By February 1945, the Western Allies had concentrated captured German soldiers still in France near major supply ports.
After Allied forces crossed the Rhine, the number of prisoners rose rapidly and temporary open-air camps were established along the Rhine and Neckar, from Heilbronn northwards.
There were camps at the following locations:
Rheinberg
Remagen
Bad Kreuznach
Büderich
Sinzig
Winzenheim
Biebelsheim
Dietersheim
Wickrathberg
Koblenz
Andernach
Heidesheim
Urmitz
Böhl
Ludwigshafen
Heilbronn
Those who believed they had reached safety were soon disillusioned. Camps holding between 50,000 and 100,000 men were severely overcrowded.
A total of about 900,000 prisoners were held in the Rhine meadow camps. General Dwight D. Eisenhower, later President of the United States, classified many captured German soldiers as “disarmed enemy forces” rather than prisoners of war; the site argues that this denied them protections associated with POW status under the Geneva Convention.
Death on the Rhine meadows
Food, drinking water, sanitation, shelter, medicine, blankets and clothing were all in short supply. The account states that supplies and accommodation existed nearby, including food in Wehrmacht depots and undamaged barracks, while local residents who tried to help prisoners risked punishment.
Prisoners dug holes with their bare hands to obtain makeshift protection from wind and rain.
Driven by extreme hunger, some men ate frogs, snails, roots and grass; severe thirst led some to drink their own urine.
Continuous rain began in late April, turning the camps into cold expanses of mud.
Sanitation was rudimentary, with tree trunks or simple pits used as latrines. Poor hygiene, malnutrition, exposure and lack of medicine contributed to widespread illness and death.
Thousands contracted pneumonia, dysentery and typhoid; many thousands died.
