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Western Front

Post-War Internment Camp at Regensburg, Germany, 1945-1953

Aerial coverage of POW camp for Wehrmacht and SS personnel at Regensburg Germany indicates it operated between September 1945 and at least August 1953. The camp, more precisely known as a U.S. Army-administered Disarmed Enemy Forces Facility (DEF), replaced a rudimentary detention area at the same site. The internment camp was separate from a United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Agency (UNRRA) displaced persons camp in the Ganghofersiedlung section of the city, which operated between 1945 and 1949.

The internment camp was scratch-built in a former military training area (Graphic). It replaced a large open-air enclosure established on the same site immediately after the war (Graphic). When the camp was imaged in September 1945, it had just been finished and was probably not yet occupied. Except for a number of vehicles in the support area and two others on the southwest section, virtually no activity was observed. Walkways between buildings in the two southwest sections suggested they were being prepared for occupation. Possible building materials were stacked in an open area southwest of the camp.

The camp itself consisted of eight nearly-identical barracks sections organized into a northern and southern sections and an administration/support area in a damaged light industry at the east end of the facility. Each section had its own multi-wing kitchen/dining hall, 16-20 barracks (the barracks in the two westernmost areas were larger than the others), and 14 other buildings, which included latrines and wash facilities; the administration/support area utilized five buildings of the industrial facility. Two of the buildings were outside the gate.

Coverage from 2 August 1953 most of the camp had been dismantled (Graphic). Only the two westernmost barracks areas were still intact, but several two-story buildings had been built there in the interim since1945.

The camp was adjacent to two former German barracks, Raffler and Pioneer Kasernes, both occupied by the U.S. Army. An airfield had been constructed at Raffler Kaserne (Graphic); 17 light aircraft were parked on a hardstand. An insignia on the ground revealed that the barracks was the headquarters of XII Corps artillery (3rd Army). XII Corps was inactivated in December 1945.

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