As promised, this is my view of Germany and the US/UK/France military presence/occupation.
After WWII ended, Germany was levelled. There was no government and very few institutions were left functioning. Even before the war had started, Germany was being torn apart by the fanaticism of the Nazi regime. Even though decades and generations have passed, Germany is only a shadow of what it used to be. After the war, some sort of military occupation/rule was necessary. Heaven knows what would have happened had there been a complete power vacuum. After 1948, however, things began to change. Germany was again an independent country, albeit with major foreign military presences.
There wasn’t much hostility to it. Most Germans were glad that the former regime was gone and that it was never coming back. Most West Germans (myself included) were glad that we had the British and Americans around. Both were infinitely preferable to the Soviets. Both the UK and USA were there with the permission of the German government, and both were generally well received. A number of German women were especially fond of the Americans, many of them wound up marrying US serviceman and leaving the country for a time. Even though it often didn’t turn out well…
The US and UK militaries also helped boost local economies after the war, something which was desperately needed. British and American serviceman would buy a lot from local stores/restaurants/pubs, helping to put more money into the economy. Both military forces also ensured that the population was treated with respect and insisted that the local laws be followed. Most importantly, they gave the people a sense of security. So long as the British and American militaries were there, there was a lot less fear of the USSR and its ambitions. Even before the wall went up, people knew what was going on. East Germany had lost about a third of its population, something which wasn’t a sign of faith in the Soviet-backed socialist government there.
Things might not always have been wonderful, but life in the West was good. There were more and more luxuries, food was plentiful, and there were good jobs. After the wall went up, the American and British presence were even more important for the sense of security of the Germans. The governments of the eastern bloc were growing more fanatic, more paranoid. They were hell-bent on continuing their grip on power. We knew what was going on in Hungary, in the Czech Republic, in the USSR, in East Germany. We also knew that the communists never really had majority support, they just used the support of a plurality to either launch coups or find other ways to take over governments.
With the UK and USA around, we didn’t have to fear that too much. The French were different, of course. They had their own quirks and ways of doing things, they were also less forgiving than their Anglophone counterparts. The West German government, however, wound up married to them. It was like a hard-working, frugal wife who laboured behind the scenes to support a arrogant husband who enjoyed little more than buying the best clothes, eating the best food, and buying a new luxury car each year knowing that his insecure wife would continue to pay for it.
After the Cold War ended, the French had already basically left. The UK were drawing down their military presence leaving only the Americans with a major presence. In the past decade the US has also began to draw down its military presence there. Russia is no longer a major threat. Despite the rhetoric coming from the Putin/Medvedev condominium in Moscow, Russia needs its markets in Western Europe more than Western Europe needs Russia. Despite this, there is some resistance still to the US military leaving Germany. Local economies have become reliant on it for much of their tax revenue, one of the main reasons why US withdrawal hasn’t gone faster.
In the end, it wasn’t so much a military occupation as it was a security blanket. Whatever a few fringe characters might have thought couldn’t alter the fact that Germany was vastly better off with the British and Americans around than it would have been under complete Soviet domination. That much was known by all but a few people with strange ideas.
Boadicea's Chariot 
Thanks for another interesting post, Christopher.
Interesting take, Christopher.
Thank you Christopher, an intelligent and level headed post.
Out of interest, are you aware of the point of view often muttered by the British resentful of both the support offered by the US to your country and the success of Germany at the expense perhaps to the British who were also devastated by the cost of WWII? An argument also made concerning the Japanese recovery. Please, not necessarily my own view, but one that I often here, even now and was very much in the history books when I was at school. I just wonder whether that was even noticed in post war Germany? I think I’m right in saying Britain has only just stopped paying back the loans to the yanks, whereas Germany paid back nothing?
Cuprum: yes, I am aware of that fact and have had frequent debates with Americans about that, as well as the bankrupting “lend-lease” which most still consider an act of mercy. (If that is what they consider mercy, then what do they consider vindictiveness?) There has never been a satisfactory answer given. One could say that Japan, arguably even more brutal than Germany in its own way, was the one that managed to get punished the least. There was no real input or negotiation about what the terms of Japan’s surrender would be, the Americans did that on their own. When Mao started his destruction of China in earnest after 1949, Japan became a critical ally and the past was promptly forgotten by the US government. (Most Americans who fought in the Pacific still have no more love or respect for Japan than the Britons, Aussies, or Kiwis who fought there as well. Many also see Japan more or less the same way as the Koreans or Chinese who lived through that era)
In Germany the war was acknowledged, but people never really liked to dwell on it. In more recent years there has been discussion about it, but the general mood is that it’s the past and it’s time to move on.
You are correct, by the way, it was only within the past decade that the UK finally paid back its debts.