The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos, 1933-1945

The Wehrmacht established Stalag IX B (map 4d) on December 1, 1939, in Defense District (Wehrkreis) IX and deployed it to Wegscheide, near Bad Orb.¹ The camp was liberated by American troops on March 30, 1945. The camp was subordinate to the Commander of Prisoners of War in Defense District IX (Kommandeur der Kriegsgefangenen im Wehrkreis IX). The camp commandant at the end of the war was Oberst Karl Sieber, and his deputy was Oberstleutnant Albert Wodarg.²

Stalag IX B held Polish, French, Belgian, Czech, British, Serbian, and Soviet prisoners of war (POWs) as of December 1941, and Italian military prisoners as of the fall of 1943. In late December 1944, 985 American prisoners captured during the German offensive in the Ardennes were placed in the camp. By the spring of 1945, there were 4,700 American prisoners in the camp. The maximum camp population was 25,000.³

The first prisoners to arrive at the camp were 14,000 Frenchmen. Most of them were immediately assigned to labor details (Arbeitskommandos), as were most prisoners of other nationalities. Many of the prisoners were employed in agricultural and forest labor (particularly Soviet prisoners), while others were employed at factories or by local government authorities (such as the City Construction Office, Stadtbauamt).⁴

Medical cases at Stalag IX B were treated at the camp hospital in Bad-Soden, which operated independently of the Stalag itself. This facility had a capacity of 300 beds and consisted of two separate buildings. The lower building was primarily for prisoners from Stalag IX B. The wards held up to 25 patients each. The upper building, by contrast, focused on eye care and the Bad-Soden hospital became the central hospital for optometry for POWs in Germany. The optometry building occupied a former rheumatism clinic, and so the facility was well equipped and suited for medical use, unlike many of the more hastily constructed camp hospitals.

Overall conditions within the two camp hospital units were generally superior to those elsewhere in the German prison camp system. The facilities were well constructed and food quality and quantity was satisfactory, owing to a convent attached to the units, whose nuns provided all the meals. Patients were fed one of three menus based on their health. Prisoners had access to a library, and a camp theater was installed in one of the dining rooms.

Early on, the German administrators and guards from Reserve Battalion (Landesschützenbataillon) 621, under the command of Hauptmann Ludwig Merz treated the French and Belgian prisoners decently. Conditions in the camp were generally satisfactory and in compliance with the main provisions of the Geneva Convention Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War (1929). In late 1944 and early 1945, however, conditions deteriorated significantly, because of the increasing disruption that Germany’s military situation engendered.⁵ Moreover, the conditions for Soviet prisoners in Stalag IX B were similar to those in other camps for Soviet POWs, and the inhumane treatment they received resulted in a high death rate; for example, in 1942, 1,430 Soviet prisoners died in the camp.⁶ A cemetery containing the bodies of 1,433 dead Soviet prisoners was located in a forested area about a kilometer (0.6 miles) from the camp; these prisoners were buried in 12 mass graves, marked with an Orthodox cross.⁷ A Gestapo team regularly screened the Soviet prisoners in the camp to separate out “undesirables,” such as Jews and Communists, who were then sent to a concentration camp (such as Buchenwald or Sachsenhausen), where they were executed on arrival.⁸

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Stalag IX B at Wegscheide. Aerial photograph of the camp, 1944-1945.

USHMM, COURTESY OF NARA, WS #88907.

For British and American prisoners, Stalag IX B was one of the worst camps in Germany. Conditions were appalling from the time the prisoners arrived and continued to deteriorate as the war progressed. The first transport of American prisoners arrived in late December 1944. By January 24, the camp had 4,075 Americans, held in 16 barracks. The compound had formerly accommodated Soviet prisoners, and almost no changes to the facilities had been made prior to the arrival of prisoners from the western front. According to the commandant, the camp personnel had received little to no notice that these prisoners would be arriving, so they had made no preparations.⁹

The facilities would have been inadequate for even half the number of American prisoners they were expected to accommodate. Nearly 1,500 men slept on the bare floor, many without blankets, in mostly unheated rooms. Of the 16 barracks, 3 lacked beds, and several others had fewer than half the beds needed. The few rooms that were heated had small stoves, and prisoners were given supplies of wood barely sufficient to heat the room for more than a few hours. As a result of the poor heating, ceilings and walls were frequently damp and at risk of collapsing. German authorities provided little more than [End Page 453] cardboard for repairs. Prisoners had no cleaning supplies, primitive toilet facilities, and no way to wash their clothes. Though food rations were decent, the majority of prisoners had to use their helmets as bowls.¹⁰

Conditions continued to deteriorate throughout the winter and into the spring. International observers described Stalags IX A, B, and C as “situation critical” following an inspection of the camps in March 1945.¹¹ Hygiene in the camp became “nonexistent” and food rations declined. Poor sanitation and inadequate shelter had contributed to widespread cases of dysentery and pneumonia. The camp became infested with vermin. Overcrowding worsened with the arrival of 2,000 British prisoners.¹² Observers warned of the “grave danger of epidemics” such as typhus breaking out in the camp.¹³ In Stalag IX B, in particular, the German authorities exacerbated the problems by harassing international observers and failing to make any efforts to provide needed supplies and repairs for the collapsing camp infrastructure.¹⁴

The increase in the number of American prisoners toward the end of the war further burdened the already overcrowded camp. The scarcity of building materials made it nearly impossible for the camp leadership to address the problems within the camp. The water supply in the camp was heavily strained. The camp needed to provide water to an estimated 10,000 more prisoners than initially intended, overburdening the capacity of the existing water pumps. There were chronic shortages of medical supplies, clothing, and food.¹⁵

One series of events made even life at Stalag IX B seem relatively benign, because of the cruelty to which the Germans subjected one group of American POWs. In late January 1945, the camp administration received an order to supply 350 POWs for a labor detail. They went after the Jewish-American prisoners first. There was some resistance, and there were only 80 Jews among the Americans in any case, so eventually the Germans rounded out the group with men they labeled troublemakers, and some with Jewish-sounding names, or who looked Jewish, and some they simply chose at random. Once the prisoners had been selected and segregated, the Germans sent them to Kommando 625, near the town of Berga, where there was already a subcamp of Buchenwald.

The prisoners arrived at Berga on February 13 and moved into barracks near the camp perimeter. Their detachment was responsible for digging tunnels for an underground ammunition factory; because this work was of a military nature, it constituted a violation of the Geneva Convention. The prisoners’ treatment was little better than that of the Buchenwald inmates. Former prisoner Alan Reyner stated that “if we took one minute’s rest, we were beaten with a shovel or spiked with a pick. All the foremen carried rubber hoses which they didn’t mind using.”¹⁶ Prisoners frequently suffered from lung ailments due to the white dust churned up during their work. Medic William Shapiro recalled seeing bodies dangling from the gallows in Berga as he retrieved the prisoners’ meals from the camp kitchen.¹⁷ Unteroffizier Erwin Metz, the guard company commander, repeatedly sent severely ill prisoners to work, despite their condition, and also abused his charges at every opportunity, sometimes to the point of death.

Food supplies at Berga were grossly inadequate. On March 21, 1945, Red Cross parcels sent to Berga from Stalag IX C in Bad Sulza arrived, but Metz withheld them for days, at one point insisting that he would not hand them out until the prisoners had made themselves presentable—an impossibility in the environment of the camp.¹⁸ Reyner recalled of himself and his fellow prisoners that “we had reached the stage of animals….[E]ven sick men had their food stolen from them before they could even get it.”¹⁹ On April 3, 1945, the day after the main camp of Stalag IX B was liberated, Metz marched the American prisoners at Berga southward toward Bavaria. Their route took them through the towns of Hof and Fuchsmühl before coming to an end at Rötz, where they were liberated by the US Army.

The total number of Americans who died at Berga and on the death march remains uncertain. The circumstances were chaotic, especially on the march, and some men’s deaths were not recorded. Research at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum continues. At the time of printing, that research has yielded information on 201 of the original 350 POWs. Of those, 65 are confirmed to have died, and another three probably died. If that proportion holds for the entire group, then perhaps as many as 118 American servicemen sent to Berga died as a result of their treatment in German captivity.

Erwin Metz and Ludwig Merz were put on trial by the US Army at Dachau in September 1946. Both were found guilty and sentenced to death by hanging. The sentences were reviewed, however, and despite vigorous protestations from survivors and victims’ families, the sentences were commuted: Metz’s to life imprisonment; Merz’s to five years. In the end, Merz served three years, Metz nine.