{"id":16235,"date":"2026-05-16T20:35:25","date_gmt":"2026-05-16T20:35:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/16235\/"},"modified":"2026-05-16T20:35:25","modified_gmt":"2026-05-16T20:35:25","slug":"the-townspeople-of-vilseck-germany-worry-that-trump-may-pull-out-5000-u-s-troops-news-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/16235\/","title":{"rendered":"The townspeople of Vilseck, Germany, worry that Trump may pull out 5,000 U.S. troops | News"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\"MayorMayor Thorsten Gr\u00e4dler of Vilseck, Germany, discovered that his town could be the target of President Trump\u2019s U.S. troop cuts on his first day in office, when a journalist told him during a press conference. Gr\u00e4dler says the impact on his town would be \u201cdramatic.\u201d (Lisi Niesner | Reuters)<\/p>\n

VILSECK, Germany \u2014 It was Thorsten Gr\u00e4dler\u2019s first day on the job as mayor of the Bavarian town of Vilseck when, at his introductory press conference, a journalist broke it to him. \u201cDid you hear the news? It\u2019s bad news,\u201d said the journalist, informing the new mayor of a German media report that President Trump\u2019s announced cuts to the U.S. troop presence in Germany would mean the removal of 5,000 soldiers from the town he\u2019d just been elected to run.<\/p>\n

Mayor Gr\u00e4dler\u2019s face sank. \u201cAre you serious? This is hitting me hard, I have to admit,\u201d he said, his eyes welling up with tears. \u201cI\u2019m pretty emotional, actually.\u201d<\/p>\n

Since that day, Gr\u00e4dler has been busy doing interviews with international media that have descended on his tiny town, population 6,500. While he finishes up his fifth interview of the day, the town\u2019s church bell rings noon, and roosters in the alley behind Vilseck City Hall respond with a chorus of cock-a-doodle-doos.<\/p>\n

\"ViewView of Vilseck in the Upper Palatinate. The U.S. Department of Defense announced its intention to withdraw about 5,000 of the approximately 37,000 U.S. soldiers stationed in Germany. Bayerischer Rundfunk reported that the so-called Stryker Brigade in Vilseck, Bavaria, would be affected. (Lisi Niesner | Reuters)<\/p>\n

This tiny Bavarian town has a 1,000-year-old castle, a 700-year-old watchtower, and a mayor in office for just a few days who\u2019s facing one of the town\u2019s biggest crises in its history. \u201cIf what they say is true,\u201d says Gr\u00e4dler, \u201cand 5,000 soldiers are taken from our town, along with their family members, we\u2019re talking another 12,000 to 13,000 people leaving Vilseck. That\u2019s double the number of the people who reside here. This will have dramatic consequences.\u201d<\/p>\n

More than 37,000 U.S. forces<\/a> remain in Germany, part of the U.S. military presence that\u2019s been in the country since World War II and the Cold War to deter Russia, defend NATO and project power. Air bases on German soil been critical for U.S. operations in the Middle East and provided life-saving medical care to wounded soldiers from conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. The reported withdrawal of the Vilseck forces would not mark an abandonment of the U.S. engagement in Germany, but it would still hurt the town.<\/p>\n

For decades, Vilseck has hosted the 2nd Cavalry Regiment<\/a>, a Stryker infantry unit<\/a> of the U.S. Army whose soldiers are trained to deploy quickly for combat. If these soldiers \u2014 and their family members \u2014 are suddenly withdrawn, Gr\u00e4dler says his town stands to lose more than $800 million of revenue per year. But he says the loss will be felt in other, more personal ways. \u201cOver the decades, Americans have become an integral part of our social and cultural life,\u201d says Gr\u00e4dler. \u201cThey rent apartments from us, they shop in our stores, they dine in our restaurants and taverns. The children of American families play for our local soccer clubs, and many of them attend our schools.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFor us in Vilseck, normally we don\u2019t split Germans, Americans. They are part of Vilseck. That\u2019s one big community,\u201d says Sabine Kederer, owner of Vilseck\u2019s Hotel Angerer,<\/a> down the street from City Hall.<\/p>\n

\"'Welcome\u201cWelcome to Rose Barracks Vilseck\u201d is written at the entrance to the U.S. base in the Upper Palatinate. (Lisi Niesner | Reuters)
\n\"RobertRobert Moore, who has served in the U.S. Army for 11 years, poses outside his home in the Netzaberg housing area, where U.S. military personnel and their families reside near Grafenwoehr military training area, north of Vilseck, on May 5. \u201cI\u2019ve been here since 2022, so about four years now. And there\u2019s nothing to dislike about Germany,\u201d says Moore, a 31\u2011year\u2011old culinary sergeant. (Lisi Niesner | Reuters)<\/p>\n

Kederer\u2019s family has owned the hotel since 1666. They\u2019ve seen a lot in more than three and a half centuries of ownership, but nothing could have prepared her for Trump\u2019s announcement. She says Vilseck\u2019s American residents are some of her best friends. \u201cThey make our birthday parties when our parents had no time and when we were small,\u201d recalls Kederer, while holding back tears. \u201cThe other ones, they go out with my dad for fishing and hunting or whatever, they were here for Oktoberfest. That\u2019s friends.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kederer says she\u2019s gotten so used to having Americans around that she now prefers to work with Americans over Germans. She calls Americans \u201cmore easygoing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"AlbinAlbin Merkl, 66, stops for a photo on the street in Vilseck, Germany, on May 4. \u201cWhen the Strykers arrived, we were worried they\u2019d be a bunch of roughnecks, but they\u2019re actually really nice,\u201d says Merkl, a pensioner who rents apartments to U.S. personnel. \u201cWe\u2019ve always done good business with the Americans,\u201d he says, adding that trains to nearby Nuremberg were filled with younger soldiers heading out for off\u2011duty entertainment. (Lisi Niesner | Reuters)
\n\"VeronikaVeronika Varga, 50, owner of Vroni\u2019s Hundesalon, a dog-grooming business, finishes a client\u2019s dog in Vilseck, Germany, on May 5. Varga estimates that 70% of her clients are American, and she doesn\u2019t know how to keep her two employees if they leave Vilseck. (Lisi Niesner | Reuters)<\/p>\n

Across town at the Hammer Gasthof, a group of retired men drink beer, or what they proudly call \u201cBavarian bread.\u201d All of them have heard the news that the local American troops may be leaving, but none of them think it\u2019ll happen, says Richard Schmidt, a retired businessman in town. \u201cWe don\u2019t believe it. This is not logical. This is only a stupid idea of Trump,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

The rest of the men nod their heads and sip on their \u201cBavarian bread.\u201d Schmidt says Trump has threatened to take these troops away before, but he was voted out of power before he could go through with the threat. If he follows through this time, says Schmidt, he thinks it\u2019ll destroy his town. \u201cIf they move, I estimate three- to five-thousand people will lose their jobs,\u201d he says sadly.<\/p>\n

\"FatmirFatmir Fazliji, 40, owner of Friends Pizza, looks out the window of his diner in Vilseck, Germany, on May 4. \u201cIf 5,000 troops leave, it will affect everyone, and that would be a downfall for the town. I have 90% American clients,\u201d Fazliji says.
(Lisi Niesner | Reuters)<\/p>\n

That\u2019s 3 out of every 4 people in Vilseck. But Schmidt says he and his friends doubt this will happen. Vilseck, he says, has heard President Trump\u2019s threats before. They\u2019ve watched as he\u2019s threatened to take Greenland as well, and Schmidt says they\u2019ve noticed a leader who often makes threats \u2014 but often does not follow through.<\/p>\n

Copyright \u00a9 2026 NPR<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mayor Thorsten Gr\u00e4dler of Vilseck, Germany, discovered that his town could be the target of President Trump\u2019s U.S.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":16233,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[20265,5,342,478,8451,7393,91],"class_list":["post-16235","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-germany","tag-german-defense","tag-germany","tag-national","tag-nato","tag-u-s-military","tag-uncategorized","tag-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16235","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16235"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16235\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16233"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16235"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16235"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16235"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}