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Buchenwald (; literally '
beech forest Beech Forest is a town in Victoria, Australia. The area of Beech Forest is largely used for potato farming. History The town was named after the many myrtle beech trees of the area. Beech Forest Post Office opened on 10 May 1890 and closed in ...
') was a
Nazi concentration camp From 1933 to 1945, Nazi Germany operated more than a thousand concentration camps, (officially) or (more commonly). The Nazi concentration camps are distinguished from other types of Nazi camps such as forced-labor camps, as well as concen ...
established on hill near
Weimar Weimar is a city in the state of Thuringia, Germany. It is located in Central Germany between Erfurt in the west and Jena in the east, approximately southwest of Leipzig, north of Nuremberg and west of Dresden. Together with the neighbouri ...
,
Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...
, in July 1937. It was one of the first and the largest of the concentration camps within Germany's 1937 borders. Many actual or suspected
communist Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, a s ...
s were among the first internees. Prisoners came from all over
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and the
Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...
Jew Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""Th ...
s,
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and other
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, the mentally ill and physically disabled, political prisoners,
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,
Freemasons Freemasonry or Masonry refers to fraternal organisations that trace their origins to the local guilds of stonemasons that, from the end of the 13th century, regulated the qualifications of stonemasons and their interaction with authorities ...
, and prisoners of war. There were also ordinary criminals and sexual "deviants". All prisoners worked primarily as forced labor in local armaments factories. The insufficient food and poor conditions, as well as deliberate executions, led to 56,545 deaths at Buchenwald of the 280,000 prisoners who passed through the camp and its 139 subcamps. The camp gained notoriety when it was liberated by the United States Army in April 1945; Allied commander
Dwight D. Eisenhower Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower (born David Dwight Eisenhower; ; October 14, 1890 – March 28, 1969) was an American military officer and statesman who served as the 34th president of the United States from 1953 to 1961. During World War II, ...
visited one of its subcamps. From August 1945 to March 1950, the camp was used by the
Soviet occupation During World War II, the Soviet Union occupied and annexed several countries effectively handed over by Nazi Germany in the secret Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact of 1939. These included the eastern regions of Poland (incorporated into two different ...
authorities as an internment camp, NKVD special camp Nr. 2, where 28,455 prisoners were held and 7,113 of whom died. Today the remains of Buchenwald serve as a memorial and permanent exhibition and museum.


Establishment

The ''
Schutzstaffel The ''Schutzstaffel'' (SS; also stylized as ''ᛋᛋ'' with Armanen runes; ; "Protection Squadron") was a major paramilitary organization under Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party in Nazi Germany, and later throughout German-occupied Europe d ...
'' (SS) established Buchenwald concentration camp at the beginning of July 1937. The camp was to be named , after the hill in
Thuringia Thuringia (; german: Thüringen ), officially the Free State of Thuringia ( ), is a state of central Germany, covering , the sixth smallest of the sixteen German states. It has a population of about 2.1 million. Erfurt is the capital and larg ...
upon whose north slope the camp was established. The proposed name was deemed inappropriate because it carried associations with several important figures in German culture, especially Enlightenment writer
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (28 August 1749 – 22 March 1832) was a German poet, playwright, novelist, scientist, statesman, theatre director, and critic. His works include plays, poetry, literature, and aesthetic criticism, as well as trea ...
who was living in
Weimar Weimar is a city in the state of Thuringia, Germany. It is located in Central Germany between Erfurt in the west and Jena in the east, approximately southwest of Leipzig, north of Nuremberg and west of Dresden. Together with the neighbouri ...
. Instead the camp was to be named Buchenwald, in reference to the
beech Beech (''Fagus'') is a genus of deciduous trees in the family Fagaceae, native to temperate Europe, Asia, and North America. Recent classifications recognize 10 to 13 species in two distinct subgenera, ''Engleriana'' and ''Fagus''. The ''Engle ...
forest in the area. However,
Holocaust The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; a ...
researcher wrote that SS leaders chose the site of the camp precisely to erase the cultural legacy of the area. After the area of the camp was cleared of trees, only one large oak remained, supposedly one of
Goethe's Oak Goethe Oak (or Goethes Oak), is a name given to a number of oak trees in Germany that are referred to in this way because they allegedly bear some sort of connection to the poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. History Perhaps the most famous one is th ...
s. The camp, designed to hold 8,000 prisoners, was intended to replace several smaller concentration camps nearby, including ,
Sachsenburg Sachsenburg is a market town in the district of Spittal an der Drau in Carinthia, Austria. Geography The municipal area stretches along the valley of the Drava river, where it enters the Lurnfeld plain between the Kreuzeck group of the Hohe Tau ...
, and Lichtenburg. Compared to these camps, Buchenwald had a greater potential to profit the SS because the nearby clay deposits could be made into bricks by the forced labor of prisoners. The first prisoners arrived on 15 July 1937, and had to clear the area of trees and build the camp's structures. By September, the population had risen to 2,400 following transfers from Bad Sulza, Sachsenburg, and Lichtenburg. On the camp's main gate, the motto ''
Jedem das Seine "'" () is the literal German translation of the Latin phrase '' suum cuique'', meaning "to each his own" or "to each what he deserves". During World War II the phrase was cynically used by the Nazis as a motto displayed over the entrance of Buch ...
'' (English: "To each his own"), was inscribed. The SS interpreted this to mean the "
master race The master race (german: Herrenrasse) is a pseudoscientific concept in Nazi ideology in which the putative " Aryan race" is deemed the pinnacle of human racial hierarchy. Members were referred to as "''Herrenmenschen''" ("master humans"). T ...
" had a right to humiliate and destroy others. It was designed by Buchenwald prisoner and
Bauhaus The Staatliches Bauhaus (), commonly known as the Bauhaus (), was a German art school operational from 1919 to 1933 that combined crafts and the fine arts.Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 4th edn., 200 ...
architect Franz Ehrlich, who used a Bauhaus typeface for it, even though Bauhaus was seen as
degenerate art Degenerate art (german: Entartete Kunst was a term adopted in the 1920s by the Nazi Party in Germany to describe modern art. During the dictatorship of Adolf Hitler, German modernist art, including many works of internationally renowned artists, ...
by the
National Socialists Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Na ...
and was prohibited. This defiance however went unnoticed by the SS.


Command structure


Organization

Buchenwald's first commandant was SS-''
Obersturmbannführer __NOTOC__ ''Obersturmbannführer'' (Senior Assault-unit Leader; ; short: ''Ostubaf'') was a paramilitary rank in the German Nazi Party (NSDAP) which was used by the SA ('' Sturmabteilung'') and the SS (''Schutzstaffel''). The rank of ''Oberstu ...
''
Karl-Otto Koch Karl-Otto Koch (; 2 August 1897 – 5 April 1945) was a mid-ranking commander in the ''Schutzstaffel'' (SS) of Nazi Germany who was the first commandant of the Nazi concentration camps at Buchenwald and Sachsenhausen. From September 1941 until A ...
, who ran the camp from 1 August 1937 to July 1941. His second wife,
Ilse Koch Ilse Koch (22 September 1906 – 1 September 1967) was a German war criminal who was an overseer at Nazi concentration camps run by her husband, commandant Karl-Otto Koch. Working at Buchenwald (1937–1941) and Majdanek (1941–1943), Koch ...
, became notorious as ''Die Hexe von Buchenwald'' ("the witch of Buchenwald") for her cruelty and brutality. In February 1940 Koch had an indoor riding hall built by the prisoners who died by the dozen due to the harsh conditions of the construction site. The hall was built inside the camp, near the canteen, so that oftentimes Ilse Koch could be seen riding in the morning to the beat of the prisoner orchestra. Koch himself was eventually imprisoned at Buchenwald by the Nazi authorities for incitement to murder. The charges were lodged by Prince Waldeck and Dr. Morgen, to which were later added charges of
corruption Corruption is a form of dishonesty or a criminal offense which is undertaken by a person or an organization which is entrusted in a position of authority, in order to acquire illicit benefits or abuse power for one's personal gain. Corruption m ...
, embezzlement,
black market A black market, underground economy, or shadow economy is a clandestine market or series of transactions that has some aspect of illegality or is characterized by noncompliance with an institutional set of rules. If the rule defines the se ...
dealings, and exploitation of the camp workers for personal gain. Other camp officials were charged, including Ilse Koch. The trial resulted in Karl Koch being sentenced to death for disgracing both himself and the SS; he was executed by firing squad on 5 April 1945, one week before American troops arrived.
Ilse Koch Ilse Koch (22 September 1906 – 1 September 1967) was a German war criminal who was an overseer at Nazi concentration camps run by her husband, commandant Karl-Otto Koch. Working at Buchenwald (1937–1941) and Majdanek (1941–1943), Koch ...
was sentenced to a term of four years' imprisonment after the war. Her sentence was reduced to two years and she was set free. She was subsequently arrested again and sentenced to life imprisonment by the post-war German authorities; she committed suicide in
Aichach Aichach (; Central Bavarian: ''Oacha'') is a town in Germany, located in the Bundesland of Bavaria and situated just northeast of Augsburg. It is the capital of the district of Aichach-Friedberg. The municipality of Aichach counts some 20,000 inh ...
(Bavaria) prison in September 1967. The second commandant of the camp, between 1942 and 1945, was
Hermann Pister Hermann Pister (21 February 1885 – 28 September 1948) was an SS Oberführer (Senior Colonel) and commandant of Buchenwald concentration camp from 21 January 1942 until April 1945. Early life Pister was the son of a financial secretary in Lüb ...
(1942–1945). He was tried in 1947 ( Dachau Trials) and sentenced to death, but on 28 September 1948 he died in
Landsberg Prison Landsberg Prison is a penal facility in the town of Landsberg am Lech in the southwest of the German state of Bavaria, about west-southwest of Munich and south of Augsburg. It is best known as the prison where Adolf Hitler was held in 1924, af ...
of a heart attack before the sentence could be carried out.


Female prisoners and overseers

The number of women held in Buchenwald was somewhere between 500 and 1,000. The first female inmates were twenty political prisoners who were accompanied by a female SS guard (''Aufseherin''); these women were brought to Buchenwald from Ravensbrück in 1941 and forced into sexual slavery at the camp's
brothel A brothel, bordello, ranch, or whorehouse is a place where people engage in sexual activity with prostitutes. However, for legal or cultural reasons, establishments often describe themselves as massage parlors, bars, strip clubs, body rub par ...
. The SS later fired the SS woman on duty in the brothel for corruption; her position was taken over by "brothel mothers" as ordered by SS chief
Heinrich Himmler Heinrich Luitpold Himmler (; 7 October 1900 – 23 May 1945) was of the (Protection Squadron; SS), and a leading member of the Nazi Party of Germany. Himmler was one of the most powerful men in Nazi Germany and a main architect of th ...
. The majority of women prisoners, however, arrived in 1944 and 1945 from other camps, mainly
Auschwitz Auschwitz concentration camp ( (); also or ) was a complex of over 40 concentration and extermination camps operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland (in a portion annexed into Germany in 1939) during World War II and the Holocaust. It con ...
, Ravensbrück, and
Bergen Belsen Bergen-Belsen , or Belsen, was a Nazi concentration camp in what is today Lower Saxony in northern Germany, southwest of the town of Bergen near Celle. Originally established as a prisoner of war camp, in 1943, parts of it became a concentr ...
. Only one barracks was set aside for them; this was overseen by the female block leader (''Blockführerin'') Franziska Hoengesberg, who came from Essen when it was evacuated. All the women prisoners were later shipped out to one of Buchenwald's many female satellite camps in Sömmerda, Buttelstedt,
Mühlhausen Mühlhausen () is a city in the north-west of Thuringia, Germany, north of Niederdorla, the country's geographical centre, north-west of Erfurt, east of Kassel and south-east of Göttingen. Mühlhausen was first mentioned in 967 and bec ...
,
Gotha Gotha () is the fifth-largest city in Thuringia, Germany, west of Erfurt and east of Eisenach with a population of 44,000. The city is the capital of the district of Gotha and was also a residence of the Ernestine Wettins from 1640 until the ...
,
Gelsenkirchen Gelsenkirchen (, , ; wep, Gelsenkiärken) is the 25th most populous city of Germany and the 11th most populous in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia with 262,528 (2016) inhabitants. On the Emscher River (a tributary of the Rhine), it lies ...
,
Essen Essen (; Latin: ''Assindia'') is the central and, after Dortmund, second-largest city of the Ruhr, the largest urban area in Germany. Its population of makes it the fourth-largest city of North Rhine-Westphalia after Cologne, Düsseldorf and D ...
, Lippstadt,
Weimar Weimar is a city in the state of Thuringia, Germany. It is located in Central Germany between Erfurt in the west and Jena in the east, approximately southwest of Leipzig, north of Nuremberg and west of Dresden. Together with the neighbouri ...
,
Magdeburg Magdeburg (; nds, label=Low Saxon, Meideborg ) is the capital and second-largest city of the German state Saxony-Anhalt. The city is situated at the Elbe river. Otto I, the first Holy Roman Emperor and founder of the Archdiocese of Magdebur ...
, and
Penig Penig () is a town in the district of Mittelsachsen, in the Free State of Saxony, Germany. It is situated on the river Zwickauer Mulde, 19 km northwest of Chemnitz. The old and the new castle were owned by the House of Schönburg from 1378 u ...
, to name a few. No female guards were permanently stationed at Buchenwald.
Ilse Koch Ilse Koch (22 September 1906 – 1 September 1967) was a German war criminal who was an overseer at Nazi concentration camps run by her husband, commandant Karl-Otto Koch. Working at Buchenwald (1937–1941) and Majdanek (1941–1943), Koch ...
served as head supervisor (''Oberaufseherin'') of 22 other female guards and hundreds of women prisoners in the main camp. More than 530 women served as guards in the vast Buchenwald system of subcamps and external commands across Germany. Only 22 women served/trained in Buchenwald, compared to over 15,500 men.


Subcamps

About 136 subcamps and satellite commandos belonged to Buchenwald concentration camp. The first subcamps of Buchenwald were established in 1941 so that the prisoners could work in nearby SS industries. In 1942, the SS began to use its forced labor supply for armaments production. Because it was more economical to rent out prisoners to private firms, subcamps were set up near factories which had a demand for prisoner labor. Private firms paid the SS between 4 and 6
Reichsmark The (; sign: ℛℳ; abbreviation: RM) was the currency of Germany from 1924 until 20 June 1948 in West Germany, where it was replaced with the , and until 23 June 1948 in East Germany, where it was replaced by the East German mark. The Reich ...
s per day per prisoner, resulting in an estimated 95,758,843 Reichsmarks in revenue for the SS between June 1943 and February 1945. So the subcamps of Buchenwald were mainly used for armament production and other fabrications and are considered labour camps. Conditions were worse than at the main camp, with prisoners provided insufficient food and inadequate shelter.


Allied POWs

Although it was highly unusual for German authorities to send
Western Allied The Allies, formally referred to as the Declaration by United Nations, United Nations from 1942, were an international Coalition#Military, military coalition formed during the World War II, Second World War (1939–1945) to oppose the Axis ...
POWs to concentration camps, Buchenwald held a group of 168 aviators for two months. These men were from the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Jamaica. They all arrived at Buchenwald on 20 August 1944. All these airmen were in aircraft that had crashed in
occupied France The Military Administration in France (german: Militärverwaltung in Frankreich; french: Occupation de la France par l'Allemagne) was an interim occupation authority established by Nazi Germany during World War II to administer the occupied zo ...
. Two explanations are given for them being sent to a concentration camp: first, that they had managed to make contact with the
French Resistance The French Resistance (french: La Résistance) was a collection of organisations that fought the German occupation of France during World War II, Nazi occupation of France and the Collaborationism, collaborationist Vichy France, Vichy régim ...
, some were disguised as civilians, and they were carrying false papers when caught; they were therefore categorized by the Germans as
spies Spies most commonly refers to people who engage in spying, espionage or clandestine operations. Spies or The Spies may also refer to: * Spies (surname), a German surname * Spies (band), a jazz fusion band * Spies (song), "Spies" (song), a song by ...
, which meant their rights under the
Geneva Convention upright=1.15, Original document in single pages, 1864 The Geneva Conventions are four treaties, and three additional protocols, that establish international legal standards for humanitarian treatment in war. The singular term ''Geneva Conven ...
were not respected. The second explanation is that they had been categorised as '' Terrorflieger'' ("terror aviators"). The aviators were initially held in
Gestapo The (), abbreviated Gestapo (; ), was the official secret police of Nazi Germany and in German-occupied Europe. The force was created by Hermann Göring in 1933 by combining the various political police agencies of Prussia into one organi ...
prisons and headquarters in France. In April or August 1944, they and other Gestapo prisoners were packed into
covered goods wagon A covered goods wagon or van is a railway goods wagon which is designed for the transportation of moisture-susceptible goods and therefore fully enclosed by sides and a fixed roof. They are often referred to simply as covered wagons, and this is ...
s (US: boxcars) and sent to Buchenwald. The journey took five days, during which they received very little food or water.


Death toll


Causes of death

A primary cause of death was illness due to harsh camp conditions, with starvation—and its consequent illnesses—prevalent. Malnourished and suffering from disease, many were literally "worked to death" under the ''Vernichtung durch Arbeit'' policy (
extermination through labor Extermination through labour (or "extermination through work", german: Vernichtung durch Arbeit) is a term that was adopted to describe forced labor in Nazi concentration camps in light of the high mortality rate and poor conditions; in some ...
), as inmates only had the choice between slave labor or inevitable execution. Many inmates died as a result of human experimentation or fell victim to arbitrary acts perpetrated by the SS guards. Other prisoners were simply murdered, primarily by shooting and hanging. Walter Gerhard Martin Sommer was an SS-''
Hauptscharführer __NOTOC__ ''Hauptscharführer'' ( ) was a Nazi paramilitary rank which was used by the ''Schutzstaffel'' (SS) between the years of 1934 and 1945. The rank was the highest enlisted rank of the SS, with the exception of the special Waffen-SS ran ...
'' who served as a guard at the concentration camps of Dachau and Buchenwald. Known as the "Hangman of Buchenwald", he was considered a depraved sadist who reportedly ordered Otto Neururer and Mathias Spanlang, two Austrian priests, to be crucified upside-down. Sommer was especially infamous for hanging prisoners from trees by their wrists, which had been tied behind their backs (a torture technique known as strappado) in the "singing forest", so named because of the screams which emanated from this wooded area.
Summary execution A summary execution is an execution in which a person is accused of a crime and immediately killed without the benefit of a full and fair trial. Executions as the result of summary justice (such as a drumhead court-martial) are sometimes include ...
s of Soviet POWs were also carried out at Buchenwald. At least 1,000 men were selected in 1941–42 by a task force of three
Dresden Dresden (, ; Upper Saxon: ''Dräsdn''; wen, label=Upper Sorbian, Drježdźany) is the capital city of the German state of Saxony and its second most populous city, after Leipzig. It is the 12th most populous city of Germany, the fourth larg ...
Gestapo The (), abbreviated Gestapo (; ), was the official secret police of Nazi Germany and in German-occupied Europe. The force was created by Hermann Göring in 1933 by combining the various political police agencies of Prussia into one organi ...
officers and sent to the camp for immediate liquidation by a gunshot to the back of the neck, the infamous ''Genickschuss''. The camp was also a site of large-scale trials for
vaccine A vaccine is a biological Dosage form, preparation that provides active acquired immunity to a particular infectious disease, infectious or cancer, malignant disease. The safety and effectiveness of vaccines has been widely studied and verifie ...
s against epidemic typhus in 1942 and 1943. In all 729 inmates were used as test subjects, of whom 154 died. Other "experimentation" occurred at Buchenwald on a smaller scale. One such experiment aimed at determining the precise fatal dose of a poison of the
alkaloid Alkaloids are a class of basic, naturally occurring organic compounds that contain at least one nitrogen atom. This group also includes some related compounds with neutral and even weakly acidic properties. Some synthetic compounds of similar ...
group; according to the testimony of one doctor, four Soviet POWs were administered the poison, and when it proved not to be fatal they were "strangled in the crematorium" and subsequently "dissected". Among various other experiments was one which, in order to test the effectiveness of a balm for wounds from
incendiary bomb Incendiary weapons, incendiary devices, incendiary munitions, or incendiary bombs are weapons designed to start fires or destroy sensitive equipment using fire (and sometimes used as anti-personnel weaponry), that use materials such as napalm, t ...
s, involved inflicting "very severe"
white phosphorus Elemental phosphorus can exist in several allotropes, the most common of which are white and red solids. Solid violet and black allotropes are also known. Gaseous phosphorus exists as diphosphorus and atomic phosphorus. White phosphorus White ...
burns on inmates. When challenged at trial over the nature of this testing, and particularly over the fact that the testing was designed in some cases to cause death and only to measure the time which elapsed until death was caused, one Nazi doctor's defence was that, although a doctor, he was a "legally appointed executioner".


Number of deaths

The SS left behind accounts of the number of prisoners and people coming to and leaving the camp, categorizing those leaving them by release, transfer, or death. These accounts are one of the sources of estimates for the number of deaths in Buchenwald. According to SS documents, 33,462 died. These documents were not, however, necessarily accurate: Among those executed before 1944, many were listed as "transferred to the Gestapo". Furthermore, from 1941, Soviet POWs were executed in mass killings. Arriving prisoners selected for execution were not entered into the camp register and therefore were not among the 33,462 dead listed. One former Buchenwald prisoner, Armin Walter, calculated the number of executions by the number of shootings in the spine at the base of the head. His job at Buchenwald was to set up and care for a radio installation at the facility where people were executed; he counted the numbers, which arrived by telex, and hid the information. He says that 8,483 Soviet prisoners of war were shot in this manner. According to the same source, the total number of deaths at Buchenwald is estimated at 56,545. This number is the sum of: * Deaths according to material left behind by the SS: 33,462 * Executions by shooting: 8,483 * Executions by hanging (estimate): 1,100 * Deaths during evacuation transports (estimate): 13,500 This total (56,545) corresponds to a death rate of 24 percent, assuming that the number of persons passing through the camp according to documents left by the SS, 240,000 prisoners, is accurate.


Liberation

On 4 April 1945 the U.S. 89th Infantry Division overran
Ohrdruf Ohrdruf () is a small town in the district of Gotha in the German state of Thuringia. It lies some 30 km southwest of Erfurt at the foot of the northern slope of the Thuringian Forest. The former municipalities Crawinkel, Gräfenhain an ...
, a subcamp of Buchenwald. Buchenwald was partially evacuated by the Germans from 6 to 11 April 1945. In the days before the arrival of the American army, thousands of the prisoners were forced to join the evacuation marches. Thanks in large part to the efforts of Polish engineer (and
short-wave Shortwave radio is radio transmission using shortwave (SW) radio frequencies. There is no official definition of the band, but the range always includes all of the high frequency band (HF), which extends from 3 to 30 MHz (100 to 10 me ...
radio-amateur, his pre-war callsign was SP2BD) Gwidon Damazyn, an inmate since March 1941, a secret short-wave transmitter and small generator were built and hidden in the prisoners' movie room. On April 8 at noon, Damazyn and Russian prisoner Konstantin Ivanovich Leonov sent the
Morse code Morse code is a method used in telecommunication to encode text characters as standardized sequences of two different signal durations, called ''dots'' and ''dashes'', or ''dits'' and ''dahs''. Morse code is named after Samuel Morse, one of ...
message prepared by leaders of the prisoners' underground resistance (supposedly
Walter Bartel Walter Bartel (15 September 1904 – 16 January 1992) was a German Communism, communist resistance fighter, historian and university professor. Life Born in Fürstenberg/Havel, Bartel grew up in a working-class family. Wilhelm Bartel, his fath ...
and Harry Kuhn): The text was repeated several times in English, German, and Russian. Damazyn sent the English and German transmissions, while Leonov sent the Russian version. Three minutes after the last transmission sent by Damazyn, the headquarters of the
U.S. Third Army The United States Army Central, formerly the Third United States Army, commonly referred to as the Third Army and as ARCENT, is a military formation of the United States Army which saw service in World War I and World War II, in the 1991 Gulf Wa ...
responded: According to Teofil Witek, a fellow Polish prisoner who witnessed the transmissions, Damazyn fainted after receiving the message. As American forces closed in, Gestapo headquarters at Weimar telephoned the camp administration to announce that it was sending explosives to blow up any evidence of the camp, including its inmates. The Gestapo did not know that the administrators had already fled. A prisoner answered the phone and informed headquarters that explosives would not be needed, as the camp had already been blown up, which was not true. A detachment of troops of the U.S. 9th Armored Infantry Battalion, from the
6th Armored Division The 6th Armored Division ("Super Sixth") was an armored division of the United States Army during World War II. It was formed with a cadre from the 2nd Armored Division. History The division was activated on 15 February 1942 at Fort Knox ...
, part of the
U.S. Third Army The United States Army Central, formerly the Third United States Army, commonly referred to as the Third Army and as ARCENT, is a military formation of the United States Army which saw service in World War I and World War II, in the 1991 Gulf Wa ...
, and under the command of
Captain Captain is a title, an appellative for the commanding officer of a military unit; the supreme leader of a navy ship, merchant ship, aeroplane, spacecraft, or other vessel; or the commander of a port, fire or police department, election precinct, e ...
Frederic Keffer, arrived at Buchenwald on 11 April 1945 at 3:15 p.m. (now the permanent time of the clock at the entrance gate). The soldiers were given a hero's welcome, with the emaciated survivors finding the strength to toss some liberators into the air in celebration. Later in the day, elements of the
U.S. 83rd Infantry Division The 83rd Infantry Division ("Thunderbolt") was a formation of the United States Army in World War I and World War II. World War I The division was activated in September 1917 at Camp Sherman, Ohio. It was initially made up of enlisted draftee ...
overran Langenstein, one of a number of smaller camps comprising the Buchenwald complex. There, the division liberated over 21,000 prisoners, ordered the mayor of Langenstein to send food and water to the camp, and hurried medical supplies forward from the 20th Field Hospital. Third Army Headquarters sent elements of the 80th Infantry Division to take control of the camp on the morning of Thursday 12 April 1945. Several journalists arrived on the same day, perhaps with the 80th, including
Edward R. Murrow Edward Roscoe Murrow (born Egbert Roscoe Murrow; April 25, 1908 – April 27, 1965) was an American broadcast journalist and war correspondent. He first gained prominence during World War II with a series of live radio broadcasts from Europe f ...
, whose radio report of his arrival and reception was broadcast on
CBS CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS, the abbreviation of its former legal name Columbia Broadcasting System, is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainm ...
and became one of his most famous:


Civilian tour

After Patton toured the camp, he ordered the mayor of Weimar to bring 1,000 citizens to Buchenwald; these were to be predominantly men of military age from the middle and upper classes. The Germans had to walk roundtrip under armed American guard and were shown the crematorium and other evidence of Nazi atrocities. The Americans wanted to ensure that the German people would take responsibility for Nazi crimes, instead of dismissing them as
atrocity propaganda Atrocity propaganda is the spreading of information about the crimes committed by an enemy, which can be factual, but often includes or features deliberate fabrications or exaggerations. This can involve photographs, videos, illustrations, intervie ...
. Gen. Dwight Eisenhower also invited two groups of Americans to tour the camp in mid-April 1945; journalists and editors from some of the principal U.S. publications, and then a dozen members of the Congress from both the House and the Senate, led by Senate Majority Leader
Alben W. Barkley Alben William Barkley (; November 24, 1877 – April 30, 1956) was an American lawyer and politician from Kentucky who served in both houses of Congress and as the 35th vice president of the United States from 1949 to 1953 under Presiden ...
. War correspondent
Osmar White Osmar Egmont Dorkin White (2 April 190916 May 1991) was an Australian journalist, war correspondent and writer. He is most famous for his vivid description of the New Guinea Campaign during World War II. He also wrote under the pseudonyms Robe ...
reported that above the crematorium door was a verse beginning ‘Worms shall not devour me, but flames consume this body. I always loved the heat and light…’.


Aftermath


Buchenwald Trial

Thirty SS perpetrators at Buchenwald were tried before a US military tribunal in 1947, including Higher SS and Police Leader
Josias Erbprinz zu Waldeck und Pyrmont Josias, Hereditary Prince of Waldeck and Pyrmont (german: Josias Georg Wilhelm Adolf Erbprinz zu Waldeck und Pyrmont) (13 May 1896 – 30 November 1967) was the heir apparent to the throne of the Principality of Waldeck and Pyrmont and a genera ...
, who oversaw the SS district that Buchenwald was located in, and many of the doctors responsible for Nazi human experimentation. Almost all of the defendants were convicted, and 22 were sentenced to death. However, only nine death sentences were carried out, and by the mid-1950s, all perpetrators had been freed except for
Ilse Koch Ilse Koch (22 September 1906 – 1 September 1967) was a German war criminal who was an overseer at Nazi concentration camps run by her husband, commandant Karl-Otto Koch. Working at Buchenwald (1937–1941) and Majdanek (1941–1943), Koch ...
, who was tried by a
West German West Germany is the colloquial term used to indicate the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG; german: Bundesrepublik Deutschland , BRD) between its formation on 23 May 1949 and the German reunification through the accession of East Germany on 3 O ...
court and given a life sentence. Additional perpetrators were tried before German courts during the 1960s.


The site

Between August 1945 and 1 March 1950, Buchenwald was the site of NKVD special camp Nr. 2, where the
Soviet secret police The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...
imprisoned former Nazis and anti-communist dissidents. According to Soviet records, 28,455 people were detained, 7,113 of whom died. After the NKVD camp closed, much of the camp was razed, while signs were erected to provide a Soviet interpretation of the camp's legacy. The first monument to victims was erected by Buchenwald inmates days after the initial liberation. It was made of wood and only intended to be temporary. A second monument to commemorate the dead was erected in 1958 by the
German Democratic Republic German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) **Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ger ...
(GDR) government near the mass graves. It was inaugurated on 14 September 1958 by GDR Prime Minister
Otto Grotewohl Otto Emil Franz Grotewohl (; 11 March 1894 – 21 September 1964) was a German politician who served as the first prime minister of the German Democratic Republic (GDR/East Germany) from its foundation in October 1949 until his death in Septembe ...
. Inside the camp, there is a stainless steel monument on the spot where the first, temporary monument stood. Its surface is maintained at , the temperature of human skin, all year round. The three National Memorials of the GDR, built next to or on the sites of the former concentration camps Buchenwald,
Sachsenhausen Sachsenhausen () or Sachsenhausen-Oranienburg was a German Nazi concentration camp in Oranienburg, Germany, used from 1936 until April 1945, shortly before the defeat of Nazi Germany in May later that year. It mainly held political prisoners ...
, and Ravensbrück, played a central role in the GDR's remembrance policy under
Erich Honecker Erich Ernst Paul Honecker (; 25 August 1912 – 29 May 1994) was a German communist politician who led the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) from 1971 until shortly before the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989. He held the posts ...
. They were controlled by the Ministry of Culture and thus by the government. According to their statute, these memorials served as places of identification and legitimisation of the GDR. The political instrumentalisation of these memorials, especially for the current needs of the GDR, became particularly clear during the major celebrations of the liberation of the concentration camps, as historian Anne-Kathleen Tillack-Graf analysis in her thesis about the official party newspaper
Neues Deutschland ''Neues Deutschland'' (''nd''; en, New Germany, sometimes stylized in lowercase letters) is a left-wing German daily newspaper, headquartered in Berlin. For 43 years it was the official party newspaper of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany ...
. Today the Buchenwald camp site serves as a Holocaust memorial. It has a museum with permanent exhibitions about the history of the camp. It is managed by Buchenwald and Mittelbau-Dora Memorials Foundation, which also looks after the camp memorial at Mittelbau-Dora.


Literature

Survivors who have written about their camp experiences include
Jorge Semprún Jorge Semprún Maura (; 10 December 1923 – 7 June 2011) was a Spanish writer and politician who lived in France most of his life and wrote primarily in French. From 1953 to 1962, during the dictatorship of Francisco Franco, Semprún lived clande ...
, who in ''Quel beau dimanche!'' describes conversations involving
Goethe Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (28 August 1749 – 22 March 1832) was a German poet, playwright, novelist, scientist, statesman, theatre director, and critic. His works include plays, poetry, literature, and aesthetic criticism, as well as treat ...
and Léon Blum, and
Ernst Wiechert Ernst Wiechert (18 May 1887 – 24 August 1950) was a German teacher, poet and writer. Biography Wiechert was born in the village of Kleinort, East Prussia, (now Piersławek, Poland). He was one of the most widely read novelists in Germany ...
, whose ''Der Totenwald'' was written in 1939 but not published until 1945, and which likewise involved Goethe. Scholars have investigated how camp inmates used art to help deal with their circumstances, and according to Theodor Ziolkowski writers often did so by turning to Goethe. Artist
Léon Delarbre Léon Delarbre (1889–1974) was a painter, museum curator, and World War II resistance fighter. After a career as a museum conservator and teacher in his hometown of Belfort, he joined the French resistance in 1941. Arrested in 1944, he was h ...
sketched, besides other scenes of camp life, the
Goethe Oak Goethe Oak (or Goethes Oak), is a name given to a number of oak trees in Germany that are referred to in this way because they allegedly bear some sort of connection to the poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. History Perhaps the most famous one is th ...
, under which he used to sit and write. One of the few prisoners who escaped from the camp, the Belgian Edmond Vandievoet, recounted his experiences in a book whose English title is "I escaped from a Nazi Death Camp" ditions Jourdan, 2015 In his work ''
Night Night (also described as night time, unconventionally spelled as "nite") is the period of ambient darkness from sunset to sunrise during each 24-hour day, when the Sun is below the horizon. The exact time when night begins and ends depends o ...
'',
Elie Wiesel Elie Wiesel (, born Eliezer Wiesel ''Eliezer Vizel''; September 30, 1928 – July 2, 2016) was a Romanian-born American writer, professor, political activist, Nobel Peace Prize, Nobel laureate, and Holocaust survivor. He authored Elie Wiesel b ...
talks about his stay in Buchenwald, including his father's death.
Jacques Lusseyran Jacques Lusseyran (19 September 1924 – 27 July 1971) was a French author and political activist. Blinded at the age of 7, at 17 Lusseyran became a leader in the French resistance against Nazi Germany's occupation of France in 1941. He was e ...
, a leader in the underground resistance to the German occupation of France, was eventually sent to Buchenwald after being arrested, and described his time there in his autobiography.


Visit from President Obama and Chancellor Merkel

On 5 June 2009
U.S. President The president of the United States (POTUS) is the head of state and head of government of the United States of America. The president directs the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States ...
Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, Obama was the first African-American president of the U ...
and
German Chancellor The chancellor of Germany, officially the federal chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany,; often shortened to ''Bundeskanzler''/''Bundeskanzlerin'', / is the head of the federal government of Germany and the commander in chief of the Ge ...
Angela Merkel Angela Dorothea Merkel (; ; born 17 July 1954) is a German former politician and scientist who served as Chancellor of Germany from 2005 to 2021. A member of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), she previously served as Leader of the Oppo ...
visited Buchenwald after a tour of
Dresden Castle Dresden Castle or Royal Palace (german: Dresdner Residenzschloss or ) is one of the oldest buildings in Dresden, Germany. For almost 400 years, it was the residence of the electors (1547–1806) and kings (1806–1918) of Saxony from the Alberti ...
and Church of Our Lady. During the visit they were accompanied by
Elie Wiesel Elie Wiesel (, born Eliezer Wiesel ''Eliezer Vizel''; September 30, 1928 – July 2, 2016) was a Romanian-born American writer, professor, political activist, Nobel Peace Prize, Nobel laureate, and Holocaust survivor. He authored Elie Wiesel b ...
and Bertrand Herz, both survivors of the camp. , the director of the Buchenwald and Mittelbau-Dora Memorials Foundation and honorary professor of
University of Jena The University of Jena, officially the Friedrich Schiller University Jena (german: Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena, abbreviated FSU, shortened form ''Uni Jena''), is a public research university located in Jena, Thuringia, Germany. The un ...
, guided the four guests through the remainder of the site of the camp. During the visit Wiesel, who together with Herz were sent to the
Little camp Little is a synonym for small size and may refer to: Arts and entertainment * ''Little'' (album), 1990 debut album of Vic Chesnutt * ''Little'' (film), 2019 American comedy film *The Littles, a series of children's novels by American author John P ...
as 16-year-old boys, said, "if these trees could talk." His statement marked the irony about the beauty of the landscape and the horrors that took place within the camp. President Obama mentioned during his visit that he had heard stories as a child from his great uncle, who was part of the 89th Infantry Division, the first Americans to reach the camp at Ohrdruf, one of Buchenwald's satellites. Obama was the first sitting US President to visit the Buchenwald concentration camp.


See also

*
Buchenwald Resistance The Buchenwald Resistance was a resistance group of prisoners at Buchenwald concentration camp. It involved Communists, Social Democrats, and people affiliated with other political parties, unaffiliated people, and both Jews and Christians. Be ...
*
List of subcamps of Buchenwald The following is a list of the forced labor subcamps of the Nazi Buchenwald concentration camp.Number of deaths in Buchenwald The number of deaths in the Buchenwald concentration camp is estimated to have been 56,545, a mortality rate of 20% averaged over all prisoners transferred to the camp between its founding in 1937 and its liberation in 1945. Deaths were due both to ...
*
Ohrdruf forced labor camp Ohrdruf was a German forced labor and concentration camp located near Ohrdruf, south of Gotha, in Thuringia, Germany. It was part of the Buchenwald concentration camp network. Operation Created in November 1944 near the town of Ohrdruf, sout ...
*
Persecution of Jehovah's Witnesses in Nazi Germany Jehovah's Witnesses suffered religious persecution in Nazi Germany between 1933 and 1945 after refusing to perform military service, join Nazi organizations, or give allegiance to the Hitler regime. An estimated 10,000 Witnesses—half of the num ...
* ''
The Boys of Buchenwald ''The Boys of Buchenwald'' is a 2002 documentary film produced by Paperny Films that examines how the child survivors of the Buchenwald concentration camp had to integrate themselves back into normal society after having experienced the brutality ...
'' *
List of prisoners of Buchenwald During the history of Buchenwald concentration camp, thousands of people were imprisoned. List of prisoners Frans Frison, Member of the Belgian Resistance from Mechelin/Malines, transported from Breendonk. Died 2002 Kilkinny, Ireland. http://www ...


References

Sources *
Deutscher Verlag der Wissenschaften, 1983 edition
* * * * * *Tillack-Graf, Anne-Kathleen (2012). ''Erinnerungspolitik der DDR. Dargestellt an der Berichterstattung der Tageszeitung „Neues Deutschland“ über die Nationalen Mahn- und Gedenkstätten Buchenwald, Ravensbrück und Sachsenhausen.'' Peter Lang, Frankfurt am Main. ISBN 978-3-631-63678-7. * * *


Further reading

* Knigge, Volkhard und Ritscher, Bodo: ''Totenbuch. Speziallager Buchenwald 1945–1950'', Weimar: Stiftung Gedenkstätten Buchenwald und Mittelbau Dora, 2003. * Tillack-Graf, Anne-Kathleen: ''Erinnerungspolitik der DDR. Dargestellt an der Berichterstattung der Tageszeitung „Neues Deutschland“ über die Nationalen Mahn- und Gedenkstätten Buchenwald, Ravensbrück und Sachsenhausen.'' Peter Lang, Frankfurt am Main 2012, ISBN 978-3-631-63678-7.


External links

*
Official Memorial Site
Buchenwald and Mittelbau-Dora Memorials Foundation. * Hardy Graupner
Survivors, academics recall dark episode in Germany's postwar history
Deutsche Welle, 16 February 2010.
Guide to the Concentration Camps Collection
Leo Baeck Institute, New York City 2013. Includes extensive reports on Buchenwald collected by the Allied forces shortly after liberating the camp in April 1945.
Holocaust Buchenwald Concentration Camp Uncovered (1945) , British Pathé
on
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Buchenwald Concentration Camp 1937 establishments in Germany Buildings and structures in Thuringia Museums in Thuringia Monuments and memorials to the victims of Nazism World War II museums in Germany