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Not surprising. With the Gestapo, and then the Stasi, the Germans have an extensive cultural memory of the effects of comprehensive government surveillance of t
by woah 13y ago
Not surprising. With the Gestapo, and then the Stasi, the Germans have an extensive cultural memory of the effects of comprehensive government surveillance of their lives. They are still surprisingly tolerant of the long term military occupation of their country by the US. It would have been interesting if Snowden had holed up in Germany instead of HK. I wonder if the inevitable US military extradition would have tested the tolerance of the Germans.
- hga 13y agoAccording to Wikipedia, as of 2010 the US military has 52,440 people in Germany, and as of 2013 the German military had 188,921 active personnel and as of 2010 144,000 in their reserves. That falls a bit short of "occupation" in my book. There has in fact been at least one technothriller based on the US military fighting its way out of Germany, based of course on the Anabasis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anabasis_(Xenophon) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anabasis_(Xenophon) Xenophon and 10,000 Greeks fighting their way out of the Persian Empire).
- 1morepassword 13y agoHow would you call it there were almost half a million fully armed German troops stationed in the US? A great success for US board of tourism?
- jckt 13y agoOktoberfest in the South? /j
- hga 13y ago"fully armed" Right there you start going astray, a lot of them are doing logistics of one type or another, including our largest overseas military hospital, the top level hospital for serious GWoT theater injuries. More directly, it would all depend on why they were there.
- DasIch 13y agoThey are nevertheless armed among other things with nuclear weapons.
- mpyne 13y agoThose aren't the nukes that Germany would have to worry about. The U.S. attacking Germany is even more paranoid than chem-trail mind control agents, I'm just throwing that in to go along with the hypothetical.
- lostlogin 13y agoIt doesn't take an attack for there to be problems. Accidents, leaks, contamination, poor behaviour and violence by troops etc is somewhat more likely. That and the external appearance of supporting what ever the stationed troops are up to (often related to regional/nearby wars etc).
- stonemetal 13y agoI think you mean half a hundred thousand. It really depends, are they going to movies and buying local beer or are they shooting at people? What is currently happening in Germany is the first not the second.
- darkarmani 13y agoHessians?
- hga 13y agoAs it turns out I'm reading Washington's Crossing (http://www.amazon.com/Washingtons-Crossing-Pivotal-Moments-American/dp/0195170342/ http://www.amazon.com/Washingtons-Crossing-Pivotal-Moments-A...) and at the point where I'm at the Hessians are not enjoying the attacks they're receiving from the locals of occupied New Jersey (plus some raids from across the Delaware). Seems their thorough plundering wasn't well received....
- Turing_Machine 13y ago"How would you call it there were almost half a million fully armed German troops stationed in the US?" That would depend on whether they were there with U.S. government permission, wouldn't it?
- pekk 13y agoAbsolutely, as a US citizen I have no problem at all if Germans want to have a military cultural exchange program to bring some locality jobs ;) It is not like we are in Germany to sack the villages and take slaves, or dictate policy
- njharman 13y agoOne year, 2010, is not long term. Germany had been heavily occupied (by several nations) from end of WWII until recently. Recently being last 20years or so.
- fwenzel 13y ago{{citation-needed}}
- lostlogin 13y agoAre you joking?
- fwenzel 13y agoNo. I am just seeing a difference between occupation and having troops from foreign allies stationed on one's soil. If all non-local troops are "occupation" in your book, then I guess the US are occupying South Korea also? And Italy? And Israel?
- brilee 13y agohttp://askakorean.blogspot.com/2008/09/why-do-koreans-complain-about-us.html http://askakorean.blogspot.com/2008/09/why-do-koreans-compla... http://askakorean.blogspot.com/2012/12/quick-thought-about-psys-past-anti.html http://askakorean.blogspot.com/2012/12/quick-thought-about-p... Yes, the US are in fact occupying South Korea, and South Korea does not like it.
- jpatokal 13y agoNo, the US Army is "occupying" a chunk of prime real estate in Seoul, in kind of the same way that the United Nations HQ "occupies" a chunk of prime real estate in NYC. Both cause complaints from the locals, but unlike a real occupation, South Korea could tell the US (and the US could tell the UN) to GTFO any time they wanted to.
- 13y ago
- 1123581321 13y agoWhat is that book?
- hga 13y agoI'm thinking of Harold Coyle's appropriately named The Ten Thousand (http://www.amazon.com/The-TEN-THOUSAND-Harold-Coyle/dp/0671885650/ http://www.amazon.com/The-TEN-THOUSAND-Harold-Coyle/dp/06718...), just in case we wondered what inspired it ^_^. The Anabasis has inspired more than a few: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anabasis_(Xenophon)#Cultural_influences http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anabasis_(Xenophon)#Cultural_in..., and if you're read it the words "the sea, the sea!" never fail to inspire.
- DasIch 13y agoThe US and UK military are usually stationed in somewhat small cities and are a very important part of the economy in these areas. Most people don't care about the fact that they are still here in Germany and those that do care are happy about the income they provide. Everytime they leave somewhere it's usually a source of great concern and not at all something to celebrate.
- JMCQ87 13y agoDie Linke probably disagrees.
- fosap 13y agoWhile nobody celebrates, i think you are overstating the relevance. The troops live in their own quarters, hire their own contractors and shop in their own tax-free shops. Maybe they are using caps, but the impact on the local economy seems minimal.
- kleiba 13y agoI beg to differ. - Bavaria in fear for five US bases http://www.merkur-online.de/aktuelles/politik/bayern-bangt-fuenf-usstuetzpunkte-146871.html http://www.merkur-online.de/aktuelles/politik/bayern-bangt-f... - Effects for Bamberg: withdrawal of US troops brings about employment worries http://www.radio-plassenburg.de/default.aspx?ID=7054&showNews=1108674 http://www.radio-plassenburg.de/default.aspx?ID=7054&showNew... (18,000 employees and a giant market in the surrounding areas are affected at the biggest US base in Grafenwöhr - after all, 15,000 family members of the troops live in the communities around the base.) - Mannheim expects loss of 6 million Euro after pull-out of troops http://www.t-online.de/regionales/id_42073640/mannheim-rechnet-nach-us-truppenabzug-mit-6-millionen-euro-verlust.html http://www.t-online.de/regionales/id_42073640/mannheim-rechn...
- arrrg 13y agoIt’s enormous. No, in the grand scheme of things it doesn’t matter at all, the wider German economy would not be affected, not to any kind of noticeable degree, but for the local community it would be devastating. Akin to the bankruptcy of some huge employer. My parents are living a few dozen kilometers from one of the bases (so actually pretty far away, all things considered) that has actually been growing (as others were closed down more and more was moved there and centralized). It’s in the middle of nowhere, there is nothing else there. My dad, a civil engineer, planned and executed quite a few infrastructure projects for the base. The base is also notoriously short on living space, so people working there have been spreading all over the region, renting apartments and houses. Heck, new houses have been built not half a kilometer from my parents’ home to house people from the base. (My parents own several houses and very nearly rented them or apartments in them to Americans several times. For some reason or other it always didn’t work out in the end but the demand is very obvious.) This tiny version of suburbia was also recently built (by a German company) to provide more living space (cost: €200m). Shopping and going to restaurants is also huge. No, those people in the base do not want to stay there all the time. They will go to the next bigger city or two and buy and eat stuff there. Or get drunk in some club. Frequently. More and more city marketing in the region is specifically targeting Americans. Where my parents live the impact of this base closing down would already be negligible. We probably know one or two people who would lose their job because of it or would make noticeably less money – but the close you get the more devastating the impact would be. Those most directly affected by the base – those who see it every day – are the least likely to want to close it, mostly for economic reasons.
- Cass 13y agoThere's nothing surprising about the German tolerance of the US military bases, considering that they do nothing whatsoever to interfere with our lives or inconvenience us in any way, but do provide quite a lot of jobs. These are mostly medical or training facilities, many of them operated jointly by American and German forces, not some occupying force that's intent on overrunning our government or controlling the citizenry. As far as public opinion goes, this is a complete non-issue, and I strongly suspect that if public opinion turned so far as to make it an issue, the US would withdraw their troops before entering into a war with a powerful western nation that would almost inevitably turn into another world war. This is really not what I'd call an occupation.
- onli 13y agoIsn't the US already (slowly) withdrawing/reducing the stationed troops? Besides, germany wouldn't really have a chance. The few nuclear rockets we control would probably not be ready in time. The USA could just bomb germany down, like it was planned in case of a war with the UDSSR.
- TallGuyShort 13y agoGermany itself isn't the only reason I doubt the US would attack Germany. If the US attacked Germany, I'm sure most of Europe would side with Germany at this point. So it would be akin to attacking all of Europe. Not something that's worth a single NSA leak, I'm sure.
- _ak 13y ago> They are still surprisingly tolerant of the long term military occupation of their country by the US. It's not exactly occupation anymore. Plus the US brought in the big money through the Marshall plan, starting a big economic boom. Even nowadays companies can get cheap loans from KfW bank that is essentially Marshall plan money.
- fallenhitokiri 13y agoI think tolerate is the wrong word. I live and grew up near on of the military bases. If I would not have met some people stationed there and had the chance to visit them I would only have known there is a big area which is well guarded. There is and was no incident I am aware of involving someone from the US military which could have put them in a bad light. Even people I know, who are strictly against military forces and war, do not really care. From my point of view, and I think I am not alone with this one, it is pretty simple. They live there, do their jobs, do not cause trouble and provide jobs. Without considering taxes and other things it is like a branch of an American company.