US troops in Germany’s Revenge for Trump to Merkel?President Donald Trump would like to deduct one-third of the U.S. troops from Germany. He shakes the foundations of the German-American relationship.Dominique Eigenmann from Berlin0 comment visited by a U.S. President in Germany, he makes here: Donald Trump in December 2018 among American soldiers in the US air force Ramstein base.Photo: Keystone

The message of the American media arrived in Germany at the weekend as a shock: the President, Donald Trump had endorsed a Plan, until in the autumn of 9500 American soldiers nearly a third of the current staff to be deducted permanently from Germany. The upper limit lying in the future at 25’000.

The Plan had been driven in Trumps the smallest circle in the White house, particularly Richard Grenell progress, until recently the U.S. Ambassador in Berlin. Neither the Pentagon nor the Congress, the Nato, or U.S. commanders in Europe had preliminary been consulted. The German government learned of the news from the media.

“I think the decision is a colossal error.”

Ben Hodges, the former U.S. commander-in-chief for Europe,

Except the left party, which calls for a complete withdrawal, did the German political parties are irritated, worried, and horrified. Leading Christian Democrats called the Plan a “deliberate provocation”, the doubt Trumps loyalty to the Alliance plant. Perhaps the last, that Europe must be able to ensure stronger for his own safety, understand now, politicians of the left added to the right.

Ben Hodges, former commander of US forces in Europe, spoke of a “colossal error”. The decision was purely politically motivated and does not have a strategy. He was an undeserved gift to Russian President Vladimir Putin and hazardous without the Need for the Cohesion of Nato.

Merkel’s rejection of the G-7 summit

What has pushed Trump to a sudden decision, is not yet known. In America as in Germany, it was speculated that Trump had made to Chancellor Angela Merkel for the cancellation of your participation in the G-7 summit in Washington avenge. The US President had to signal with the Meeting of major industrial Nations next Wednesday, actually, that the Corona of the crisis was ended in his country. After the refusal of Merkel, in this production, to participate, was Trump to the postponement of the summit forced in the autumn.

Merkel was, of course, been previously considered to be Trumps favorite opponent among the allies. Again and again, the U.S. President railed expenditure on the high trade surpluses, the German and the depths of the military. Be an Ambassador Grenell had been threatened in August, 2019 with the withdrawal of troops. It was “really offensive” to expect, wrote Grenell at the time that the US taxpayers are spending more billions for the US-soldiers in Germany, while Berlin will use its Surpluses for domestic purposes.

Billion-dollar infrastructure

In the Cold war, the USA, West Germany, considered as a front-line state against the Soviet Union. Your up to 235’000 soldiers on German soil, have served to guarantee the security of Western Europe. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, only the US does not have troops to a seventh shrunk, also their main purpose is different: they serve to defend Germany, but to America’s wars around the world. The US bases are primarily operational and logistical hubs and bridge – heads, and one of the largest in the world.

Indispensable for the supply of U.S. troops in Europe, the Middle East and the Middle East: Ramstein Air Force Base in Rhineland-Palatinate.Photo:

From Stuttgart, all U.S. military operations are not conducted only in Europe but also those in Africa. Without the Ramstein air base, the U.S. were troops in Iraq or in Afghanistan does not provide. The wounded from the Middle East to be flown to Landstuhl, the largest American military hospital outside America. In Miesau ammunition for all U.S. troops in Europe is, in grafenwoehr is one of the largest military training grounds.

Poland is looking forward to laying

The Bulk of the U.S. military presence in Germany is therefore not easily deployable combat troops, but billions on infrastructure. Alone in the vicinity of the Rhineland-Palatinate Ramstein, the Pentagon is currently in the process of investing a further $ 2 billion, among other things, in another hospital. “The decision illustrates that the President has not understood how essential the stationed in Germany U.S. troops for the security of America,” said Ex-General Hodges in the “mirror”.

After the Trumps Plan a part of the U.S. soldiers to be transferred from Germany to Poland, whose right-wing populist government, the U.S. President is closer than the mid-politician, Angela Merkel. In Warsaw, Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki rejoiced on Saturday in any case that a transfer to Poland would strengthen the “Eastern flank of Nato”. A permanent stationing in the East, however, would make the Nato-Russia founding act of 1997 in question, and could lead to a conflict with Russia. But perhaps the Trump would be just right.

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