A white sausage breakfast as a welcome: Markus Söder welcomes 4,300 US soldiers from the USA to the US military training site in Grafenwöhr near Nuremberg.
At the beginning of March, 4,300 soldiers from the USA arrived at the US-administered Grafenwoehr training site in the Upper Palatinate. The US base between Regensburg and Nuremberg only recently hit the headlines because long-distance bombers were even circling there.* Markus Söder now welcomes them: Every US soldier on Bavarian soil ensures more security, says the Prime Minister. During an official welcome, he personally hands out white sausages to the US guests.
Markus Söder was already at Nuremberg Airport when the US soldiers arrived
“The largest artillery exercise in decades in the Upper Palatinate,” said Söder
Around 14,000 US soldiers are already stationed in Bavaria with the new troops, Söder announces on his Instagram account. Many of them at the Grafenwoehr base. The newcomers are to be integrated into these troops in the coming weeks. Markus Söder* announced that it was “the largest artillery exercise in the Upper Palatinate for decades”.
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But the German military must also be expanded, according to Söder. He is in favor of setting up a special fund for the German military: “100 billion euros are urgently needed to be able to meet alliance obligations in NATO,” the Instagram post continues. Söder wants the federal government to create facts, above all a “written basis for how the federal government wants to implement this project” is necessary, it said in a recent letter to the German Press Agency in Berlin.
Continued US military support assured
The reinforcement is intended to strengthen NATO’s eastern flank. The US Army soldiers will remain here until further notice, the spokesman for the Grafenwoehr base said. It was the 1st Brigade Third Infantry Division from the US state of Georgia. In the future they will train together with the armed forces of various NATO countries.
Grafenwöhr: In US hands since the early 1990s
It is one of the largest bases in Bavaria. The military site was ceded by the Federal Republic of Germany for the exclusive use of the United States, with US forces having the authority under a 1993 administrative agreement to permit other foreign troops to use it. The US military use of the area is regulated by the NATO Troops Statute and its supplementary agreement.
It has always been a training ground for NATO troops
Units of the United States Army Europe (USAREUR), the United States Air Forces in Europe (USAFE) and other NATO forces exercise in Grafenwoehr. Around 40 percent of the military units that train at the military training area are NATO partners from Europe, Africa and Asia.
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