The Rheinwiesenlager (German:[ˈʁaɪnˌviːzn̩ˌlaːɡɐ], Rhine meadow camps) were a group of 19 concentration camps built in the Allied-occupied part of Germany by the U.S. Army to hold captured German soldiers at the close of the Second World War. Officially named Prisoner of War Temporary Enclosures (PWTE), they held between one and almost two million surrendered Wehrmacht personnel from April until September 1945.
Prisoners held in the camps were designated disarmed enemy forces, not prisoners of war. This decision was made in March 1945 by SHAEF commander in chief Dwight D. Eisenhower: by not classifying the hundreds of thousands of captured troops as POWs, the logistical problems associated with accommodating so many prisoners of war mandated by the Geneva Convention governing their treatment were negated.
The Rheinwiesenlager (German: [ˈʁaɪnˌviːzn̩ˌlaːɡɐ], Rhine meadow camps) were a group of 19 concentration camps built in the Allied-occupied part of Germany...
to a false post claiming that German corpses had been dug up at the Rheinwiesenlager and "passed off as Jewish corpses in order to manipulate the number...
soldiers from the Ruhr pocket, and some civilians, were imprisoned in the Rheinwiesenlager (in English, "Rhine meadow camp") near Remagen, a temporary prison...
soldiers were kept in open fields in makeshift camps in the Rhine valley (Rheinwiesenlager). Controversy has arisen about how Eisenhower managed these prisoners...
"Geiersberg" ("Vulture's hill"). After World War II it was the site of two Rheinwiesenlager temporary prison camps. As with most German cities, towns and villages...
those who died had fled the Eastern front and most likely ended up in Rheinwiesenlager prisoner transit camps run by the United States and French forces where...
surrendered on the Eastern Front. In early April, the first Allied-governed Rheinwiesenlager camps were established in western Germany to hold hundreds of thousands...
of the many enclosures on the west bank of the Rhine—the so-called Rheinwiesenlager—close to Remagen. The camps were used by the Allies to house captured...
under American military authority. This even extended to one of the Rheinwiesenlager for disarmed German forces, which lay near Bad Kreuznach on the road...
of thousands of German last-ditch troops were kept in the makeshift Rheinwiesenlager for months, "mainly to prevent Werwolf activity". Prior to the occupation...
transferred in 1945 by the U.S. for forced labor in France came from the Rheinwiesenlager camps; these forced laborers were already very weak, many weighing...
National Archives: RG 48/2009 Wolff 1974, p. 47. Overmans, R. Die Rheinwiesenlager 1945 in 'Ende des Zweiten Weltkrieges — Eine Perspektivische Rundschau'...
in the United States German prisoners of war in the United Kingdom Rheinwiesenlager In the last sixteen days of April, (over) 951,827 Germans were captured...
ended. There is evidence that prisoners from the Rhine meadow camps ("Rheinwiesenlager") came to the Idstein military hospitals. As a yearly event highlight...
his arguments with a description of the horrific conditions at the Rheinwiesenlager POW camps and eyewitness accounts of retired US military officers....
German prisoners (POWs, DEFs or SEPs), some of which initially were Rheinwiesenlager transit camps, and even though conditions in them gradually improved...
enclosures lacking sufficient shelter and other necessities. (see Rheinwiesenlager) Since there was no longer a danger of German retaliation against Allied...
Pour le Mérite, 2008. Translation of: Other Losses. Morgenthau plan Rheinwiesenlager Germany Must Perish! Bad Nenndorf, UK newspaper reports 2005, 2006...
A DGB leaflet objects the attempt to "revise history". London Cage Rheinwiesenlager — allegations of mistreatment of prisoners Malmedy massacre trial —...
camp, the so-called Feld des Jammers (“Field of Misery”), one of the Rheinwiesenlager. A monument at the site nowadays commemorates this camp and its occupants...
Global Information
Disarmed Enemy Forces