As the US army reduces its Nato presence in Europe, one German city turned all those now-empty buildings into an opportunity – but can it work elsewhere?
The lights no longer work in the sports hall of Patton Barracks, so building manager Heiko Mueller uses bricks to prop open the doors and let in the sun. It reveals basketball nets with fraying fibres hanging precariously from the walls, blue gym lockers scarred with rust, and mould growing on the shower room floor. The whistle blew on the hall’s last basketball game five years ago.
For nearly 70 years after the second world war, Heidelberg was the US army’s headquarters in Europe, and a Nato command centre. But in 2009 the Pentagon decided to reduce the number of American troops in Europe, including pulling out of the German city entirely. By September 2013, they were all gone.
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