ABSTRACT
In the 1970s, discrimination against service personnel increased, but the problem tended to be submerged by the other maladies that beset the forces in West Germany at the time as a result of the Vietnam spin-off syndrome. Discrimination against US soldiers in the Federal Republic of Germany is not a new problem. Discrimination against service personnel manifested itself in many forms, some blatant and others more subtle. The phenomenon of discrimination is difficult to analyze, because the primary target remains unclear. The reasons for increasing discrimination against service personnel must be sought not only in the specific reasons of particular Germans who discriminate, but also in the wider, more complex sociological circumstances of the American military presence in Germany in recent years. The discrimination issue poses an almost insoluble information policy problem for US military headquarters in the Federal Republic of Germany.
