[Legbreaker]

My understanding of Going Home is that the withdrawal was only made possible by the discovery by Germany of a oil tanker floating around at sea.
The US traded for this limited supply of oil with their heavy equipment - the Germans were absolutely in the drivers seat for the withdrawal and were able to name their price (which was the effective rearmament of their military).

It is (as I've said before) my view the objective of the summer offensive, which was primarily a German operation (just spearheaded by the US XI Corps) was to seize and hold the Baltic coastline and the coastal plains as far inland as possible. A side effect of this was to place the Estonian oil shale fields within striking distance. This oil would enable Nato to field aircraft once again and control of the Baltic would enable the oil to be quickly and efficiently shipped back to Germany for processing and distribution.

The holding of the Baltic coast was only possible in the longer term if the US and Britain were intending to stick around. Their troops were vital.

Having access to the oil, and putting planes back into the air would radically change the balance of power. At that point, the war was once again winable since air superiority would be in the hands of Nato.

Therefore, it's my opinion that the US withdrawal, while perhaps at least talked about for some time, was not a serious consideration, let alone possibility until after the offensive failed and the tanker was recovered. Note also that the order wasn't given until several months after the US 5th ID was destroyed and all other units had come to a standstill.

With the failure of the offensive, and battered state of both sides there was little point, or even capability of further decent offensive action within the next decade. With the Pact also disintergrating, there was also little need or desire to keep the additional mouths of tens of thousands of Americans on hand for defensive operations. All in all in late 2000 a US withdrawal was a GOOD THING for Germany.