Within the project ‘The U.S. Government As Employer’, Heinz Strüber, Chief/Engineering Services Branch, Engineering Plans & Services Division from 1976 thru 1992, prepared a copious report on the working culture and SOPs at the Directorate of Engineering & Housing (DEH). The themes, mostly covered in explicit detail and documented by the original paperwork (partially added as copies) allow an extraordinary insight into ‘the engineers’ as an example. The (German) style of the texts is pretty special and accompanied by American military English, then called “bureaucratese” by the DEH Americans. The contents transfer a highly professional expertise and differ widely from the usual reports on the presence of the U.S. forces. So they allow a substantial comprehension of U.S. Army engineers’ everyday life, far from any barroom romanticism, weaponry and political discourse.

In the near future, nobody will be around who remembers that particular bureaucracy of the administrative / civil / LN component of the service in the U.S. Army. The contemporaries who once worked there – having had pretty different experience stages anyway - will gradually diminish in number and finally will become extinct. That is why Strüber deems it necessary to provide – right now - some realistic insight in the omnipresent regulations of the U.S. Army administration for posterity. Amerika in Augsburg e. V. feels challenged to provide this insight within its documentation of history.

 

The case book contains the following files:

- Working for the U.S. Department of the Army (1976-1992)

- Engineer Design and Contract Philosophy (1976-1992)

- Of Mice and (Wo)Men (1976-1992)

- In-House versus A/E Title I and II, Planung und Bauleitung mit eigenem Personal oder vergeben?

- The Engineers – Die Bauverwaltung

- Same Procedure As Every Year – DEH Project Review Form, 1986

- USMCA Augsburg Engineer Project Acquisition Plan

- Trip Report – Reisebericht von Ms. Ella Snell, 23 Jan 1984

- Minutes of 16 August 1990 Staff Meeting

- Arbeitsplatzbeschreibungen & Leistungsplan für Zivilpersonal

- Annual Performance Appraisals (Local National Employees), AE Form 1020

- Maßnahmen zur Anhebung der Leistungsfähigkeit des Arbeitnehmers durch Fortbildung; Das Beurteilungs- und Bonussystem der Army

- WANG Word Processing System, Einführung in MS-DOS

- Belobigungen seitens der Nutzer von Gebäude und Einrichtungen

- Redenschreibung zum DEH Herbstfest 1991 für MAJ James A. Roberts

- 236th Base Support Battalion

- Private Organizations, USAREUR Regulation 230-3 & 210-1

 

For future historical utilization, digital as well as printed files are available.

The case book on military bureaucracy: offering a vast spectrum, meticulously detailed. It contains more than you would expect at first glance.

Official turnover of a construction project: ‘Construct Hardstands for Mini Tank Range at Deuringen Training Area’. The attendees are members of the Finanzbauamt as well as the USMCA Augsburg: Community Commander Brigadier General Hammond (front right), Heinz Strüber, C/ES Branch, Gene Dohrman, C/EP&S Div., Mr. Wolfgang Poddey, ES Branch, and Baudirektor Speck, with servicemen of the VII Corps Field Artillery on March 11, 1983.

 

 

For excellent performance also local national civilians were always awarded with certificates ‘in testimony thereof’.