German Town Wary of U.S. Troop Pullout

Yahoo News ^ | August 17 2004 | DAVID McHUGH/AP

[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.

[Arpege92]

I don't recall anything like that, but I do remember alot of Pakistanian people living in Germany. They used to beat the crap out of their kids....I saw one Pakistanian woman beat someone else's child. My mom grabbed my arm and pulled me out of that before that woman turned her shoe on me.

We had to live on the German economy for a few months because we were waiting for base housing. We had a whole bunch of personal items stolen out of a storage locker located in the apartment building's basement.

[StoneFury]

Typical leftist BS, make things up to back up your outrage.

I've seen this in action quite a bit over at DU. Someone will post an article, and the first few people to respond will express their outrage (OUTRAGE I say!) to some policy or other. Only later, when the other posters are disagreeing with them, they realize they've completely missed the point of the article, and inadvertantly sided with the conservative viewpoint.

Posts about France's muslims usually have this effect - they know the French are the "good guys", and they know Muslims are the "good guys" too. But when the French are butting heads with the muslims, the DUmmies get confused and forget to toe the party line, and start spouting their knee-jerk indignation before thinking it through.

[hershey]

It's the same economic pain towns all over the US have had to deal with when bases closed. Belts tightened, life went on.

[StoneFury]

Heh... I remember alot of Pakistanis too. I used to play with some of the kids, until one day when I was about 3 they convinced me to go to the playground behind our apartment, climb up the slide, and pee down it. They also told me I might get yelled at by my mother, but to just say the "f" word to her and everything would be OK.

I think she used an entire bar of soap to wash out my mouth.

[Arpege92]

I was told to keep away from the Pakistanian kids. They were always getting beat up. She was just glad when we finally got base housing....so was I. We finally had kids to play with who actually spoke English!

[MissAmericanPie]

When we pull out of Germany, then the Balkins, the Muslims can have Germany and France, which is the reason Clinton got us into that mess on the wrong side in the first place. To placate France and Germany's fears that the Balkin mess would spill over into their little corner of Europe.

Then they can fight Islamic terrorists and survive or surrender, their choice.

[GOPJ]

Thanks for the ping.

[knighthawk]

At your service!