The U.S. Army’s 1st Battalion, 10th Special Forces Group (Airborne) is relocating from Panzer Kaserne in Stuttgart, Germany, about three hours west to Smith Barracks in Baumholder. (Marcus Fichtl/U.S. Army)
STUTTGART, Germany — A contingent of Green Berets has begun its long-anticipated move from Stuttgart to the Army’s garrison in Baumholder, where the special operators will be able to take advantage of the rural community’s sprawling training area.
The 1st Battalion, 10th Special Forces Group (Airborne) officially bid farewell to the Stuttgart area in late April, U.S. Army Special Operations Command said in a statement Tuesday.
“Their move to Baumholder is not simply a change of location,” commander Lt. Gen. Gil Ferguson said in the statement. “It is a deliberate step forward, positioning this force to remain agile, ready and lethal in support of our partners and our nation.”
The relocation will give Green Berets access to a training area roughly 18 times larger than the unit’s footprint in Stuttgart, enabling more realistic and comprehensive training opportunities, the command said.
It wasn’t immediately clear how many troops have already moved, but the relocations are expected to happen incrementally.
Roughly 1,000 troops and their families will reside in Baumholder when the move is complete, Army Special Operations Command officials said last year.
The battalion’s move will be completed by October, Special Operations Command Europe said Tuesday. Other operators assigned to the command will move by 2028.
Spouses from the U.S. Army Special Operations Command and 10th Special Forces Group (Airborne) walk through Smith Elementary School during a base tour at Baumholder, Germany, April 24, 2026. Unit officials have said around 1,000 soldiers and family members will reside in Baumholder after 1st Battalion’s relocation from Stuttgart. (Rhianna Ballenger/U.S. Army)
Meanwhile, SOCEUR’s headquarters will remain at Patch Barracks in Stuttgart, alongside U.S. European Command.
The Army’s base in Baumholder is undergoing major upgrades to support the move, including more than 60 planned or ongoing projects to modernize offices, renovate barracks and build new townhomes.
The move to Baumholder has been in the works for a long while. About 15 years ago, leaders at U.S. Army Europe pushed for Stuttgart-based special operators to relocate to Baumholder.
But the idea initially met resistance, since elements of Special Operations Command Europe were then deeply involved in the Afghanistan war, which ended in the summer of 2021.
However, the proposal gradually gained support. That is in part because of local complaints about excessive noise at a firing range used by the special operators in the suburban Stuttgart town of Böblingen.
U.S. Army Col. Nathanael Joslyn, commander of the 10th Special Forces Group (Airborne), speaks during a farewell at Panzer Kaserne, Germany, April 25, 2026. (Liseth Espinel Cuervo/U.S. Army)
The 1-10 battalion has been stationed in Germany since 1953. It was originally based at Flint Kaserne in Bad Tölz, Germany. After the Cold War, the unit moved to Panzer Kaserne in Böblingen in 1991, positioning it in the same Army community as EUCOM.
While U.S. soldiers have been based at Panzer Kaserne since World War II, the shooting range about a half-mile from the base was only lightly used through the 1980s and 1990s, residents from the area said.
However, following the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and the launch of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, usage of the shooting range intensified as special operations teams prepared for deployments.
That resulted in community tensions, which prompted numerous noise studies over the years. The Army spent millions of dollars on various sound-reduction barriers along the way.
