Esslingen – This is a scan of a slide taken during my first military tour in Germany, circa 1978. It is a view of the church in the distance and some of the houses in the city of Esslingen am Neckar. Esslingen is southeast of the city of Stuttgart and was a short distance from the Army post where I was stationed in Nellingen Ostfildern. Esslingen is located along the Neckar River.
While the cities of Esslingen, Nellingen, and Stuttgart all remain, the Army base in Nellingen is no more. Sometime around 1996, the kaserne, known as Nellingen Barracks, was turned back over to the German government as the U.S. military downsized in Europe. The kaserne was subsequently leveled other than part of the military housing area and possibly a couple of historic buildings. Today the site is occuppied by the Scharnhauser Park German housing area.
While Nellingen Barracks was the first of the kasernes where I was stationed to be turned back to the Germans, Leighton Barracks in Wurzburg and Kilbourne Kaserne in Schwetzingen ultimately met the same fate. While these two have not been leveled, at least to the best of my knowledge, I suspect that they will be in the future since there is limited need for the number of military bases that existed in Germany during the Cold War.
My goal is to someday return to Germany and visit the areas where I lived. While I know that much will have changed, I enjoyed my time in Germany both on the military bases and in the civilian communities.
