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Rheinwiesenlager
The ''Rheinwiesenlager'' (, ''Rhine meadow camps'') were a group of 19 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. Background By early 1945 half of almost all German soldiers taken prisoner in the West were held by U.S. forces, while the other half were taken by the British. But in late March 1945, as A ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Prisoner Of War
A prisoner of war (POW) is a person who is held captive by a belligerent power during or immediately after an armed conflict. The earliest recorded usage of the phrase "prisoner of war" dates back to 1610. Belligerents hold prisoners of war in custody for a range of legitimate and illegitimate reasons, such as isolating them from the enemy combatants still in the field (releasing and repatriating them in an orderly manner after hostilities), demonstrating military victory, punishing them, prosecuting them for war crimes, exploiting them for their labour, recruiting or even conscripting them as their own combatants, collecting military and political intelligence from them, or indoctrinating them in new political or religious beliefs. Ancient times For most of human history, depending on the culture of the victors, enemy fighters on the losing side in a battle who had surrendered and been taken as prisoners of war could expect to be either slaughtered or enslaved. E ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Prisoner Of War
A prisoner of war (POW) is a person who is held captive by a belligerent power during or immediately after an armed conflict. The earliest recorded usage of the phrase "prisoner of war" dates back to 1610. Belligerents hold prisoners of war in custody for a range of legitimate and illegitimate reasons, such as isolating them from the enemy combatants still in the field (releasing and repatriating them in an orderly manner after hostilities), demonstrating military victory, punishing them, prosecuting them for war crimes, exploiting them for their labour, recruiting or even conscripting them as their own combatants, collecting military and political intelligence from them, or indoctrinating them in new political or religious beliefs. Ancient times For most of human history, depending on the culture of the victors, enemy fighters on the losing side in a battle who had surrendered and been taken as prisoners of war could expect to be either slaughtered or enslaved. E ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Disarmed Enemy Forces
Disarmed Enemy Forces (DEF, less commonly, Surrendered Enemy Forces) was a US designation for soldiers who surrendered to an adversary after hostilities ended, and for those POWs who had already surrendered and were held in camps in occupied German territory at the time. It was General Dwight D. Eisenhower's designation of German prisoners in post– World War II occupied Germany. Because of the logistical difficulties of feeding all of the nearly two million of surrendered German soldiers at the levels required by the Geneva Convention during the food crisis of 1945, the purpose of the designation, along with the British designation of Surrendered Enemy Personnel (SEP), was to prevent categorization of the prisoners as Prisoners of War (POW) under the 1929 Geneva Convention. Germany at the end of the war Food and agriculture in Nazi Germany had declined greatly in 1944 and 1945. Germany had mobilized for total war, and food for the troops and war workers was vital to the w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Golden Mile (POW Camp)
The Golden Mile (german: Goldene Meile) was an Allied POW camp in 1945 on the fertile Rhine plain known as the Golden Mile near Remagen in Germany. History Towards the end of the Second World War, US troops established prisoner of war camps along the River Rhine for the detention of German soldiers. During the conquest of the Rhineland 250,000 German soldiers were captured and, following the destruction of the Ruhr Pocket, another 325,000 joined them. From mid-April 1945 around 660,000 Germans were held in these camps. After the collapse of the Western Front, the Americans – themselves suffering from supply shortages – had to accommodate and care for German prisoners of war as well as two million of their own soldiers. The so-called ''Rheinwiesenlager'' ("Rhine Pasture Camps") were intended as transit camps, offering temporary accommodation for the prisoners. The Golden Mile was one of these camps. The camp The camp occupied the area between Remagen and Niederb ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Allied-occupied Germany
Germany was already de facto occupied by the Allies from the real fall of Nazi Germany in World War II on 8 May 1945 to the establishment of the East Germany on 7 October 1949. The Allies (United States, United Kingdom, Soviet Union, and France) asserted joint authority and sovereignty at the 1945 Berlin Declaration. At first, defining Allied-occupied Germany as all territories of the former German Reich before Nazi annexing Austria; however later in the 1945 Potsdam Conference of Allies, the Potsdam Agreement decided the new German border as it stands today. Said border gave Poland and the Soviet Union all regions of Germany (eastern parts of Pomerania, Neumark, Posen-West Prussia, Free City of Danzig, East-Prussia & Silesia) east of the Oder–Neisse line and divided the remaining "Germany as a whole" into the four occupation zones for administrative purposes under the three Western Allies (the United States, the United Kingdom, and France) and the Soviet Union. Althou ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
German Prisoners Of War In Northwest Europe
More than 2.8 million German soldiers surrendered on the Western Front between D-Day (June 6, 1944) and the end of April 1945; 1.3 million between D-Day and March 31, 1945;2,055,575 German soldiers surrendered between D-Day and April 16, 1945, ''The Times'', April 19 p 4; 755,573 German soldiers surrendered between April 1 and 16, ''The Times'', April 18 p 4, which means that 1,300,002 German soldiers surrendered to the Western Allies between D-Day and the end of March 1945. and 1.5 million of them in the month of April. From early March, these surrenders seriously weakened the Wehrmacht in the West, and made further surrenders more likely, thus having a snowballing effect. On March 27, Dwight D. Eisenhower declared at a press conference that the enemy were a whipped army.''The Times'', March 28 page 4, headline ‘A WHIPPED ARMY, REVIEW BY SUPREME COMMANDER.’ … ‘Quarter of a million German soldiers have been captured since March 1,’ press release dated March 27. In March ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Werwolf
''Werwolf'' (, German for " werewolf") was a Nazi plan which began development in 1944, to create a resistance force which would operate behind enemy lines as the Allies advanced through Germany, in parallel with the '' Wehrmacht'' fighting in front of the lines. It is widely misconstrued as having been intended to be a guerrilla force to harass Allied forces after the defeat of Germany, a misconception created by Joseph Goebbels through propaganda disseminated in the waning weeks of the war through his "Radio Werwolf", which was not actually connected in any way with the military unit. Nomenclature How and by whom the name was chosen is unknown, but it may have alluded to the title of Hermann Löns' novel, ''Der Wehrwolf'', first published in 1910. Set in the Celle region ( Lower Saxony) during the Thirty Years' War (1618–1648), the novel concerns a peasant named Harm Wulf. After marauding soldiers kill his family, Wulf organises his neighbors into a militia who pursue ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Andernach
Andernach () is a town in the district of Mayen-Koblenz, in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany, of about 30,000 inhabitants. It is situated towards the end of the '' Neuwied basin'' on the left bank of the Rhine between the former tiny fishing village of Fornich in the north and the mouth of the small river Nette in the southeast, just north of Koblenz, with its five external town districts: Kell, Miesenheim, Eich, Namedy, and Bad Tönisstein. A few hundred metres downstream of Andernach the Rhine valley narrows from both sides forming the northern part of the romantic ''Middle Rhine'' stretch. Already in Roman times the place the narrow passage begins was named "Porta Antunnacensis" or ''Andernachian Gate''. It is formed by two hills, the ''Krahnenberg'' (engl. ''Crane hill'') and the ''Engwetter'' (''Narrow weather'') on the right bank near the wine village ''Leutesdorf'' (external town district of Bad Hönningen). The crane hill is named after the old crane ben ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sinzig
Sinzig is a town in the district of Ahrweiler, in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It is situated on the river Rhine, about 5 km south-east of Remagen and 25 km south-east of Bonn, and it has approximately 20,000 inhabitants (2004). History Sinzig received its first official recognition in 762 A.D. On 10 July that year, King Pippin the Younger, the father of Charlemagne, presented a certificate of his decree in the Palace of Sinzig (''Sentiaco Palacio''), officially recognizing the town as "Sentiacum." Abraham of Augsburg; a convert to Judaism, along with 61 other Jews, were slain in a pogrom in Sinzig in 1265. Sinzig first received its rights as a town on 9 October 1267. Because of the influence Emperor Frederick Barbarossa had on the town, it is nicknamed a " Barbarossa town". Ivan Turgenev immortalized the town in his 1857 novella ''Asya''. Twice, the medieval town, which since 1300 has been protected by a massive wall, was almost entirely destroyed by fires, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Remagen
Remagen ( ) is a town in Germany in the state of Rhineland-Palatinate, in the district of Ahrweiler. It is about a one-hour drive from Cologne, just south of Bonn, the former West German capital. It is situated on the left (western) bank of the river Rhine. There is a ferry across the Rhine from Remagen every 10–15 minutes in the summer. Remagen has many notable and well-maintained buildings, churches, castles and monuments. It also has a sizeable pedestrian zone with plenty of shops. Overlooking the west bank of the Rhine just north of the city centre is the Apollinariskirche. It has an observation deck that is only open to parishioners on Sundays. Pedestrians reach the church via a dirt trail that passes a series of roadside monuments representing each of the fourteen Stations of the Cross. The church grounds contain an outdoor crypt and an abbey. Further down the river is one of the many castles along the Rhine, perched even higher than the Apollinariskirche. History The ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bingen Am Rhein
Bingen am Rhein () is a town in the Mainz-Bingen district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. The settlement's original name was Bingium, a Celtic word that may have meant "hole in the rock", a description of the shoal behind the ''Mäuseturm'', known as the ''Binger Loch''. Bingen was the starting point for the ''Via Ausonia'', a Roman military road that linked the town with Trier. Bingen is well known for, among other things, the story about the Mouse Tower, in which the Bishop of Hatto I of Mainz was allegedly eaten by mice. Saint Hildegard von Bingen, an important polymath, abbess, mystic and musician, one of the most influential medieval composers and one of the earliest Western composers whose music is widely preserved and performed, was born 40 km away from Bingen, in Bermersheim vor der Höhe. Bingen am Rhein was also the birthplace of the celebrated poet Stefan George, along with many other influential figures. Geography Location Bingen is situated just southeast of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Koblenz
Koblenz (; Moselle Franconian: ''Kowelenz''), spelled Coblenz before 1926, is a German city on the banks of the Rhine and the Moselle, a multi-nation tributary. Koblenz was established as a Roman military post by Drusus around 8 B.C. Its name originates from the Latin ', meaning "(at the) confluence". The actual confluence is today known as the " German Corner", a symbol of the unification of Germany that features an equestrian statue of Emperor William I. The city celebrated its 2000th anniversary in 1992. It ranks in population behind Mainz and Ludwigshafen am Rhein to be the third-largest city in Rhineland-Palatinate. Its usual-residents' population is 112,000 (as at 2015). Koblenz lies in a narrow flood plain between high hill ranges, some reaching mountainous height, and is served by an express rail and autobahn network. It is part of the populous Rhineland. History Ancient era Around 1000 BC, early fortifications were erected on the Festung Ehrenbreitstein hil ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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