Golden Mile (POW camp)

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.

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.

Both camp areas were bounded on the east by the Rhine and on the west by the embankment of a railway line.

Inside the camp, individual "cages", separated from one another by barbed wire, held the prisoners in groups of fifty, hundred or a thousand.

Some prisoners dug holes in the ground using their hands and primitive tools to seek shelter from the rain.