Introduction to Buchenwald
In July of 1937, the first prisoners were brought into Buchenwald shortly after its establishment. At the time they were brought in, Buchenwald was hardly the power it would become later down the line. However, even from its inception, its prisoners were treated cruelly. Prisoners worked for hours in backbreaking conditions without proper equipment, e.g., tractors, excavators, only to be fed small, inadequate rations for their work. Many of Buchenwald’s early prisoners died as a result of this. (“Early Camps, Youth Camps, and Concentration Camps and Subcamps under the SS-Business Administration Main Office (WVHA)” 290).
At this time, there was a large presence of Communists and “criminals” in the camp who fought for control. Eventually, though the Communists established the dominant group, the International Camp Committee Buchenwald, that helped bring up its members positions in the camp, including things like providing better sanitation for its members. Alongside these two groups, Jehovah’s Witnesses, homosexuals, Gypsies, deserters, those who couldn’t serve in the military, and “work-shy” prisoners were also kept at Buchenwald. It was not until 1938 following Kristallnacht that a large influx of Jews were sent to the camp (“Early Camps, Youth Camps, and Concentration Camps and Subcamps under the SS-Business Administration Main Office (WVHA)” 292). The camp, although in Weimar, Germany, held prisoners from Hungary, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Russia, Ukraine, Belorussia, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy, and Germany (“Early Camps, Youth Camps, and Concentration Camps and Subcamps under the SS-Business Administration Main Office (WVHA)” 313). As Buchenwald survivor Izaak Reifer puts it “It was a camp with all types of nationalities. They had people from all over the world.” (“VHA Online” 5 June 2006). Indeed, the camp held prisoners of 35 different nationalities (“Early Camps, Youth Camps, and Concentration Camps and Subcamps under the SS-Business Administration Main Office (WVHA)” 292).
The cruelty that occurred within Buchenwald can only be echoed by a common theme throughout survivor’s Izaak Reifer’s testimony: “No mercy.” (“VHA Online” 5 June 2006) In 1938, Buchenwald became the first concentration camp to publicly hang a prisoner, an escapee. And Buchenwald soon became known for its gross mistreatment of its prisoners. Prisoners were deprived of food, arrested, beaten, hanged in the trees and tortured, driven across the sentry line just so the Nazis could shoot them without warning (“Early Camps, Youth Camps, and Concentration Camps and Subcamps under the SS-Business Administration Main Office (WVHA)” 292).
In addition to killings of cruelty, the Nazis did anything to prevent the spread of diseases they posed a threat to them, even killing mass amounts of prisoners. For example, in 1940, Roma who were spreading an eye disease were killed via injection, and in 1941-1942, prisoners who suffered from tuberculosis or were handicapped were euthanized (“Early Camps, Youth Camps, and Concentration Camps and Subcamps under the SS-Business Administration Main Office (WVHA)” 292).
Outside of the sick, Nazis also sought to destroy their political and economic opponents from the war. They converted special stables for Soviet POWs, falsely coined as a place for medical inspections, where the Kommando 99 shot the POWs in the neck. 8,000 Soviet POWs died by 1943. Polish officers and ally secret service were also killed in the camp during the same year. Many of these killings happened in the courtyard (“Early Camps, Youth Camps, and Concentration Camps and Subcamps under the SS-Business Administration Main Office (WVHA)” 292). Death was not something they wanted to hide. It was through death the Nazis held power in Buchenwald.
Despite these killings, Buchenwald did not have a mass killing camber, like the gas chambers at Auschwitz. However, when the war began to close and the Nazis were getting ready to move the prisoners from Buchenwald, many prisoners, and Jews, especially, began to worry that the Nazis were going to try to cover them up as well as the Nazis were burning bodies in the final days of the camp. Izaak Reifer describes the final days like so: “We thought they were going to gas us, and, here, we thought we already survived that long, and, here, at the last minute, we thought we [were] not going to survive.” (“VHA Online” 5 June 2006) However, the Nazis did not do this but instead tried to evacuate its 48,000 prisoners held at Buchenwald in its final days. In the end, the Nazis executed only 28,000 prisoners because of prisoner leader influence and passive resistance (“Early Camps, Youth Camps, and Concentration Camps and Subcamps under the SS-Business Administration Main Office (WVHA)” 293).
That being said, the 28,000 prisoners who were evacuated suffered greatly in these “death marches.” The 28,000 prisoners transported were mostly Soviet POWs and Jews; one-third of them did not survive their journeys (“Early Camps, Youth Camps, and Concentration Camps and Subcamps under the SS-Business Administration Main Office (WVHA)” 293).
On April 11, 1945, Americans liberated the camp. Izaak Reifer recalls there being an American rabbi who came to them and brought them matzo for Passover. Reifer said he had no sense of time in the camp, and did not know it was Passover. But seeing the rabbi seemed to incite a great deal of joy in Reifer. Overall in the camp, when the Americans came, “There was a lot of joy as the Germans [ran] away.” (“VHA Online” 5 June 2006).
According to Reifer, the SS Komando sent out a message to the camp for its destruction, but the Americans got to the camp at that time, intercepted the message, and were able to find where the Germans evacuated to as a result of that. “They didn’t want to leave any chances, because, on the German side, Buchenwald was known as a concentration camp.” (“VHA Online” 5 June 2006)
The U.S. Army began caring for the 21,000 prisoners that were left in the camp when it was discovered and also detained 80 SS guards that were left at the camp. On April 13th, the U.S. Army officially took control of the camp. Despite the help of the U.S. Army, 4,700 very ill prisoners died (“Early Camps, Youth Camps, and Concentration Camps and Subcamps under the SS-Business Administration Main Office (WVHA)” 293).
Following this, representatives of the SS guards were tried at the Buchenwald Trial in 1937. Almost all were sentenced to death and executed, with 22 out of the 31 people tried sentenced to death. Some subsequent trials were held in conjunction with other camp trials with similar results (“Early Camps, Youth Camps, and Concentration Camps and Subcamps under the SS-Business Administration Main Office (WVHA)” 293-294).
The Beginning of Buchenwald and How It Eventually Changed
In Early July 1937, Buchenwald was established. At the time, Buchenwald’s location was selected because of the vast amounts of clay that were in the area (north of Weimar, Germany) with the intent to hold up to 8,000 prisoners (“Early Camps, Youth Camps, and Concentration Camps and Subcamps under the SS-Business Administration Main Office (WVHA)” 290). To begin, there were no prisoners in the camp, only Nazi soldiers; but, there soon would be prisoners in the camp. Among the first of prisoners were political opponents, communists, and criminals, who were also known as “green prisoners.” (“Early Camps, Youth Camps, and Concentration Camps and Subcamps under the SS-Business Administration Main Office (WVHA)” 291). It would be up to these prisoners to pave the way for the rest to join them in the concentration camp. With no real equipment at the time, these prisoners worked long days of backbreaking labor, oftentimes coming back to very small rations. Many of these prisoners starved. To make matters worse, the camp was a breeding ground for disease and sickness with its terrible sanitary conditions for prisoners. In these early days of the camp, many prisoners succumbed to the brutal conditions placed upon them (“Early Camps, Youth Camps, and Concentration Camps and Subcamps under the SS-Business Administration Main Office (WVHA)” 290).
The view the camp administration and SS had for Buchenwald were beginning to come together as these prisoners worked their long, painful days building the camp throughout 1937. Months ago, some Nazi officials came to the area north of Weimar (where Buchenwald would be created). They saw an opportunity to replace the dissolving camps like Bad Sulza, Sachsenburg, and Lichtenbrug, according to the USHMM. The landscape was treacherous, with Buchenwald being established on a large hill north of Weimar, Germany. Buchenwald also served as a somewhat central concentration camp for the soon-to-be expanding Germany, initially serving the purpose to hold prisoners from central Germany. Additionally, the camp was in an area with great amounts of clay, making it valuable for the creation of bricks (“Early Camps, Youth Camps, and Concentration Camps and Subcamps under the SS-Business Administration Main Office (WVHA)” 290).
Soon, the prisoners finished the initial stages of the camp, which included things such as “33 wooden barracks, 15 two-two stone buildings, a roll-call square, a prisoners’ infirmary (Revier), kitchen, laundry, canteen, storerooms, workshops for the camp’s tradesman, a disinfection building, market garden, and various other structures,” according to the USHMM (“Early Camps, Youth Camps, and Concentration Camps and Subcamps under the SS-Business Administration Main Office (WVHA)” 290). However, in the coming years, they would build even more. They built a crematorium, a railroad station, and even a brothel. Although they built these structures, not every prisoner could use them. For example, the brothel they built was reserved only for German and non-Jewish Austrian prisoners. And, of course, many of the facilities, like the command buildings, headquarters, administration and office-related buildings and structures, were reserved for the camp administration and SS (“Early Camps, Youth Camps, and Concentration Camps and Subcamps under the SS-Business Administration Main Office (WVHA)” 290).
The prisoners were not the only ones to build parts of the camp, although they did most of the work. One of the most notable examples is the Germans modified horse stables for what they told Russian prisoners of war were stables for medical examinations. In reality, these stables were created in such a way that the necks of the Russian POWs would be completely in the open as the Russian POWs stood still. At this point, German Komando 99 soldiers would line up and fire their guns at the Russian POWs. These types of merciless killings would come later and more frequently in Buchenwald’s history (“Early Camps, Youth Camps, and Concentration Camps and Subcamps under the SS-Business Administration Main Office (WVHA)” 292).
In the beginning, once the early stages of the camp had been created by its initial prisoners (consisting of prisoners from mostly Thuringia, Hessen, the Ruhr, and Saxony in central Germany), more prisoners were sent to Buchenwald (“Early Camps, Youth Camps, and Concentration Camps and Subcamps under the SS-Business Administration Main Office (WVHA)” 290). These prisoners, however, were not the same. They consisted of Jehovah’s Witnesses, homosexuals, Gypsies, military insubordinates, and even “work-shy” prisoners, also known as Arbeitsscheue. Jews would come even later; they arrived in mass in 1938 following Kristallnacht (“Early Camps, Youth Camps, and Concentration Camps and Subcamps under the SS-Business Administration Main Office (WVHA)” 292). Later on down the line, Jews would account for the largest recorded group of deaths in the camp, with 30% of deaths being Jewish deaths (“Early Camps, Youth Camps, and Concentration Camps and Subcamps under the SS-Business Administration Main Office (WVHA)” 293).
After prisoners began arriving in bulk, the production of Buchenwald ramped up. The chief of the new SS-Business Administration, Oswald Pohl, came to a deal with Germany’s private industry to rent out prisoners to produce the Nazis’ much-needed munitions for the war effort (“Early Camps, Youth Camps, and Concentration Camps and Subcamps under the SS-Business Administration Main Office (WVHA)” 297). Companies, like Deutsche Ausrüstungswerke GmbH, made a lot of money off of the prisoner labor used to produce munitions through this deal (“Early Camps, Youth Camps, and Concentration Camps and Subcamps under the SS-Business Administration Main Office (WVHA)” 297). This made Buchenwald an indispensable camp for the production of war supplies. Over time, the needs of Buchenwald would change as the tides of the war began to change. Some of Buchenwald’s subcamps, for example, began to construct top-secret projects, satellites to increase the precision of German bombings, and armaments to give the Nazi military a greater fighting chance against its enemies (“Early Camps, Youth Camps, and Concentration Camps and Subcamps under the SS-Business Administration Main Office (WVHA)” 297).