The camp originally was part of a military training area set up before World War I by the Prussian Army.

Stalag IX-B was also the site of a segregation and removal of Jewish-American troops who, once identified, were transferred to the labor camp at Berga, in contravention of international law.

After World War II, the camp served to house ethnic Germans displaced from Poland and the Czech Republic.

The camp was originally established shortly before the start of World War I to house troops of the German/Prussian Army using the nearby military training area.

From 1926-29 additional buildings were erected, with financial aid from the lottery and from the wealthy von Weinberg family in Frankfurt.

In November 1939, it became the POW camp "Stalag IX-B", housing prisoners from at least eight countries: France, the Soviet Union, Italy, Great Britain, Belgium, Serbia, Slovakia and the United States.

The inmates were used as forced labourers in agriculture, forestry and in industry at Gelnhausen, Wächtersbach, Hanau, Offenbach and Frankfurt.

After the war some of the dead - most of those members of the western Allies' armed forces - were taken home or moved to other memorial sites.

Between March 1941 and February 1945, only ten deaths were recorded among the soldiers of the western Allies: 6 Americans, 3 Frenchmen and one Italian.

[10] On 2 April 1945 an American task force broke through the German lines, and drove north over 60 km (37 mi) through enemy held territory to Bad Orb, and liberated Stalag IX-B.

From the winter of 1945/46 to 1955 the camp was used to house refugees and displaced Germans from what is today Poland and the Czech Republic.

In 1955-7, when the graveyard was redesigned, the first sign saying Hier ruhen 1430 sowjetische Soldaten, die von den Faschisten ermordet wurden ("here lie 1430 Soviet soldiers, murdered by the fascists") was removed due to complaints by locals.