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Germany shaken by plans to withdraw US troops Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=worldNews&storyID=5995343http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=worldNews&storyID=5995343
Germany Shaken by U.S. Plans to Withdraw Troops
Tue Aug 17, 2004 08:18 AM ET
By Moritz Doebler
BERLIN (Reuters) - The German government said on Tuesday U.S. plans to pull out 30,000 troops were a sign of Europe's divisions being healed, but communities hit by the decision warned they were headed for economic disaster.
Karsten Voigt, Berlin's coordinator for German-American relations, said Germany would remain the largest base for U.S. troops in Europe and security in Europe was not at risk.
"But nevertheless the withdrawal of troops is a loss of course. We regret it, the American soldiers were welcome here. But it is a sign of success at the same time -- the success of having overcome the Cold War and European division."
President Bush announced plans Monday to bring home up to 70,000 troops from Europe and Asia within a decade.
The news struck a sentimental chord in Berlin where politicians and commentators voiced regret at the departure of troops who brought the American way to post-war West Germany.
Older Germans remember receiving their first piece of chocolate or bubble gum from a G.I., and Elvis Presley's stint as a soldier in Germany more than 40 years ago is a legend.
"Of course the American soldiers that were stationed here in Germany were the best ambassadors of German-American relations when they returned home," Voigt told Deutschlandfunk radio.
Those relations were soured, albeit only at government level, over Germany's opposition to the U.S.-led war in Iraq. And despite Washington's and Berlin's denials, there was speculation in Germany that the size of the troop pullout reflected that row.
TWO DIVISIONS GOING
Defense officials at the Pentagon said about 30,000 troops in two heavy divisions in Germany would be withdrawn. A brigade of Army Stryker armored vehicles with 5,000 troops would be deployed to Germany, the officials said.
The two divisions are the 1st Infantry Division ("Big Red One") in Wuerzburg and the 1st Armored Division ("Old Ironsides") in Wiesbaden, each 13,000 strong. Media said the Air Force's Rhein-Main airbase in Frankfurt was to be closed too.
Edmund Stoiber, state premier of Bavaria, the region likely to be most affected by the withdrawal, called for federal assistance and urged the government to take the U.S. plans into account when reshaping Germany's armed forces later this year.
The Verdi service sector union said the loss of jobs would be much bigger than the number of soldiers leaving.
Mayors and community leaders across southern Germany also said they feared the negative impact on their local economies.
Karl-Peter Bruch, junior interior minister in the state of Rheinland-Palatinate, said the small town of Baumholder where parts of the 1st Armored Division are stationed would be hit hard because it depended on the Americans.
"Today there are 4,000 German inhabitants and more than 12,500 Americans ... An infrastructure is being destroyed," Bruch told German WDR radio.
Franz Boehm, mayor of the southern town of Kitzingen which is home to a major U.S. base, was surprised that after years of rumors, the Americans might actually be about to leave.
"For Kitzingen it will be a big story, a very negative one. I still can't believe it," he told Reuters.
Bild newspaper, Germany's largest daily, voiced regret in an editorial that so many U.S. soldiers were to leave, but ended on a positive note: "We should at least tell them thank you."
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