Instruct: Given a question, retrieve relevant passages that answer the question.
Query: How long did American troops stay in Germany after WWII?
The United States Army maintained a substantial and continuous military presence at the inner German border throughout the entire period from 1945 to after the end of the Cold War. Regular American soldiers manned the border from the end of the war until they were replaced in 1946 by the United States Constabulary, a lightly armed constabulary force responsible for border security. It was disbanded in 1952 after policing duties were transferred to the German authorities. In its place, two dedicated armoured cavalry regiments were assigned to provide a permanent border defence. The 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment based at Nuremberg and the 14th Armored Cavalry Regiment based at Fulda– later replaced by the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment – were tasked with monitoring the border using observation posts, ground and air patrols, countering border intrusions and gathering intelligence on Warsaw Pact activities. Unlike their East German counterparts, U.S. soldiers did not stay for more than 30 days on the border, though they carried out regular patrols around the clock using foot and helicopter patrols. They also used a variety of technical measures such as ground surveillance radars to monitor Warsaw Pact troop movements across the border. A rapid reaction force was on constant duty further behind the border to provide backup in an emergency. The American presence on the border provoked political controversy in Germany. During the 1960s the state of Hesse refused to grant U.S. forces land rights to its observation points or allow them to install paved access roads, electricity or telephone lines. It took the view that since there was no legally recognised border, there was no legal reason for their military observation posts to be built along it. By the 1980s the American border presence had become the target of peace activists, who in 1984 blockaded the U.S. Observation Post Alpha with a human chain. The U.S. withdrew from the inner German border in 1991.
In March 1946 the US Army established a unit of the US Constabulary and a Headquarters at Kurmärker Kaserne (later renamed Patch Barracks) in Stuttgart. These units of soldiers retrained in patrol and policing provided the law and order in the American zone of occupied Germany until the civilian German police forces could be re-established. In 1948 the Headquarters for all Constabulary forces was moved to Stuttgart. In 2008 a memorial to the US Constabulary was installed and dedicated at Patch Barracks. The US Constabulary headquarters was disbanded in 1950 and most of the force was merged into the newly organized 7th Army. As the Cold War developed US Army VII Corps was re-formed in July 1950 and assigned to Hellenen Kaserne (renamed Kelley Barracks in 1951) where the headquarters was to remain throughout the Cold War.
In 1941, the "Army of the United States" was founded to fight World War II. The Regular Army, Army of the United States, the National Guard and Officer/Enlisted Reserve Corps (ORC and ERC) existed simultaneously. After World War II, the ORC and ERC were combined into the United States Army Reserve. The Army of the United States was re-established for the Korean War and Vietnam War and was demobilized upon the suspension of the draft.
During the First World War, the Germans constructed an airport. The airport still exists and is now used for private purposes. Also remaining is the German Military cemetery, which is also partly situated in Menen. There are 47,864 soldiers buried there, who all died during WW1. This makes the cemetery the biggest German cemetery in Belgium. Across the cemetery, there used to be a (fake) airport, with wooden planes to mislead the enemy; there are still remains of the airport consisting of a big bunker and a small bunker near the railway. The bridge that connects Lauwe to Wevelgem was destroyed during the Second World War and was rebuilt later.
A well-known example of enemy aliens were the Japanese citizens residing in the United States during World War II. Many of these Japanese and Japanese Americans were imprisoned in internment camps by President Roosevelt during wartime, alongside many German- and Italian-Americans. However, many Japanese Americans and Italian-Americans were not actually "aliens", as they held American citizenship. The term "enemy alien" referred only to non-American citizens who were nationals of Axis countries. Included in this number were thousands of resident aliens who were prohibited from applying for citizenship by race-based naturalization laws; when war was declared against their native countries, their status changed from "resident" to "enemy" alien. Therefore, German American, Italian American and Japanese American permanent residents were classified as enemy aliens and interned as such. In total 10,905 Italian Americans and approximately 110,000 Japanese Americans were interned in many different camps and sites across the country. German Americans were held in more than 50 different locations. 
Citizens of an enemy country who lived in the USA during World War II were required to have an "Enemy Alien" card and register monthly with the authorities.
An American ex-serviceman leaves Allied-occupied Germany after WWII and is persuaded by his English wife to settle in Liverpool' Looking for work, he becomes a lorry driver. He comes into contact with criminals involved in theft from commercial vehicles and draws close to the girlfriend of a major crime figure.
During World War II, an estimated 120,000 Japanese Americans and Japanese nationals or citizens residing in the United States were forcibly interned in ten different camps across the US, mostly in the west. The internments were based on the race or ancestry rather than activities of the interned. Families, including children, were interned together. Each member of the family was allowed to bring two suitcases of their belongings. Each family, regardless of its size, was given one room to live in. The camps were fenced in and patrolled by armed guards. For the most part, the internees remained in the camps until the end of the war, when they left the camps to rebuild their lives.
Area of eastern France taken over by Germany in the Franco-Prussian War. During 1870–1871, there was a single issue for the whole territory. Stamps of Germany replaced this and were used 1872–1918. The area was returned to France after World War I. French stamps have been used since 1918 except for the German occupation in World War II (1940–1944) when separate issues were made for Alsace and Lorraine.
German Americans () are citizens of the United States of German ancestry; they form the largest ethnic ancestry group in the United States, accounting for 17% of U.S. population.
The first significant numbers arrived in the 1680s in New York and Pennsylvania. Some eight million German immigrants have entered the United States since that point. Immigration continued in substantial numbers during the 19th century; the largest number of arrivals moved 1840–1900, when Germans formed the largest group of immigrants coming to the U.S., outnumbering the Irish and English. Some arrived seeking religious or political freedom, others for economic opportunities greater than those in Europe, and others for the chance to start afresh in the New World. California and Pennsylvania have the largest populations of German origin, with more than six million German Americans residing in the two states alone. More than 50 million people in the United States identify German as their ancestry; it is often mixed with other Northern European ethnicities. This list also includes people of German Jewish descent.
During his Army service in Germany, Melvin learned German and developed an interest in German military history. The product of this was his 2010 biography of Erich von Manstein. Manstein is widely regarded as the most gifted German commander of World War II, but he was also a convicted war criminal who never acknowledged his own or the German Army's responsibility for the crimes committed on the Eastern Front while he held major commands there. In his prologue to the book, Melvin writes:
Under the Versailles Settlement, the Rhineland was demilitarized. Germany accepted this arrangement under the Locarno Treaties of 1925. Hitler claimed that it threatened Germany and on 7 March 1936 he sent German forces into the Rhineland. He gambled on Britain not getting involved but was unsure how France would react. The action was opposed by many of his advisers. His officers had orders to withdraw if they met French resistance. France consulted Britain and lodged protests with the League, but took no action. Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin said that Britain lacked the forces to back its guarantees to France and that in any case, public opinion would not allow it. In Britain, it was thought that the Germans were merely walking into "their own backyard". Hugh Dalton, a Labour Party MP who usually advocated stiff resistance to Germany, said that neither the British people nor Labour would support military or economic sanctions. In the Council of the League, only the Soviet Union proposed sanctions against Germany. Hitler was invited to negotiate. He proposed a non-aggression pact with the Western powers. When asked for details he did not reply. Hitler's occupation of the Rhineland had persuaded him that the international community would not resist him and put Germany in a powerful strategic position.
The foundation for the influential position held by Germany today was laid during the (economic miracle) of the 1950s when West Germany rose from the enormous destruction wrought by World War II to become the world's third-largest economy. The first chancellor Konrad Adenauer, who remained in office until 1963, had worked for a full alignment with NATO rather than neutrality. He not only secured a membership in NATO but was also a proponent of agreements that developed into the present-day European Union. When the G6 was established in 1975, there was no question whether the Federal Republic of Germany would be a member as well.
In 2013, further reductions of U.S. forces in Europe were announced, that would reduce U.S. Army Europe to 30,000 soldiers in two brigade combat teams. These reductions include unit deactivations and facilities closures at Warner Barracks, Bamberg and Schweinfurt. Military police units were reduced: 202nd MP Group and the 1002nd MP Battalion were disbanded on 24 June 2013. In February 2013, it was announced that V Corps would be inactivated in June 2013. In a ceremony on 12 June 2013, V Corps was awarded the Army Superior Unit Award and Meritorious Unit Citation and formally inactivated. In April 2013, the last of U.S. Army's main battle tanks left Europe due to the departure of the U.S. Army's last two Germany-based heavy brigades: the 170th Infantry out of Baumholder and the 172nd Infantry Brigade at Grafenwöhr.
Of approximately 100 million native speakers of German in the world, roughly 80 million consider themselves Germans. There are an additional 80 million people of German ancestry mainly in the United States, Brazil (mainly in the South Region of the country), Argentina, Canada, South Africa, the post-Soviet states (mainly in Russia and Kazakhstan), and France, each accounting for at least 1 million. Thus, the total number of Germans lies somewhere between 100 and more than 150 million, depending on the criteria applied (native speakers, single-ancestry ethnic Germans, partial German ancestry, etc.).
Before the September 1939 Nazi German–Soviet Invasion of Poland, the concentration camps built in the Third Reich held mainly German Jews and political enemies of the Nazi regime. Everything changed dramatically with the onset of World War II. The Nazi concentration camps ("Konzentrationslager", KL or KZ) set up across the entire German-occupied Europe were redesigned to exploit the labor of foreign captives and prisoners of war at high mortality rate for maximum profit. Millions of ordinary people were enslaved as part of the German war effort. The Jewish Virtual Library estimates that the number of camps reached 15,000 eventually, using civilians arrested and ambushed at random in occupied countries. According to research by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum conducted more recently, Nazi Germany created some 42,500 camps and ghettos in which an estimated 15 to 20 million people were imprisoned and often pressed into slavery. All types of confinement were used as source of labour supply.
The United Nations Population Fund lists Germany as host to the second-highest number of international migrants worldwide, behind the United States. More than 16,000,000 people are descended from immigrants (first and second generation, including mixed heritage and ethnic German repatriates and their descendants). 96.1% of those reside in western Germany and Berlin. About 7,000,000 of them are foreign residents, defined as those without German citizenship. The largest ethnic group of non-German origin are the Turkish. Since the 1960s, West and later reunified Germany has been attracting immigrants primarily from Southern and Eastern Europe as well as Turkey, many of whom (or their children) have acquired German citizenship over time. While most of these immigrants initially arrived as guest workers, Germany has also been a prime destination for refugees who have applied for asylum in Germany, in part because the German constitution has long had a clause guaranteeing political asylum as a human right; but restrictions over the years have since limited the scope of this guarantee.
Between 1950 and 1955, Kaiserslautern developed into the largest US military community outside of the United States. For this reason Kaiserslautern is also referred to as "K-town"; a term coined by the early American military population who had difficulty pronouncing the name. The Kaiserslautern Military Community (KMC) is a combined community consisting of Army and Air Force components. The KMC consists of Army facilities at Kleber, Panzer, and Dänner-Kaserne, Landstuhl, Miesau, Einsiedlerhof, Pirmasens, Sembach, Rhine Ordnance Barracks and Pulaski Barracks along with Air Force facilities located at Ramstein Air Base, Vogelweh, and Kapaun Air Station.
When World War II began, Hitler appointed himself to the unique title "First Soldier of the German Reich" ("Erster Soldat des Deutschen Reiches") and began wearing a gray military jacket with swastika eagle sewn on the upper left sleeve (contrary to depictions in movies and popular culture, Hitler very rarely wore his brown Nazi party uniform during World War II). Throughout the war, the only military decorations Hitler displayed were his Wound Badge and Iron Cross from World War I and the Nazi Golden Party Badge. Hitler's position in World War II was essentially supreme commander of the German Armed Forces ("Oberbefehlshaber der Deutschen Wehrmacht").
Following the defeat in World War I, the influence of German-speaking elites over Central and Eastern Europe was greatly limited. At the Treaty of Versailles, Germany was substantially reduced in size. Austria-Hungary was split up. A Rump-Austria, which to a certain extent corresponded to the German-speaking areas of Austria-Hungary (a complete split into language groups was impossible due to multi-lingual areas and language-exclaves) adopted the name "German Austria" () in hope for union with Germany. Union with Germany and the name "German Austria" was forbidden by the Treaty of St. Germain and the name had to be changed back to Austria.
France was occupied by Nazi Germany from 22 June 1940 until early May 1945. An occupying power endeavours to normalise life as far as is possible since this optimises the maintenance of order and minimises the costs of occupation. The Germans decreed that life, including artistic life should resume as before (the war). There were exceptions. Jews were targeted, and their art collections confiscated. Some of this consisted of modern, degenerate art which was partly destroyed, although some was sold on the international art market. Masterpieces of European art were taken from these collectors and French museums and were sent to Germany. Known political opponents were also excluded and overtly political art was forbidden.
It was only during the 1871 Unification of Germany that the newly unified German Empire was first assigned an official capital. Since Berlin was the capital of Prussia, the leading state of the new Reich, it became the capital of Germany as well. Berlin had been the capital of Prussia and its predecessor, Brandenburg, since 1518. Berlin remained the capital of the united Germany until 1945. However, for a period of a few months following the First World War, the national assembly met in Weimar because civil war was ravaging Berlin. In 1945, Germany was occupied by the Allies as the outcome of World War II, and Berlin ceased to be the capital of a sovereign German state.
The book begins with an example of the German refusal to surrender, and how this refusal by the Nazis to accept defeat would eventually lead to the deaths of millions. With American troops on the outskirts of Ansbach, the local commandant, Dr Ernst Meyer, an ardent Nazi, insisted on fighting to the end. A student, Robert Limpert, having seen the destruction wrought on Würzburg, took action in an attempt to prevent the same happening to his own town. He was seen in an act of sabotage by two members of the Hitler Youth who reported him to the police. He was arrested, and after a trial lasting a few minutes the commandant sentenced the young man to death by hanging. As the noose was placed around Limpert's neck he broke free but was recaptured quickly. No one in the crowd watching tried to help and some kicked and punched him. On the second attempt the rope broke, and on the third he was finally hanged. The commandant ordered the body to remain where it was "until it stinks" and shortly after he fled the town. American troops cut the body down four hours later when they entered the town.
As Ethnogenic expositions were discontinued in Germany around 1931, there were many repercussions for the performers. Many of the people brought from their homelands to work in the exhibits had created families in Germany, and there were many children that had been born in Germany. Once they no longer worked in the zoos or for performance acts these people were stuck living in Germany where they had no rights and were harshly discriminated against. During the rise of the Nazi party the foreign actors in these stage shows were typically able to stay out of concentration camps because there were so few of them that the Nazis did not see them as a real threat. Although they were able to avoid concentration camps, they were not able to participate in German life as citizens of ethnically German origin could. The Hitler Youth did not allow children of foreign parents to participate, and adults were rejected as German soldiers. Many ended up working in war industry factories or foreign laborer camps. After WWII ended, racism in Germany became more concealed or invisible but did not go away. Many people of foreign descent intended to leave after the war, but because of their German nationality, it was difficult for them to emigrate.
By the time of WWII, the United States had a large population of ethnic Germans. Among residents of the United States in 1940, more than 1.2 million persons had been born in Germany, 5 million had two native-German parents, and 6 million had one native-German parent. Many more had distant German ancestry. During WWII, the United States detained at least 11,000 ethnic Germans, overwhelmingly German nationals. The government examined the cases of German nationals individually, and detained relatively few in internment camps run by the Department of Justice, as related to its responsibilities under the Alien and Sedition Acts. To a much lesser extent, some ethnic German US citizens were classified as suspect after due process and also detained. Similarly, a small proportion of Italian nationals and Italian Americans were interned in relation to their total population in the US. The United States had allowed immigrants from both Germany and Italy to become naturalized citizens, which many had done by then. In the early 21st century, Congress considered legislation to study treatment of European Americans during WWII, but it did not pass the House of Representatives. Activists and historians have identified certain injustices against these groups.
Foreign troops still remain in Germany today, for example Ramstein Air Base, but the majority of troops left following the end of the Cold War (By 1994 for Soviet troops, mandated under the terms of the Treaty on the Final Settlement With Respect to Germany and in the mid-1990s for Western forces). The Bush Administration in the United States in 2004 stated intentions to withdraw most of the remaining American troops out of Germany in the coming years. During the years 1950–2000 more than 10,000,000 U.S. military personnel were stationed in Germany.