From 2000 to 2006, private vehicles belonging to American Service personnel and dependent family members based in Germany carried a distinct series of German-style number plates. Their plates carried the NATO insignia on a blue background instead of the EU stars, the USA country code, and registration numbers starting with AD, AF or HK, while numbers starting in IF on similar plates were used for official NATO vehicles of all non-German nationalities.
The plates' upper sticker showed the expiry date of the plate, rather than technical fitness as the German one does. Furthermore, unlike the German one this sticker is punched to indicate clearly the date. The lower sticker showed the text: "Streitkräfte der Vereinigten Staaten von Amerika in Deutschland" (Armed Forces of the USA in Germany). US-market vehicles without proper mounting brackets for European-standard plates received plates made to a small size which is in Germany normally dedicated for light motorcycles or agricultural vehicles.
When the US forces began using this system, they chose the first two-letter codes not yet used in the German registration system, namely AD (standard size) and AF (small size). After some time they realised that AF could be easily interpreted as Armed Forces or Air Force, defeating the purpose of using German-style plates. So they discontinued issuing plates with "AF" and began using "HK" instead. For official vehicles the code "IF" is used with standard-size plates. By law the vehicles must carry the "USA" sticker since they are registered by a non-European Union country. But in this special matter this law is not enforced in Germany with US Army vehicles. When travelling outside Germany, US military laws required that USA sticker be displayed on the rear of the car. Since the change to local German plates (see below) this rule is no longer valid.
In 2005, the US Forces in Germany decided that service members' private vehicles should carry normal German plates for security reasons. Re-registering with German plates began in December 2005. Each vehicle now displays the prefix for the area where the owner registered the vehicle (i.e. Frankfurt, Bamberg, Heidelberg, Kaiserslautern or Würzburg area), just like a regular German vehicle; the only difference is that they will be exempt from German tax and safety inspections (TÜV), but since the change the vehicles have to comply with EU sound regulations, are not allowed to have their front windows tinted and have to comply with all EU safety regulations. The US vehicles do not have to comply with EU lighting and emission regulations since the US standards are different.
At the end of 2008 the US Forces started to introduce a new plate for temporary registration of vehicles (transfer plates). The small-size version with the blue strip "USA" and nato insignia is in use. The red letters are in FE-style and the code follows the format "T xx yyyyy". The "T" happens to be short for either "temporary" or "transfer", but was primarily chosen because it is not used by any German registration district, therefore avoiding overlaps with actual German plates. The "xx" is the code for the local headquarters and "yyyyy" a 5-digit serial number filled with zeros if necessary. This kind of plate carries no stickers.
| code | local headquarters |
|---|---|
| T A | Augsburg |
| T BA | Bamberg |
| T BH | Baumholder |
| T BR | Bruchsal |
| T GK | Geilenkirchen |
| T GR | Grafenwöhr |
| T H | Heidelberg |
| T HS | Hohenfels |
| T I | Illesheim |
| T K | Kaiserslautern |
| T MA | Mannheim |
| T SP | Spangdahlem |
| T SW | Schweinfurt |
| T W | Wiesbaden |
Famous quotes containing the words vehicle, plates, united, states, army and/or germany:
“How strange a vehicle it is, coming down unchanged from times of old romance, and so characteristically black, the way no other thing is black except a coffin—a vehicle evoking lawless adventures in the plashing stillness of night, and still more strongly evoking death itself, the bier, the dark obsequies, the last silent journey!”
—Thomas Mann (1875–1955)
“I have experienced such simple delight in the trivial matters of fishing and sporting, formerly, as might have inspired the muse of Homer or Shakespeare; and now, when I turn the pages and ponder the plates of the Angler’s Souvenir, I am fain to exclaim,—
“Can such things be,
And overcome us like a summer’s cloud?””
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Printer, philosopher, scientist, author and patriot, impeccable husband and citizen, why isn’t he an archetype? Pioneers, Oh Pioneers! Benjamin was one of the greatest pioneers of the United States. Yet we just can’t do with him. What’s wrong with him then? Or what’s wrong with us?”
—D.H. (David Herbert)
“When some one remarked that, with the addition of a chaplain, it would have been a perfect Cromwellian troop, he observed that he would have been glad to add a chaplain to the list, if he could have found one who could fill that office worthily. It is easy enough to find one for the United States Army. I believe that he had prayers in his camp morning and evening, nevertheless.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Twenty or thirty years ago, in the army, we had a lot of obscure adventures, and years later we tell them at parties, and suddenly we realize that those two very difficult years of our lives have become lumped together into a few episodes that have lodged in our memory in a standardized form, and are always told in a standardized way, in the same words. But in fact that lump of memories has nothing whatsoever to do with our experience of those two years in the army and what it has made of us.”
—Václav Havel (b. 1936)
“We are fighting in the quarrel of civilization against barbarism, of liberty against tyranny. Germany has become a menace to the whole world. She is the most dangerous enemy of liberty now existing.”
—Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919)