Multinational Eagle

When I posted some letters (more admin work today…), I came across the building with this eagle on its corner, and decided to blip it and share some local history. 
It’s sitting at the entrance of a former military barracks, erected as „Freudenbergkaserne“ in the 1930es by the Nazis. It housed a Wehrmacht unit, and the eagle very probably held the Nazi swastika in its claws, like many others of its kind. Thankfully, Nazi Germany lost the war, and the eagle lost the swastika.

From 1945 to 1995, the U.S. Army used the barracks, first as „Camp Taylor“ and then „Camp Pieri“. In the extra I posted a historic photo I found on a Camp Pieri veteran‘s Facebook group site, which shows our eagle with its head painted white - it had become an American bald eagle, and the shield in its claws showed a U.S. Army unit‘s symbol.

After the end of the cold war, the barracks were given back to the city, which renovated the buildings and now offers social housing apartments in them. All of the former grounds of Camp Pieri was converted into a residential area with lots of terraced and semi-detached houses. P and I live in that area, too. The eagle is now just a quaint adornment on a block of flats, and a civilian, after 60 years of military service for two different countries. I like it best the way it is now.