Sixteen years ago on a dusky, narrow, downtown Juarez side street, Mama Amparo Kluber Le Roy, a Mexican widow then in her 50`s, decided to take on the German Luftwaffe. Nonviolently.

She took over a Juarez nightclub, hung a yellow neon sign above an old wooden door that still creaks and hand-lettered another for the back of the bar. The "Deutscher Club Rainer Palast" where "Jeder Deutscher ist Willkommen" was born. Mama had taken on a new family.

That Mama`s German Palace Club welcomed all Germans, as the signs said, didn`t take long to get around. German soldiers taking U.S. Army missile courses at Fort Bliss in El Paso, Tex., just across the Rio Grande, needed a spot to call home.

Today, Mama`s Club is "one of the best known all over Germany." So says the former commandant of the Luftwaffe`s own missile school, permanently relocated in 1966 from Aachen, West Germany to Fort Bliss 12 years ago.

The school gave Mama built-in business. And Mama guesses she`s met every one of the more than 22,000 Luftwaffe soldiers the school has trained there the past 12 years.

Mama has become the mother of the so-called Lone Star Luftwaffe. A tall woman with the countenance of an Indian chief, Mama`s dress is humble, her expression and appearance proud. Large golden earrings dangle beneath her thick, black, shoulder-lenght hair. Like her enthusiasm, the locks haven`t faded.

German soldiers are "her boys," she tells you over and over again. There`s no denying it. The soldiers call her "Mamacita," adding a Spanish suffix that connotes affection.

They even helped expand the club to hold about 75 people, collecting quarters and dollars among themselves. It looks like your hometown neighborhoad tavern, with some wiggly tables, well-worn chairs and a bar that needs refinishing.

Your pupils dilate wildly when you enter, adjusting from a doorlamp left behind to the dimly-lighted club. A few scattered diamond-shaped decorator floor lights are no immediate help, and you miss at first the roughly dozen tables, 50 padded chairs and sundry benches about the room.

Your eyes are dran instead to lights behind the bar. There, hundreds of photos, pencil caricatures and snapshots of German soldiers encircle a portrait of bearded King Louie, actually the 19th century King Ludwig of Bavaria.

Somhow squished between are scores of German license plates, posters of Hamburg and "We love la Mama" signs. Elsewhere , graffiti blankets the old brick walls - "Udo war hier" (Udo was here) - and restroom signs say Damen and Herren.

Mama`s like the Luftwaffe`s own private rathskeller, one of the German pubs where beer, songs and goodwill can turn a simple night out into a mini-Oktoberfest. For a German, such Gemuetlichkeit is soul food.

"It`s a place you can be yourself without worrying what othet people think. Relexed. Sing songs and drink. Mama watches out for the Germans," Arno Rudat, a Luftwaffe lieutenant, says.

Non-Germans occasionally come in, but only "un poquito," Mamasita says, pinching her fingers together - very small number who have to pay full price for drinks. The Germans pay half, 50 cents.

But why cater just to Germans? Don`t Americans at Fort Bliss have dollars, too? Mama, who speaks three languages often at the same time, explains in her short, crisp style: "I no care the money," she shakes her head vigorously, brown eyes widening. "I no charge mucho. My boys come a long way. They alone here. Me, amigo always. Ich liebe my boys. No Germans, Mama die."

Mamacita herself is part German. She was born in Mexico and raised there by her Mexican father and his German mother, born in Hamburg. It`s been said Mama also liked Adolph Hitler and the economic and public programs he created for Germany. And Mama once had a picture of him behind the bar.

Today there`s a photo of grinning Mexican police. When she was six, police killed her father, Mama say`s. She`s not forgotten, and shee warns German soldiers about police in Juarez.

No slight inteded, but here`s what Mama says: " Never take more than $25 to Juarez. Police are gangsters. And no put more mony in your shoes. Police know that trick."

Mexican beat cops along Juarez side streets near the club known they`re not welcome. She`s been known to kick them out.

German soldiers rarely feel Mama`s sting, which comes in a potend liquid. A Mamacita special. The dring brongs tears to your eyes. Most Germans have learned to steer clear of it. It`s a powerfull mixture of rum, bourbon, tequila and a touch of fruit juice. For coloring. One Luftwaffe soldier calls it a tequila sunset.

Most stick to Bohemia, a Mexican beer. And on Friday nights, up to 150 Luftwaffe soldiers, many in Levis and denim jackets, jam the club. The German drinking songs, from Luftwaffe voice or Mama`s jukebox, can be heard down the street.

Young bachelors, enlisted and officers, are the regulars, bringing along their Mexican or American girlfriends. But married soldiers with their wives aren`t strangers. They usually stop by after the Juarez dog races or dinner.

Luftwaffe soldiers who want to visit other Juarez night-spots simply leave money they won`t need with Mamma for safekeeping, then return later to pick it up. Not a dime is missing, says Luftwaffe Capt. Bernt Koetter. Mama stays on call all night.

And when she gets weary, soldiers give her a massage and help her tend bar.

Humming along to a German folksong on the jukebox, Mamacita looks over her boys, smiles and says, "Mama never kaput."   L.H.W