BAD ORB TODAY
October 2005
by: Oren Windholz

Bad Orb, a small village near Frankfurt, has been long known for its hospital with healing baths. The spring water has a natural salt content. A small, quaint and clean place, it is today a tourist destination with nice shops, restaurants and guesthouses. It is over a thousand years old, originally named Kurstat. Bad Orb sits in a valley of the Spessart Mountains. On a small mountain peak just outside of town is a place known as the Wegscheide. Built in 1914 as military barracks for the First World War, the area was used for troop and aerial training maneuvers.

After the war, Rektor August Jaspert created a summer camp for children of large cities, particularly nearby Frankfurt, who arrived by train. It was again used by the military in the Second World War, this time as barracks for Allied prisoners of war.

After the end of hostilities, it served as shelter for refugees of the resettlement of people ordered back to the Reichland by Hitler from eastern Europe in 1940.

It has since been restored to a youth center with little trace of its past use. Many of the original prisoner barracks remain, now painted an Easter egg variety of colors and the large stone buildings are intact.