Helen Pitt

Why are there still any American soldiers stationed in Germany?

What is actually in Landstuhl when it comes to US military facilities?

And isn't Ramstein also important for NATO?

I read that it was the sort of it acted as the command centre for military airspace surveillance for all European partners.

Isn't that interesting, considering the dive that the US-German relations have taken in the past week, as we will get on to.

And so you went to Landstuhl just last week, and I know that you spoke to quite a few residents and troops who are in the town, and they seem quite sad at the prospect of the troops being sent back home.

Why do American GIs, if you want to call them that, have such a special place in so many Germans' hearts?

And in terms of what you can actually see as the American influence, what is there in Landstuhl that would give you a hint if you didn't know that there was this enormous American air base so nearby?

Yeah.

And I guess there's a lot of livelihoods in the area that are dependent on the Americans' presence.

Did you meet anybody whose businesses would be in dire straits if they were to be sent back home?

And beyond financial dependence on the Americans and this desire to have an American feeling, do the Germans that you met in Landstuhl feel kind of emotionally, sentimentally attached to the American presence?

Because the Americans had such a big influence on post-war Germany, didn't they?

From the air bridge, which people might remember from 1948 in Berlin when the Soviets had essentially cut off

West Berlin from the rest of the country and the Americans every day, didn't they?

Day and night flew in food and coal, everything that the West Berliners needed.

Yeah.

And beyond Landstuhl and Ramstein, how big is the US military presence in Germany?

And from a defence or military point of view, how important are these bases for the Americans and for the Germans and the Europeans?

And in terms of the Germans, is there any truth in it when Trump says that the Germans have kind of outsourced their own security to the Americans?