Buchenwald concentration camp

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Bodies of the Buchenwald concentration camp prisoners, April 1945
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Bodies of the Buchenwald concentration camp prisoners, April 1945

Buchenwald concentration camp was a Nazi concentration camp established on the Ettersberg (the Etter Mountain) near the Etterburg (the Etter Keep) located near Weimar, Thuringia, Germany, in July 1937. The prisoners were used as slave labor in local armament factories. Between 1945 and 1950 the camp was used by the Soviet occupational authorities.

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[edit] Description

Gate with the words Jedem das Seine ("To each according to his merits")
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Gate with the words Jedem das Seine ("To each according to his merits")
Slave laborers in Buchenwald; (Elie Wiesel is second row, seventh from left)
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Slave laborers in Buchenwald; (Elie Wiesel is second row, seventh from left)

The word "Buchenwald" (German for "beech forest") was chosen because the Nazi authorities were not willing to name it after the Ettersburg (the keep) or Ettersberg (the mountain) because of the close ties of the location to Goethe, who was being idealized as "the embodiment of the German Spirit" ("Verkörperung des Deutschen Geistes"). Similarly, the camp could not be named for another town nearby (Hottelstedt) because of administrative considerations (it would have resulted in a lower paygrade for the SS troops stationed at the camp).

The first commandant was Karl Otto Koch, who ran the camp from 1937 to 1941. His second wife, Ilse Koch, became notorious as "Die Hexe von Buchenwald" ("The Witch of Buchenwald"), for her cruelty and brutality. Koch had a zoo built by the prisoners in the camp for the amusement of his children.

Karl Otto Koch was imprisoned at Buchenwald by Nazi authorities for corruption, embezzlement, black market dealings and his exploitation of camp workers. He was tried and executed by the Nazi authorities at Buchenwald in April 1945, whilst Ilse was sentenced to 4 years after the war. Her sentence was reduced to two years and she was set free. Later, she was arrested again and was sentenced to life imprisonment by the post-war German authorities. She committed suicide in a Bavarian prison cell in September, 1967.

Although not technically an extermination camp, summary executions of Soviet prisoners of war took place at Buchenwald, and many inmates died during medical experiments, or fell victim to arbitrary acts perpetrated by the SS guards. At one point, the ashes of prisoners would be returned to families in a sheet metal box, but postage was due by the family. This was stopped as more and more prisoners died. Between July 1937 and April 1945, approximately 250,000 people were incarcerated in Buchenwald by the Nazi regime. The number of deaths is estimated at 56,000.

The camp was also the site of large-scale testing of vaccines for epidemic typhus in 1942 and 1943, all in all testing 729 inmates, around 280 of whom died. Because of their long association in cramped quarters in Block 46, the bacterium killed more and infection lasted longer than typhus in healthy adults.

The camp was also the main imprisonment for a number of Norwegian university students from 1943 until the end of the war. The students, being Norwegian, got better treatment than most, but had to resist Nazi schooling for months. They became remembered for resisting forced labour in a minefield, as the Nazis wished to use them as cannon fodder. The incident connected to this was remembered as the Strike at Burkheim.

The camp was evacuated by the Nazis as Allied troops approached the area, in the form of the U.S. Fourth Army and its divisions: the US 22nd Infantry Division and the US 12th Infantry Division. The U.S. Third Army assumed control of the camp on 11 April 1945.

After the departure of Allied troops, the Soviet occupation forces used the infrastructure of the camp from 1945 to 1950, re-naming it "Special Camp 2". It was used to house German prisoners, and Soviet records indicate that over 7,000 died.

[edit] Female prisoners and overseers

The number of women prisoners held in Buchenwald was about 200 to 1,000. The first female inmates were twenty political prisoners and one female SS guard (Aufseherin) who arrived in Buchenwald from Ravensbrück to serve in the camp's brothel in 1941. Later the SS fired the SS woman on duty in the brothel because she was accused of corruption, and her position was replaced by "brothel mothers" as ordered by SS Chief Himmler.

The majority of women prisoners, however, arrived in 1944 and 1945 from other camps, i.e. Auschwitz, Ravensbrück and Bergen-Belsen. Most of these women were Jewish. Only one barrack was set aside for the female prisoners, and this was overseen by the female Blockführerin, Franziska Hoengesberg, who came from Essen when it was evacuated. All of the women prisoners were later shipped out to one of Buchenwald's many female subcamps in Sömmerda, Buttelstedt, Mühlhausen, Gotha, Gelsenkirchen, Essen, Lippstadt, Weimar, Magdeburg and Penig, to name a few. No female guards were permanently stationed at Buchenwald.

When the Buchenwald camp was evacuated, the SS sent the male prisoners to other camps, and the 500 remaining women (including one of the secret annex members who lived with Anne Frank, "Mrs. van Daan" -- her real name was Auguste van Pels) were taken by train and foot to the Theresienstadt camp and ghetto in Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. Many, including van Pels, died sometime between April 1945 and May 1945. Because the female prisoner population at Buchenwald was comparatively small, the SS only trained female overseers at the camp and "assigned" them to one of the female subcamps. 22 known female guards have personnel files at the camp, but it is unlikely that they permanently stayed at Buchenwald for longer than a few days.

Ilse Koch served as "head supervisor" (Oberaufseherin) of 22 other female guards and hundreds of women prisoners in the main camp. Today 20 female SS guards are known by name; Maria Balkenhol, Elisabeth Baessler, Elli Ebert (who served at Buchenwald and Ravensbruck), Frieda Friedrichs (who served at Buchenwald, Magdeburg and Comthurey), Karoline Geulen, Elisabeth Hirsemann, Franziska Hoengesberg, Maria Isert, Frieda Jahnke, Elisabeth Max, Elfriede Motzkuhn, Else Purucker (who served in Buchenwald and Taucha), Charlotte Rafoth, Lieschen Rech, Wilhelmina Sadrinna, Martha Schaefer (who first served at Flossenbürg then Buchenwald), Irmtraut Sell, Emma Theissen (who served at Buchenwald and then Essen subcamp), and Amalie Wilde[1]. These women were never tried for war crimes. Eventually, more than 530 women served as guards in the vast Buchenwald system of subcamps and external commands across Germany. Only twenty-two women served/trained in Buchenwald, compared to over 15,000 men. A former Ravensbruck overseer, Margarethe Barthel stated that in late fall 1944 she was ordered to accompany a transport to Buchenwald, but because she did not actually report to Buchenwald it is unknown if female overseers were in the camp or sent out to the female subcamps.

[edit] Soviet Special Camp

Picture taken in winter of area where prisoner huts once were
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Picture taken in winter of area where prisoner huts once were

After the liberation, between 1945 and 1950 the camp was administered by the Soviet Union and served as a Special Camp No. 2 of the NKVD. Initially used for housing German war criminals, with time it was converted into a standard detention site for political prisoners and opposition to Soviet rule.

Between 1945 and 1950, 28,455 prisoners, including 1,000 women, were held by the Soviet Union at Buchenwald. Prisoners consisted of political prisoners, Nazi perpetrators, Hitler Youth leaders and members, as well as a large number people imprisoned due to identity confusion and arbitrary arrests.

The Soviets would not allow mail or visitation to prisoners. They also would not attempt to determine the guilt of any individual prisoner.

Many thousands of prisoners (estimates range from 12,000 to over 22,000) would die at the camp while in the Soviet Union's control. The dead were buried in mass graves by the rail yard and no notification was sent to family members upon death.

On January 16, 1950 the camp was passed to the civilian authorities of the GDR and included 2,415 prisoners. In October 1950, it was decreed that the camp would be torn down. The main gate, crematorium, the Hospital Block and two guard towers escaped demolition. All prisoner barracks and other buildings were demolished. Foundations of some of the buildings still exist and many others have been rebuilt. According to the Buchenwald Memorial web site, "the combination of obliteration and preservation was dictated by a specific concept for interpreting the history of Buchenwald Concentration Camp."

The first monument was erected days after the initial liberation. Intended as completely temporary, it was built by the prisoners and was made of wood. The second monument to commemorate the dead was erected there in 1958 by the GDR near the mass graves. Inside the camp, there is a living monument in the place of the first monument and is kept at skin temperature year round.

[edit] Well-known inmates

Buchenwald inmates
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Buchenwald inmates


[edit] Footnotes

  1. ^ All the information on these female overseers came from Daniel Patrick Brown's book THE CAMP WOMEN The Female Auxiliaries Who Assisted the SS in Running the Concentration Camp System.

[edit] See also

[edit] Literature

  • Bodo Ritscher: Das sowjetische Speziallager Nr. 2 1945-1950. Katalog zur ständigen historischen Ausstellung; Göttingen: Wallstein, 1999
  • Volkhard Knigge und Bodo Ritscher: Totenbuch. Speziallager Buchenwald 1945-1950; Weimar: Stiftung Gedenkstätten Buchenwald und Mittelbau Dora, 2003
  • Jan von Flocken/Michael Klonovsky: Stalins Lager in Deutschland 1945-1950. Dokumentation,Zeugenberichte; Berlin: Ullstein, 1991; ISBN 3-550-07488-3
  • Bruno Apitz: Nackt unter Wölfen (Naked among Wolves). Fictional account of the last days of Buchenwald before the US-American liberation based upon a true story. Available as a book in German or as a movie in German with English subtitles. Book: Aufbau Taschenbuchverlag, 1998; ISBN 3-7466-1420-1 Translations into English and other languages exist, but are out of print.
  • Eugen Kogon: The Theory and Practice of Hell: the German Concentration Camps and teh System Behind Them; New York; Farrar Strauss; 1950 republished 2006

[edit] External links

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