From VE Day to the Fulda Gap and New Europe: The Policy of U.S. Forces in Germany -- Implications for Twenty-First Century Conflict

This thesis examines the sources and character of U.S. policy that have maintained U.S. military forces in Germany from 1944 until the present, despite myriad changes in the international political environment and in the global restructuring of U.S. troops. From the moment the decision was made to transform the occupying forces in West Germany into stationed forces in the late 1940s, the presence of such forces has been the subject of much debate. Despite outward appearances of continuity in U.S. garrisons on the Rhine and in the Palatine Forest, U.S. force reductions in Germany have been attempted in varying degrees by numerous administrations since the end of the Second World War. This thesis is divided into three distinct time periods. Throughout each time period military decisions, administration decisions, foreign policy goals, domestic politics, and major international events are examined for the role and influence they had on American troop levels in Germany. In the first time period, 1944-1955, a new international order arose in which the United States and the Soviet Union emerged as opposing blocs in a bipolar world where the fate of Germany was a central issue. Troop levels during this time period were profoundly affected by the Korean War, the creation of the Federal Republic of Germany FRG, the Berlin blockade, and the decision to re-arm the FRG despite the memory of militarism and Nazism. The second time period 1955-1990, undoubtedly the longest, was marked by the growth of NATO, the construction of the Berlin Wall, detente, the Vietnam War, nuclear standoff, and the United States strategic defense initiative SDI. The final time period 1990-2005 revisits NATO requirements and the American presence in Germany in the post-Cold War era. During this time period, policy makers successfully balanced ever-present international and domestic pressures, bureaucratic infighting and politics, and changing conditions in a new, united Germany.