As a German, not just me, when Trump threatened - yes threatened! - to withdraw lots of troops from Germany there was lots of Angst about the economic fallout. US troops are in areas that have benefited, and still benefit, very heavily from their presence.
The opinion that US troops are "occupiers" can only be found in some tiny minority fringe groups, left and right, if even that.
I'm East German even, who even maintained interest in the ex USSR territories, visiting a few times (Ukraine and Russia, both, even taking a two month long Russian language course to refresh my knowledge, so I should be biased towards the Russian PoV, but there is no way I would find your assertion anything but nonsense. Having US troops in Germany is mostly looked upon favorably, even when Germans have not agreed with some of the wars the US fought using them.
There also is a significant difference in public opinion before the Russian invasion and after. Also, opinions and the relationship were worst, by far, during the Trump years. So, during that time, and before the invasion, and definitely after Trump, the opinion was indeed more in favor of the US leaving. For some strange reason Russia decided to help out European-US alliance and to give it a huge boost...
Just as an example, it's not like that hasn't been reported many times since last February:
https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2022/06/22/international-...
They include their methodology at the top, including the questions asked.
> Data collection began a week prior to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in Canada, France, Germany, Italy, the UK and Japan.
.
Oh and I'm of the - weakly held - opinion that it was the Russians who blew up the pipeline. I don't understand the questions here about benefits and motives - this has all been discussed to death elsewhere, anyone seriously interested in the topic, and not just wanting to annoy somebody here, would/could just have gone there and read it all. I'd suspect Poland more than the US, they've been visibly mad and very outspoken about Germany's Russia reliance and close ties for a long time, they've felt threatened by the Russians and are right next to them.
https://www.ssoar.info/ssoar/bitstream/handle/document/68455... -- "Nord Stream 2 as a Threat to National Interests of Poland and Ukraine"
There is no shortage of candidates, and if the governments don't want to talk, not even the Russians making much noise, I see no good purpose behind all this speculation. Especially when people start making strong assertions left and right, based on carefully selected pieces of facts. What a waste of time, but I didn't want to let the "US troops occupy Germany" stand, it's just too silly. Oh, and one pipe of NS2 remaining does seem kind of significant to me. Hardly an accident.
For the most part, I agree that the US occupation has been benign. Really, they are not protecting Germany from anything, but also not causing many problems. They are perhaps creating some jobs even.
However, when Washington starts blowing up critical national infrastructure to advance its narrow geopolitical interests, that changes.
To be clear, the economic fallout of Germany having to export LNG across the Atlantic instead of through already-existing pipelines is vastly more severe than US closing its military bases (which could be partially reappropriated by a growing Bundeswehr).
Well, that is an unsubstantiated opinion not held by the majority. I did not claim nobody with such opinions exist, one just has to look at the AfD.
Oh and it was Russia that stopped sending gas, long before the pipelines were blown up. You also conveniently don't address my last point, which does not fit the "the US was it" so that's understandable on some level.
> they are not protecting Germany from anything
And the reason for that is that we can hide behind Poland, which is protected by NATO.