I feel somewhat like a pariah, having been bounced around from one closing American military installation in Germany to another, like some foster child and it seems that I have been bad luck in terms of longevity. And as this place is winding down operations and the tempo of deployments is letting up, we’re witnessing the same mad rush to close out contracts and accounts with a flurry of new construction, both cosmetic and structural improvements.
The properties and housing units can be re-purposed for civilian use easily enough and brought up to code, streets straightened and the American ghettoes Deutsche-formed (like terraforming), but there seems to have been a lot of procrastination, denial and uncertainty about how to proceed, abandon that lets commitments and de-logistics go forward with controls or a plan. This closure cycle is different, and not just for the break of a decades’ old tradition and a cultural institution that was an integral part of the post-war era, but also because the military presence is too rarified and no parent organization is thereto assume command. All the activity, I think, overshadows chaos and the fact that no one really has designs on this substantial block of property, and is carried out to the end, since the government is honour-bound to host-nation contracts and it is cheaper to return buildings up to standards rather than raze them. Of course there is the historic character of the buildings to preserve, as well, and it would have been a loss to plaster over history and this place’s former incarnations, like one sees sometimes with faux half-timbering and friezes dappled with painted shadows, though I don’t think they’d replace this after-image. It just struck me as a little ridiculous (but typical, emblematic) that work was being carefully done around that architectural element. It’s a frustrating feeling to be always coming into things as they are changing and in transition, but I suppose that experience is neither uncommon nor unlucky.
