By Finian Cunningham

May 29, 2020 "Information Clearing House" - When Germany’s Social Democrats – the junior governing coalition partner – renewed long-standing calls for withdrawing U.S. nuclear bombs from the country, the backlash from Washington was fast and furious.

Richard Grenell, the U.S. ambassador to Berlin, wrote an oped for German media slamming the move as “undermining” NATO’s nuclear deterrence in Europe. Grenell, who is also the acting U.S. Director of National Intelligence, was scathing, reiterating President Trump’s vituperative claims that Germany was not pulling its weight in NATO commitments.

Grenell has been the bane of many German politicians of all stripes over what they view as his high-handed interference in the country’s internal affairs, with one former Social Democrat leader likening him to a “colonial officer”.

Then came the intervention from the American ambassador to Poland, Georgette Mosbacher, who mischievously proffered that if Germany didn’t want to station U.S. nuclear warheads, then Poland would provide an alternative site for the weapons. Given the history of bad blood between Germany and Poland, not to mention the incendiary provocation to Russia, Mosbacher’s suggestion is ludicrous. Nevertheless it illustrates the strenuous pushback by Washington to the renewed calls for removing U.S. nuclear weapons from German soil.

There are believed to be some 20 B-61-3/4 nuclear bombs stored at the Bucher airbase in western Germany under U.S. command. In the event of a nuclear war, the bombs would be fitted to German aircraft flown by Luftwaffe pilots and activated by American secret codes. The arrangement is part of a wider historical NATO nuclear-sharing agreement in Europe dating back to the Cold War, which sees U.S.-commanded bombs assigned also to Belgium, Netherlands and Italy.

German citizens have long called for the removal of the U.S. bombs from their territory, fearing that the weapons increase instability and the danger of war with Russia. In 2010, the German parliament (Bundestag) voted for the Berlin government to work towards Washington’s removal of the bombs.