed in this wine country town in northern Bavaria and whose division is one of the two that may leave.
"All our contacts with soldiers are good, they're friendly to us and we're friendly to them," he said in the tiny shop now run by his son in the cobblestoned center of this town of 22,000. "Our relations have been close for many years."
Seitz is not alone. Across southern Germany, about two dozen towns and cities with major U.S. military bases face similar economic fears, though the Americans will leave only gradually.
Pulling the troops out would break up a close relationship dating back to the end of World War II. Germans still remember that Elvis Presley and Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf, the top commander in the 1991 Gulf war, served here.
"I regret this very much," Struck said while visiting troops in northern Germany. "This is a serious loss for those regions."
Though most Germans and their government opposed the U.S.-led war in Iraq, the differences with Washington have not changed the reliance of local communities on their military guests.
In Kitzingen, many regard them as part of their lives and are unsettled by talk of their leaving especially the small-business owners who sell them goods, landlords who rent them apartments and city officials who get subsidies to help provide them services.
But it is about more than money. As a 12-year-old boy, Seitz befriended an American soldier who was rebuilding the town's airfield for U.S. use after the Third Reich's defeat, first going to watch the big construction machines and then serving as an orderly in return for hard-to-get sugar and chocolate.
In the 1980s, the soldier, Elwood D. Green of West Virginia, tracked him down through the mayor's office using his photo and only his first name, and the two families exchanged visits in the 1980s before Green died in 1994.
Asked if he believed Bush would pull out troops to punish Germany for its stand on Iraq, he said, "No, I can't believe that. It's the economic situation."
And there are the marriages so many that Kitzingen spouses hold reunions in the United States. Deputy Mayor Franz Boehm attended the last one in Frankenmuth, Mich., in 2003.
On Monday, Bush cited the need for more agile forces as well as cost savings when he announced that up to 70,000 U.S. troops and about 100,000 family members and civilian workers would come home from Europe and Asia during the next decade.
"If there is a complete pullout, the way they are talking about, it would be a big economic and human problem," Boehm said in his office in the town's Rathaus, or city hall. "The Americans came in 1945 and they simply belong to the city."
The town nets $1.8 million from the regional government to cover services provided to the U.S. military, not counting what goes into retailers' tills and landlords' bank accounts.
In Kitzingen, home to the 1st Infantry's 4th Battalion and several support units, the deployment of most of the soldiers to Iraq already has dented the local economy.
Boehm says Germany is not being punished it is just the end of the Cold War. Kitzingen, about 45 miles from the former East German border, is no longer on the front line between the West and Communism.
"It's a different situation," he said. "We used to be 50, 60, 70 kilometers from the Iron Curtain, and it's no longer there."
For U.S. soldiers, there are things to relish about Germany, too.
Army Staff Sgt. Allan Davis, 41, lives in nearby Giebelstadt, a picturesque town with old houses, and appreciates the wines for which the area is renowned.
"This whole area, it's wine," Davis said while lunching in the McDonald's next to U.S. military housing at the edge of Kitzingen. "I visited one of the wineries once really nice."
Davis said he knows local stores will be hurting. Still, he believes it is time to bring some of that money home to towns in the United States.
"I think we need to be taking care of our home first before we take care of our neighbors," Davis said.
No sympathy whatsoever. The claims processors who followed the American units around and wrote out the checks for "track damage" are out of work too. Greeting customers at Walmart isn't soooo bad. Velcomen to Vall Mart. Yah, ve haff 2 forbeinin 1 Lederhosen speciall today Hans.
Jorge
What do you mean? What track damage. I've never been there so I'm not familiar with the more unsavory characteristics.
Having those 70,000 in Germany was very like having that many tourists on permanent vacation there, spending lots of US dollars. This is a blow to the faltering German economy and it heralds the start of necessarily higher appropriations for the German military.
Do you remember all the false bravado coming from the Germans when this pull-out was first being publicly contemplated? They said, "go, we don't need you." What are they saying now?
Ah! Neutral steer.
"Put some ice on it!!!"
Unilateral? If we don't decide where and when our troops come home, who should decide ? France, Germany or the UN?
the German government "spends billions each year to support those troops".
Germany should now save billions each year, there should not be any complaining at all.
Thank you.
America soldier are welcome in my country. I agree with your president, it is good what he does, about good time.
Thank you.
The Germans have proven they make better enemies than friends.......bye bye!
Ah ... pivot turn ...
Tactical driving ...
Big honking holes in somebody's field ...
Field expedient fighting position.
I took four years of high school German, two years of college German, and went through the Gateway German course when assigned to Mannheim. I quit trying to speak German when a five-year old on the German strassenbahn talked me into complete confusion. That brought me down to Earth in a hurry.
Broken German indeed ... I spoke English only after that, except for "danke", "bitte", and "Eine bratwurst und eine bier bitte".
And the all important "wo ist die toilette?" after you've "ein bier bitte" several times.
Time to stand up on your own two feet, Fritz. Uncle Sam is picking up his toys and going home, and it's about damned time in this running-dog Yankee's book.
If that were close to being true, then the Germans should be happy to have us pull out, think of the savings for them. Typical leftist BS, make things up to back up your outrage.
My father was stationed in Rhein Main back in the late 70's. I don't recall how the Germans treated us, but I do remember the country side as being really beautiful.
bttt
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.