page_title: Rheinwiesenlager
section_title: Location of Rheinwiesenlager
hierarchical_section_title: Rheinwiesenlager / Location of Rheinwiesenlager
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Karte der RRheinwiesenlager
context_page_description: The Rheinwiesenlager 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, 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.
  Most estimates of German deaths in these camps range from 3,000 to 6,000. Many of these died from starvation, dehydration and exposure to the weather elements because no structures were built inside the prison compounds.
context_section_description: Listings are from north to south with official number
  A4 Büderich
  A1 Rheinberg
  A9 Wickrathberg
  A2 Remagen (the Golden Mile)
  A5 Sinzig
  Siershahn
  A11 A14 Andernach
  Diez
  A13 Urmitz
  A10 Koblenz
  A8 Dietersheim
  A12 Heidesheim
  A6 Winzenheim/Bretzenheim
  A16 A17 Hechtsheim
  A7 A15 Biebelsheim
  A3 Bad Kreuznach
  C1 Ludwigshafen
  C2 Böhl-Iggelheim
  C3 C4 Heilbronn
caption: location of the Rheinwiesenlager
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