DOD says that the Germans receive about $6 *Billion* per year from the US military., through contracting, rent, services, etc., etc. You can check the DOD website (I'm not going to try to use their dysfunctional search engine) for info. That's the direct part.
There was a recent study by some German federal bureau that put the economic dependency on US bases at 17%. Others quote higher or lower. I'm not going to try to navigate the German web system to try to find that again - German is my sixth language and I'm not that great with it. The report is out there.
i bet money the 17% number is the number of businesses either directly or indirectly IMPACTED by the US presence, whether that impacton a per-business basis be the price of a weinerschnitzel or 50% of said business' revenues.
And what percentage is $6 billion of a $1,846 trillion economy? It is miniscule.
There was a recent study by some German federal bureau that put the economic dependency on US bases at 17%. Others quote higher or lower. I'm not going to try to navigate the German web system to try to find that again - German is my sixth language and I'm not that great with it. The report is out there.
That could possibly be true for some of the communities adjacent to these bases, but that in no way impacts the German economy to that extent. Again, Germany is the world's third largest economy with a population of 82 million people. It is preposterous to suggest that the US military accounts for 15% to 25% of the total economy. Get real.