Why Buchenwald was built?

Why Buchenwald was built?

Acknowledgements This source collection is made by Chris Rowe with the support of Buchenwald Memorial and Mateo Martinez.This collection is part of the unit “Internment without a trial: Examples from the Nazi and Soviet regimes” that is developed in the Multi-Facetted Memory project.

More informationwww.euroclio.eu/multi-facetted-memory

By the time Buchenwald constructed in 1937, the system of concentration camps was already established in Nazi Germany; the first, KZ Dachau, was opened in 1933. These camps were places of internment for ‘political prisoners’, outside the regular judicial system. Run by the SA (later subsumed into the SS) the camps were places of internment without trial: for the isolation, intimidation and ‘political re-education’ of those groups and individuals the Nazi regime regarded as ‘politically unreliable’, ’racial unworthy’ or ‘socially deviant’. (And to intimidate the general population with the thought ;this could happen to you’). These ‘regular’ camps were not death camps and to be sent there was not necessarily a life sentence; in the early years many prisoners were released after a shorter or longer period in detention. But they were not ‘normal’ prisons: the fate of the inmates was totally in the hands of authority – being innocent of any crime was no defence. The camps were also places of forced labour and economic exploitation; the site selected for the Buchenwald camp, on the Ettersberg (Etter Mountain) near Weimar, had railway connections linking it to the wider economy. Prisoners had to set up a railway to connect Buchenwald with other camps and sub camps beside factories of the war industry and extermination camps in occupied Poland.

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Detail of the main gate at Dachau concentration camp in Germany, displaying the famous "Arbeit Macht Frei" (works makes free) slogan.

The first concentration camp, KZ Dachau, was opened in 1933, well before Buchenwald was constructed in 1937 (public domain).

 Blueprint drawing for the construction of a Camp.

Prisoners arriving at Dachau by truck, 1933

Franz Ziereis, commandant of KZ Mauthausen. The camp was opened in 1938 after Austria was incorporated into the Third Reich

The Quarry at Mauthausen-Gusen camp

Letter of the Inspector of the Concentration Camps to Heinrich Himmler

Letter by Theodor Eicke (Inspector of the Concentration Camps) to Heinrich Himmler, head of the SS (24 June 1937). Shortly before its installation, Eicke argues that the new camp has to be separated also by name from the cultural importance of Weimar, and thus receive the artificial name "Buchenwald". Eicke was commandant of the first concentration camp in Nazi Germany, at Dachau

The first barracks at Buchenwald I, July 9, 1937.

SS-men at work on the construction of the first barracks on the Ettersberg (Buchenwald) in 9 July 1937 (Photo: Kriminalpolizei Weimar. SGBuMD, Gedenkstätte Buchenwald)

Construction of Buchenwald II.

SS men on the construction of the firsts barracks, Photographer unknown. (IV 1302/9 L, Gedenkstätte Buchenwald)

The First Prisoners, July 1937

The first 149 prisoners were brought in by the SS on 15th of July of 1937, from KZ Sachsenhausen. The following week more inmates came from the dissolved concentration camps Sachsenburg and Lichtenburg. They included: members of the resistance, Jehovah's Witnesses, previously convicted criminals, and homosexuals. They cleared the forest, lay sewerage pipes and power lines, built roads, houses, garages and barracks for the SS-men and inmates of the camp.

First inmates being housed by the SS guards.

Photo: Kriminalpolizei Weimar, 1937. SGBuMD, Gedenkstätte Buchenwald

Deportation to the camps

Arrest of Jewish inhabitants in Amsterdam in retaliation of the general strikes (22nd February 1941). These people were later deported to concentration camps.

Railways and the camps

Prisoners laying track on the Buchenwald line. This picture was in a souvenir folder given by the Central Construction Management of the Armed SS to passengers of the first trip on June, 1943. The camps were economic enterprises using forced labour. Rail links were essential to their operation.

Clearing the ground

Inmates cleaning the forest guarded by SS members. (IV 1302/19 L, Gedenkstätte Buchenwald)

Symbol of Power: Buchenwald Main Gate

The camp gate was one of the first buildings the inmates were forced to construct in 1937. It served as the main watchtower of altogether twenty-two, and as a stand for a machine gun which could be aimed at any spot on the muster ground. All SS announcements were also made over loudspeakers installed on the gate building. (Kriminalpolizei Weimar, 1937. SGBuMD, Gedenkstätte Buchenwald)

Camps main entrance gate

‘’To each his own‘’ or ’’Everybody gets what he deserves’’ (German: ‘’Jedem das Seine’’). This can be traced back to to Greek Philosphy and Roman law ("Suum Cuique"). (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Headquarters of Power: the Commandant’s House

Photographer unknown, 30 September 1937 (IV 1302/44 L, Gedenkstätte Buchenwald)

  Crematorium 1943 with extension for autopsy and pathology

(Musée de la Résistance et de la Déportation, Besançon)

The ZOO I.

Postcard advertised of the SS zoological garden from 1939. In 1938, Camp Commander Karl Koch had a zoo built in the direct vicinity of the entrance area to the inmates’ camp. It was financed with “donations” extorted from the inmates themselves (C-5119, Stadtmuseum Weimar)

The ZOO II.

The highlight of the "Buchenwald Zoological Garden", as it was officially designated, was a bear pit with four brown bears. As stated in a command staff order, the zoo was intended as a means of offering the SS men "distraction and amusement“ (C-5119, Stadtmuseum Weimar)

Aerial view of Buchenwald Concentration Camp following liberation

Photo: U.S. Air Reconnaissance, end of April 1945 (National Archives, Washington)

Eye bird view of the concentration camp done by Concentration Camp Project

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This collection is part of the unit “Internment without a trial: Examples from the Nazi and Soviet regimes”