Former Fryar Circle
Now called 'Elmer-Fryar-Ring'
From 1945 to 1998, there was a US garrison in Augsburg with up to 17,000 US soldiers in the city. Together with their families, this resulted in a population of over 30,000 in a city with barely more than 200,000 inhabitants at the time. Furthermore, the barracks and residential areas of the Americans were concentrated in the west of the city (and the neighboring communities). For this reason, a German police officer and an American military police officer always patrolled these districts together.
The photo shows the former housing estate for senior officers. It is located in the immediate vicinity of my parents' house in Leitershofen near Augsburg. So the Americans were our neighbors, and I can say that they were good neighbors. For example, one day when my parents were away, I invited a whole bunch of friends over for a barbecue and we ran out of charcoal. No problem with neighbors like that! They helped me out as a matter of course.
Of course, my friends and I, who were rather pacifist and extremely critical of the Vietnam War, for example, had a rather ambivalent relationship with our American neighbors. But we still felt that their presence was enriching and their departure a loss. This had primarily to do with music, but that's no small thing. I really miss the AFN radio program, especially the extremely sexy voice of a certain female nighttime announcer who managed to get me and some of my friends to rush home from the pub early just to hear her.
When I see now what this country has become, how utterly rotten, how fascist it has become from the top down, it makes me want to throw up! The news that reaches me day after day from this country is becoming increasingly repulsive and disgusting!
Former Fryar Circle
Now called 'Elmer-Fryar-Ring'
From 1945 to 1998, there was a US garrison in Augsburg with up to 17,000 US soldiers in the city. Together with their families, this resulted in a population of over 30,000 in a city with barely more than 200,000 inhabitants at the time. Furthermore, the barracks and residential areas of the Americans were concentrated in the west of the city (and the neighboring communities). For this reason, a German police officer and an American military police officer always patrolled these districts together.
The photo shows the former housing estate for senior officers. It is located in the immediate vicinity of my parents' house in Leitershofen near Augsburg. So the Americans were our neighbors, and I can say that they were good neighbors. For example, one day when my parents were away, I invited a whole bunch of friends over for a barbecue and we ran out of charcoal. No problem with neighbors like that! They helped me out as a matter of course.
Of course, my friends and I, who were rather pacifist and extremely critical of the Vietnam War, for example, had a rather ambivalent relationship with our American neighbors. But we still felt that their presence was enriching and their departure a loss. This had primarily to do with music, but that's no small thing. I really miss the AFN radio program, especially the extremely sexy voice of a certain female nighttime announcer who managed to get me and some of my friends to rush home from the pub early just to hear her.
When I see now what this country has become, how utterly rotten, how fascist it has become from the top down, it makes me want to throw up! The news that reaches me day after day from this country is becoming increasingly repulsive and disgusting!