A19 - Diez
May 22, 2023
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A19 Diez, Rheinwiesenlager Overlay |
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A19 Diez, is this a stalag or a Rheinwiesenlager? |
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A19 Diez, topographic map 1:25.000 from 1942 |
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A19 Diez, at the Schirlinger Straße |
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A19 Diez, Schirlinger Straße, across the track would have been a Rheinwiesenlager. |
On the western side of the city Limburg am Lahn, in Diez we found the area where the Rheinwiesenlager had been located. We parked the car on the Schirlinger Straße. A railway line runs there and directly behind it were prison camps at the time. However, it was a stalag (StammLager) and it cannot have been a Rheinwiesenlager.
The old images of Rheinwiesenlager A19 - Diez do not resemble the general description
of bare fields or meadows, where the Rheinwiesenlager were set up.
Several images, aerial photographs and maps found on the internet show barracks,
described among other things as a stalag (StammLager = main camp) and already used in the
second World War. Barracks can be seen on the maps and photos, which, according to
the description, were even equipped with stoves and bunk beds. In 1944 and in 1945,
more than 15 thousand POWs were housed here each year. The Rheinwiesenlager were
only constructed from April or May 1945 onwards.
East of the Schirlinger Straße and the railway line, where the Stalag used to
be, there are still barracks.
West of Schirlinger Straße, even in 2023, partly empty fields and meadows still
lay. On the 1942 map, this open land is partly marked as marshland.
It seems more likely to me that a local Rheinwiesenlager was under the control of the adjacent barracks, before the end of the war called Stalag. After all, a military infrastructure was already in place there, where the Allied armed forces could so step in and control the RWL.
Who knows may say.
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Diez with fields up to the river Lahn |
For this former Rheinwiesenlager in Diez, I prayed our God, our Dear Lord and the Almighty to fill this whole area with Love, Light and Peace.
And so it is.