not an occupied country.

I went for a run today. I tried the Philosophenweg again, after my rousing success in conquering the Castle incline a few days ago. The Philosophenweg is a bit taller, a bit steeper, and I pretty much made it, only to stop and walk right at the top for a while. But I did make it all the way up. Definitely a vast improvement on my last attempt.

But once I made it over the bridge and back into the tourist mayhem that is the Heidelberger Altstadt, I heard those familiar celebratory bagpipes that U of C tends to claim as its own. I turned off my running music (went with a classic today: Led Zeppelin Mothership) and looked around to see what was going on. I approached the church and saw the bagpipes streaming out, followed by a procession of blue-robed and hatted students. Cool!, I think. I didn't know that Uni Heidelberg even had graduation ceremonies, and definitely didn't expect them to take place in the Heiliggeistkirche. But then I think some more, and realize we don't finish the semester (and thus no one would celebrate graduating) until mid July. And as I near the huge group of older people now filing out of the church I hear that oh-so-familiar twang of southern-American. Everyone's all fancy, decked out in their Sunday finest, streaming out of the church on Pentecost and invading the town's main square with diplomas and cheap Nikons in hand. It's the graduation ceremony for Heidelberg High School, filled with sons and daughters of servicemen and women stationed here.

I met Babsi's father this weekend- they took me out to a delicious steak dinner last night, and we went to church this morning. After church we had a cappucino and he talked to me about immediate postwar Germany, about its divisions into Russian, American, French, and British zones, and the ways in which this division manifested itself. He told me how the license plates from 1945-1949 designated the city of origin as well as which occupying power controlled that region- for example, B-M (British Münster) or A-H (American Heidelberg). These symbols fell away once Adenauer became the hand-chosen new Kanzler of West Germany. He told me of how the Americans spared Heidelberg from massive bombing because of its inherent beauty and quaint Old-German feel. About how the French, British, and Americans invited Adenauer to Bonn for a signing ceremony in a 5 star hotel overlooking the Rhine valley. They took a group photo, but had originally symbolically intended for the representatives of the 3 occupying powers to stand on a carpet, with Adenauer off it to demonstrate distance and power. Adenauer, defiantly, stepped onto the corner to show his (and Germany's) willingness to rejoin the democratic West. He told me of the huge British population that used to reside near his home in Osnabrück (in NW Germany)- how people would take in stride automobiles with steering wheels on the wrong side and some streets with traffic flipped as well. But they all left in the 70s. He tells me today not a single British person lives in Osnabrück; while that is certainly not true, the population went from about 15,000 to under 100 very quickly. When I ask why, he responds quickly, matter-of-factly, and somewhat surprised, by saying, well, we're not an occupied country.

And so with these memories and this conversation fresh in my mind, I encountered the masses of Americans celebrating a truly American tradition, and certainly one worth celebrating, thousands of miles away from America in the center of a German city. And my question, and annoyance, is formed in this way: what the hell are these people doing here? I'll put away my passing annoyance with loud, whining bagpipes piercing an otherwise calm Sunday afternoon. Why are American students graduating in a centuries-old Protestant church in the center of a German city? Why is there an American population of over 30,000 in a German city? And no, not people who've immigrated here and work here, not people attempting to learn the language and appreciate the culture. No, they don't apply for visas or get driver's licences. They live on a base. An arm of American military might, leftover from American involvement in World War II. And because the Allies had the kindness, and the foresight, to not bomb Heidelberg into the stone age, 64 years later the American government supports a massive army base here, the center of American military operations in Europe.

I keep coming back to Herr Frenk's answer, that simple, obvious answer as to why the British population in Osnabrück so quickly fell- Germany is not an occupied country. So how do I explain hundreds of Americans streaming out of a church in the center of Heidelberg, on Pentecost Sunday, after their graduation ceremonies? They study here, yet they don't have student visas. They're identified as relatives of members of the US military. But what are they doing here? What are our tanks, and jets, and guns, and bombs doing here? What are we afraid of?

Germany is not an occupied country. We should stop occupying it.