Buchenwald, << BOO kuhn `vahlt,` >> was a concentration camp in Nazi Germany from 1937 to 1945. The camp stood in a wooded area about 5 miles (8 kilometers) from the city of Weimar. The camp was named for its forest location, the Buchenwald (Beech Wood). German Schutzstaffel (SS) troops managed the camp. The SS was a special Nazi military group. After World War II (1939-1945), Buchenwald served as a Soviet prison camp until 1950.
Buchenwald opened as a forced labor camp in July 1937. At first, the camp mainly held political prisoners. Nazi authorities later expanded the camp to hold such ethnic prisoners as Jews, Poles, and Roma (sometimes called Gypsies). After the German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, thousands of Soviet prisoners of war were brought to Buchenwald. Most were killed upon arrival. Beginning in 1942, the addition of smaller camps under Buchenwald’s administration created a vast complex. Over time, this complex included more than 100 camps in central Germany. By 1945, the population of these camps neared 90,000.
Buchenwald prisoners were forced to work at nearby armaments factories, construction projects, and rock quarries. Prisoners too weak or unwilling to work were killed or sent to death camps. Many others were executed or died from disease, starvation, or medical experiments. The Germans burned the corpses in crematoria (furnaces for cremating dead bodies) or buried them in mass graves.
On April 11, 1945, as the United States Army neared Buchenwald, prisoners in an organized resistance group seized control from the guards who had not yet fled. Later that day, U.S. troops liberated the camp’s 20,000 surviving prisoners.
From 1937 to 1945, about 57,000 Buchenwald prisoners died. Among those who survived the camp were former French Prime Minister Léon Blum and future Nobel Prize-winning author Elie Wiesel (see Wiesel, Elie).
A few months after Germany’s surrender in May 1945, Buchenwald and the surrounding area came under control of the Soviet Red Army. The Soviets imprisoned thousands of Germans at Buchenwald. Many of these prisoners died of hunger and disease until 1950, when the camp was abandoned and largely demolished. Today, Buchenwald’s main gate remains, overlooking a large memorial and museum.
See also Concentration camp; Holocaust; Nazism; Schutzstaffel (SS); Weimar.
