Patrick Henry Village

Patrick Henry Village, also called PHV, was a United States Army installation at Heidelberg, Germany. It opened in 1947 after World War II and was named after Patrick Henry, first and sixth Governor of Virginia.

PHV was at its height populated with up to 16,000 Americans. The housing area closed on 6 September 2013.

After the September 11, 2001, attacks in the United States, fences were built around the living quarters so couldn′t enter anymore without an US Army ID card. Also, the yearly German-American 'Volksfest' was moved to nearby Patton Barracks for security reasons.

In 2002, the US Army planned a large extension of the housing area. However, soon afterwards the Army announced the closure of all Heidelberg and Mannheim facilities.

Patrick-Henry-Village was officially closed on the 6. September 2013 after all military personell moved to the new headquarters of the United States European Command at Wiesbaden. On the 2. June 2014, the site was transferred to the Institute for Federal Real Estate.

In its final state, Patrick Henry Village had a large number of educational, recreational and public facilities as well as shops and dining facilities. Schools included Patrick Henry Elementary School (Grades K-5) and Heidelberg Middle School (Grades 6-8). Recreational facilities included a gym, a bowling alley, a miniature golf course, a movie theater, tennis courts and baseball fields. Public services included a clinic for dentistry, a library, a post office, and a Roman Catholic and Protestant church.

At the end of 2014, parts of the installation were used as an emergency shelter for refugees as a reaction to the refugee crisis. From summer 2015 on, the shelter was extended to the Bedarfsorientierte Erstaufnahmeeinrichtung Heidelberg in order to house and process asylum seekers according to the regular procedure with a capacity of ca. 4.000 persons (as of October 2015). The Minister of Science of Baden-Württemberg Theresia Bauer demanded the restoration of more buildings in PHV so that more refugees can be housed there, but Heidelbergs Deputy Mayor Eckart Würzner objected her request and insisted on a decentralized accommodation within Heidelberg as well as on a fairer distribution of refugees in Baden-Württemberg. The federal government of Baden-Württemberg decided regardless that Patrick-Henry-Village should become the central processing hub for three-fourths of all refugees of the southwest. It was planned that refugees should pass 40 procedures there, which combine the identification, health check, registration and application for asylum. Furthermore, asylum applicants who were sent to the rural districts get cited to appear at Patrick Henry Village again for their asylum hearing to take place.

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