Patrick Henry Village (PHV), was a

United States Army The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, cla ...

family housing area located in the vicinity of

Heidelberg Heidelberg (; Palatine German language, Palatine German: ''Heidlberg'') is a city in the States of Germany, German state of Baden-Württemberg, situated on the river Neckar in south-west Germany. As of the 2016 census, its population was 159,914 ...

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

, adjacent to and just south of the small town of Eppelheim. It opened in 1947 after

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

and was named after

Patrick Henry Patrick Henry (May 29, 1736June 6, 1799) was an American attorney, planter, politician and orator known for declaring to the Second Virginia Convention (1775): " Give me liberty, or give me death!" A Founding Father, he served as the first an ...

, first and sixth

Governor of Virginia The governor of the Commonwealth of Virginia serves as the head of government of Virginia for a four-year term. The incumbent, Glenn Youngkin, was sworn in on January 15, 2022. Oath of office On inauguration day, the Governor-elect takes th ...

. PHV was at its height populated with up to 16,000 Americans. The housing area closed on 6 September 2013. For the vast majority of its existence, PHV was not fenced, gated, or in any other way not completely open to entry and transit by the general public. After the

September 11, 2001, attacks The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commerc ...

in the United States, fences were built around the living quarters so that no one could enter without an authorized U.S. government ID card. Also, the yearly German-American 'Volksfest' was moved to nearby Patton Barracks, for security reasons. In 2002, the US Army planned a large extension of the housing area. However, soon afterwards the Army announced the closure of all Heidelberg and Mannheim facilities. Patrick-Henry-Village was officially closed on September 6, 2013, after all military personnel were moved to the new

headquarters Headquarters (commonly referred to as HQ) denotes the location where most, if not all, of the important functions of an organization are coordinated. In the United States, the corporate headquarters represents the entity at the center or the to ...

of the

United States European Command The United States European Command (EUCOM) is one of the eleven unified combatant commands of the United States military, headquartered in Stuttgart, Germany. Its area of focus covers and 51 countries and territories, including Europe, Russi ...

Wiesbaden Wiesbaden () is a city in central western Germany and the capital of the state of Hesse. , it had 290,955 inhabitants, plus approximately 21,000 United States citizens (mostly associated with the United States Army). The Wiesbaden urban area ...

. On 2 June 2014, the site was transferred to the

Institute for Federal Real Estate An institute is an organisational body created for a certain purpose. They are often research organisations (research institute, research institutes) created to do research on specific topics, or can also be a professional body. In some countr ...

Former facilities

In its final state, Patrick Henry Village had a large number of educational, recreational and public facilities as well as shops and dining facilities. Schools included Patrick Henry Elementary School (Grades K-5) and

Heidelberg Middle School Heidelberg Middle School (HMS) was an American school in Heidelberg, Germany. The students attending HMS were the children of Department of Defense employees. Heidelberg Middle School was located on Patrick Henry Village Patrick Henry Village ...

(Grades 6-8), as well as a guest Canadian elementary/middle school (Grades K-8) for the children of Canadian military personnel. Recreational facilities included a gym, a bowling alley, a miniature golf course, a movie theater, tennis courts and baseball fields, the Heidelberg Non-Commissioned Officer's Club, aka "Old Dominion Club" and the Heidelberg Commissioned Officer's Club. Public services included a clinic for dentistry, a barbershop, a library, a post office, and a Roman Catholic and Protestant church.

Present usage

At the end of 2014, parts of the installation were used as an

emergency shelter An emergency shelter is a place for people to live temporarily when they cannot live in their previous residence, similar to homeless shelters. The main difference is that an emergency shelter typically specializes in people fleeing a specific ...

for

refugee A refugee, conventionally speaking, is a displaced person who has crossed national borders and who cannot or is unwilling to return home due to well-founded fear of persecution.

s as a reaction to the

refugee crisis A refugee crisis can refer to difficulties and dangerous situations in the reception of large groups of Forced displacement, forcibly displaced persons. These could be either internally displaced person, internally displaced, refugees, asylum ...

. From summer 2015 on, the shelter was extended to the ''Bedarfsorientierte Erstaufnahmeeinrichtung Heidelberg'' in order to house and process

asylum seeker An asylum seeker is a person who leaves their country of residence, enters another country and applies for asylum (i.e., international protection) in that other country. An asylum seeker is an immigrant who has been forcibly displaced and mi ...

s according to the regular procedure with a capacity of ca. 4.000 persons (as of October 2015). The Minister of Science of

Baden-Württemberg Baden-Württemberg (; ), commonly shortened to BW or BaWü, is a German state () in Southwest Germany, east of the Rhine, which forms the southern part of Germany's western border with France. With more than 11.07 million inhabitants across a ...

Theresia Bauer demanded the restoration of more buildings in PHV so that more refugees can be housed there, but Heidelberg's Deputy Mayor Eckart Würzner objected her request and insisted on a decentralized accommodation within Heidelberg as well as on a fairer distribution of refugees in Baden-Württemberg. The federal government of Baden-Württemberg decided regardless that Patrick-Henry-Village should become the central processing hub for three-fourths of all refugees of the southwest. It was planned that refugees should pass 40 procedures there, which combine the identification, health check, registration and application for asylum. Furthermore, asylum applicants who were sent to the

rural districts Rural districts were a type of local government area – now superseded – established at the end of the 19th century in England, Wales, and Ireland for the administration of predominantly rural areas at a level lower than that of the ad ...

get cited to appear at Patrick Henry Village again for their asylum hearing to take place.

References

{{Authority control Buildings and structures in Heidelberg Military installations of the United States in Germany 1947 establishments in Germany

Former facilities

Present usage

See also

References