Visit to the Former Buchenwald Concentration Camp

The largest concentration camp on German soil at the end of the war was located in Buchenwald on Ettersberg, 10 km outside of Weimar. More than 56,000 people died here due to medical experiments, torture, or starvation. In a special execution facility, over 8000 Soviet prisoners of war were murdered from behind. A total of more than 250,000 people were imprisoned in the concentration camp at Ettersberg and its 136 satellite camps. The SS forced inmates into hard labor, particularly for the German armaments industry.

The former concentration camp is now a memorial site, which everyone can visit free of charge. Buchenwald should be on everyone's list of must-see sights in Germany that one should visit at least once in a lifetime.

I visit the memorial on a spring-like day in February. There is a suffocating silence; individual visitors and school classes move slowly and solemnly across the grounds. The suffering that so many people had to endure here is unimaginable.

You can visit the camp, which was built in July 1937, on a guided tour or on your own with an audio app (on your phone, with a map) to see the former prisoner camp, the SS area with dog kennels, the crematorium, the small camp, the Soviet special camp No. 2, the museum, as well as the bell tower with three mass graves and other facilities every day.

It was a very informative and, of course, disturbing visit. You learn a lot about the suffering and life in the camp on-site. The magnitude is particularly impressive and shocking. A must for everyone, as it is an important place for remembrance and honoring the victims of National Socialism. Entry is free.

Note, as many ask: According to current research, there were no gas chambers in the Buchenwald concentration camp or its satellite camps.

The Buchenwald concentration camp was established in 1937 on Ettersberg near Weimar and was one of the largest concentration camps in Germany. For this, voluntary personnel from the SS Death's Head Regiment 3 "Thuringia", a special unit, were hired. They were to embody a new elite of the Nazis and to be especially racist and cold-blooded in their exercise of violence. At the beginning, about 1000 SS men were stationed in Buchenwald, almost all of whom were under the legal age of 21.

During World War II, over 250,000 people from many different countries were interned in Buchenwald, including political prisoners, resistance fighters, Jews, Sinti and Roma, homosexuals, prisoners of war, and opponents of the National Socialist regime. The inmates were forced into labor for the armaments industry. Many of them were denied medical care and food.

The living conditions in the camp were unimaginably poor. Many inmates died from diseases, hunger, or mistreatment and executions by the SS guards. Medical experiments on inmates were also carried out in the camp.

During the war, around 8000 Soviet prisoners of war were murdered in Buchenwald, mainly through the use of the execution facility (see point Crematorium). Inmates who were classified as 'unfit' were taken to be shot in the so-called "bunker" (prison at the camp gate).

Just hearing this information from the audio guide at the beginning of my tour gives me goosebumps. I feel chills on this sunny February day. I keep asking myself, how can people be so cruel?

No matter how much time you spend here and no matter how many documentaries you watch or read about this cruel time: You will probably never understand what people went through here.

The liberation of the Buchenwald concentration camp by American troops took place on April 11, 1945. However, when the soldiers reached the gate around 5 PM, the prisoners had already taken control of the camp at 3:15 PM.

The survivors of the camp and later visitors have erected a memorial for the victims at the Buchenwald memorial site and are committed to remembering and educating about the atrocities in the concentration camp.

I wasn't aware until then that the liberation occurs on my birthday every year.

400,000 m2 prisoner camp

3,500 m electric barbed wire fence

139 satellite camps

277,800 inmates from over 50 countries

30,000 minors

28,230 women

249,570 men

56,000 dead

1,944 men, women, and children transported to death in Auschwitz

February 1938: 2,728 inmates

February 1945: 112,050 inmates

Age of inmates: 2 to 86 years

For the expansive grounds of the Buchenwald memorial, you should allocate at least 2 to 3 hours. You can visit the camp on your own (best with an audio guide) or as part of a tour. For the museum, you must reserve a ticket on the website (here) before your visit, as this part is only limitedly available to visitors.

Before your visit, you should also download the app with an audio guide and a map of the camp grounds to your phone and pack your headphones. Download for free: Apple App Store or Google Play Store.

Alternatively, you can rent an audio guide for 5 Euros at the visitor information center of the memorial. Before you start your tour, you can watch a documentary film about the camp every full hour. The film lasts 30 minutes and is in German with English subtitles. If you have plenty of time, you should definitely watch the film.

The Blood Road leading to Buchenwald got its name because of the tragic events that occurred during the time of National Socialism. During the existence of the Buchenwald concentration camp, thousands of inmates were driven on this road, which marked the way from Weimar to the camp (from Weimar) or were led out of the camp on death marches (on the way to Auschwitz just before liberation).

This road was thus referred to as the "Blood Road" because it represented a final station of suffering for many inmates. Today, the Blood Road is part of the memorial path that leads from the city of Weimar to the Buchenwald memorial and commemorates the victims of the concentration camp.

As I arrive, reading the name "Blood Road" gives me goosebumps for the first time.

Here begins your visit. The former barracks and drill ground of the SS are located directly at the parking lot. Of the originally 18 buildings, only four buildings (companies) and the administrative building remain today, which were built by the inmates, like almost all facilities in Buchenwald. I walk quickly past, as I do not want to look more closely at the places of these cruel people.

From here you can either turn left to the Buchenwald train or go directly to the grounds. I choose to visit at the end.

After the information center of the Buchenwald memorial, you turn left and pass by the former dog kennels and SS buildings onto the 300 m long Caracho Path.

On the way to the gate, I pass the place where the wooden barrack of the Political Department (branch of the Gestapo) once stood. Here, inmate personnel records and deaths were registered, and brutally violent interrogations were carried out as well. Next to it was the camp command. The original building was destroyed in an air raid in 1944, which is not wholly indicated in the audio guide.

The Soviets had their own camp command built almost at the same spot during the times of the special camp No. 2. It is the only building still preserved from the time of the Soviet special camp No. 2.

The Caracho Path ends at the gate of the camp. On the door of the camp gate, it reads "To Each His Own", visible only from the inside, and the clock shows 3:15 PM, the time of liberation on April 11, 1945. At that time, it is estimated that 21,000 people were in the camp.

The camp gate is the only official access gate. Two additional side gates at the guard towers were used only for supply purposes.

In the side wings was the "Bunker", the camp prison. Instead of the officially lasting sentences of a maximum of 21 days, many were tortured and interrogated here "until confession" and died after a torturous ordeal.

We go through the so-called Jewish camp, through the quarantine camp, and past the former prisoner hospital where prisoners were minimally treated by other prisoners but where the SS doctors also committed mass murder via lethal injection. A sign also points out the location of a camp brothel. Here, female inmates were forced into prostitution. I walk silently through the wooded grounds and wonder what drives people to such actions.

As soon as you enter the former camp, you find yourself in the roll call area where the inmates had to assemble daily and in the evening. Around it were the barracks, in which the inmates were literally crammed together. Memorial stones from 1955 remind us of this fact. On the expansive grounds, stones are embedded that inform you which block or barrack stood here.

At the left end of the grounds still stands the massively built inmates' kitchen, where the inmates received barely enough food starting in 1941. In the basement was a makeshift chemical laboratory where soap was produced and the resistance command secretly manufactured hand grenades and incendiary devices.

I slowly and solemnly walk past Block 7, 8, the memorial for Sinti and Roma, and the Jewish memorial until I reach the small camp. The silence is hard to bear with all the impressions and information present. At the lower end was the inmates' hospital. Only a few dared to walk here, as they did not know whether they would receive help or be killed straight away.

Where Block 22 once stood today stands the Jewish memorial to commemorate the 11,000 murdered Jews in Buchenwald and more than 6 million victims of the Holocaust. Barrack 22 was the so-called Jewish block, where Jews were imprisoned and killed solely because of their descent. They were especially targeted by the terror and were increasingly deported to the killing facility at Bernburg and Sonnenstein and to Auschwitz. Only in this barrack were there still Jews who were employed in forced labor such as quarry work and menial jobs.

After the dissolution of the camps in the east, more than 50,000 were brought westward to Buchenwald and its satellite camps. In the end, only 3,000 Jews could be liberated from Buchenwald. The others were sent on death marches shortly before liberation and killed.

Outside the camp, a patrol path of the SS guards ran along the barbed wire fence around the entire area.

You can only explore the remains of the latrine on site today. In the small camp, the quarantine area, 12 windowless and 40-meter-long and 10-meter-wide stables were constructed within a very short time. These stables, originally intended for 50 horses each, were quickly used for people. In these, 1000 to 2000 people had to find space in bunk-like racks made of 4 layers.

The conditions in the small camp were catastrophic due to the cramped circumstances and poor sanitary conditions. Many inmates died from diseases, hunger, and exhaustion. Medical care was also hardly available. It was the worst "slum" of the camp. After a short stay, the inmates were sent to satellite camps - if they survived the misery.

Especially Jews were crammed together here shortly before liberation after the eastern camps like Auschwitz were emptied. According to the guide, more than 5000 people died here within 2-3 months before liberation.

The block was fitted with a separate entrance and fence in 1943. Even before that, medical experiments on people had been conducted (at the other end Block 46). From 1943, these also took place in this building. Furthermore, a laboratory for evaluating the medical experiments was established here. This building was called the "Place of Death."

These experiments were conducted by Dr. Erwin Ding-Schuler, a doctor from Romania. He studied the effects of vaccines (yellow fever vaccines and a gas gangrene serum) as well as medications on diseases such as typhus and tuberculosis and on wounds and injuries. The inmates were deliberately infected, and the experiments often led to severe health damage up to death. Later, the production of typhus vaccine for the Waffen-SS also began.

These experiments were discovered after the liberation of the camp by the Allies, and Ding-Schuler was later sentenced for his crimes. Most of the inmates selected for these experiments were Soviet prisoners of war.

To this day, it has not been possible to ascertain the exact number of victims. It is only known that experiments were conducted on over 1000 inmates.

The museum provides information about the establishment of the Soviet special camp.

After the end of World War II, a total of 10 camps and three prisons were used for the internment of Germans in the Soviet occupation zone. One of these camps was the so-called special camp No. 2 Buchenwald, which had been used by the Soviet Security Service since August 1945. Here, mainly local functionaries of the NSDAP, but also youth and denounced individuals were detained without legal proceedings. The prisoners were completely isolated, and all contact with the outside world was cut off.

A total of around 28,000 people were interned in this camp, of whom particularly in the winter of 1946/47, over 7000 died from hunger diseases. The camp was dissolved in February 1950, shortly after the founding of the GDR.

The former largest building of the camp served from 1939 as a clothing depot and storage for inmates' belongings. All newcomers had to leave behind everything they carried upon arrival. Here, they received the striped uniforms, numbers, and fabric insignias.

Since 1985, it has housed the museum as a permanent exhibition on the history of the Buchenwald concentration camp.

The exhibition shows both the horrors of the Buchenwald concentration camp as well as the struggles of the inmates for freedom and dignity. Here are some highlights of the permanent exhibition you should definitely allow time for, so you don't have to read all the panels; you can also navigate through the exhibition here with the audio guide on your phone.

The exhibition begins on the ground floor with an introduction to the political and social circumstances that led to the establishment of the Buchenwald concentration camp. Some of the central themes of the exhibition include the deportation and arrival of the inmates, the violence and oppression in the camp, the work of the inmates, and the medical experiments that were conducted on them.

The museum contains many personal stories of survivors and shows how they developed survival techniques against all odds. Another important theme of the permanent exhibition is the inmates' resistance against the Nazi regime, including the organization of uprisings and sabotage actions.

The exhibition also houses a large collection of artifacts and documents, including clothing, inmate records, and personal belongings of the inmates that you can view.

Overall, the museum in the former Buchenwald concentration camp is an impressive and moving exhibition that allows you to further understand the tragic history of the camp.

Tickets must be reserved in advance (free)

Next door is the disinfection building, which houses an art exhibition and changing special exhibitions.

As more and more prisoners arrived from Europe in 1942, this building was erected. Here, everyone had to leave their clothes, surrender their personal belongings, be shaved, and disinfected. Subsequently, the inmates were re-clothed in the adjacent chamber building before being shoved into the barracks.

Today, the rooms of the disinfection area house the art exhibition of the memorial as well as changing special exhibitions.

Due to the increasing number of deaths at the Buchenwald concentration camp, the SS decided in 1940 to establish a crematorium and to expand it in 1942. The company Topf & Söhne from Erfurt was responsible for the development and delivery of the cremation ovens. In the morgue of the building, about 1,100 people were killed by hanging.

What many don't know: There were no gas chambers in Buchenwald.

In a massive, 55-meter-long horse stable next to the riding hall of the camp commander, the SS murdered over 8000 Soviet prisoners of war by execution through the neck between autumn 1941 and 1943/44. The execution facility consisted of several rooms where the victims were made to believe they were receiving a medical examination. The corpses were then transported in galvanized containers from the east side of the building to the crematorium.

You can see such a trolley and the replica of the execution facility in the extension at the back of the crematorium. It was made from a measuring stick on the wall, which had a slot at neck height to slyly shoot the victims from the next room.

In 1938, Karl Koch had a recreation area with a bear cage built, of which only relics remain today. The "SS Zoo" was financed by extorted donations from the inmates. The highlight was supposed to be four brown bears kept between the barbed wire fence and patrol path in an enclosure.

The zoo was supposed to provide entertainment for the SS men. Koch himself took a trip with his children to the zoo. How sick is that? The bears were probably fed with the meat that was actually meant for the inmates. The animals were better off than the camp inmates.

The construction of the Buchenwald railway began in March 1943 under the direction of the SS. More than 1,400 inmates, including children, were forced to work under horrific conditions on the route. According to the guide, every third inmate died from hunger, exhaustion, and mistreatment during the construction of the Gustloff Works I and II and the railway. The 10 km long line to Weimar was to be completed in 100 days. After the railway line was finished, the inmates were also used to operate the train.

The Buchenwald railway was also part of the so-called "death march" when thousands of inmates were forced to walk on a multi-day march through Thuringia and Saxony in April 1945, as the concentration camp had to be evacuated due to the advancing Allies. Many inmates died during the death march or were murdered by the SS guards.

Today, parts of the Buchenwald railway route have been preserved as a historical monument and can be visited.

The Buchenwald Memorial, located on the south side of the Ettersberg near Weimar, which you can even see from Erfurt by the bell tower, was established as a memorial for the victims of the concentration camp which operated from 1937 to 1945.

You begin your walk at the parking lot with a descent to the mass graves. Along the Ettersberg and up to the ceremony site is the 50-meter-high bell tower, built in 1958 in the center of the grounds. The bell weighs 11 tons and is rung every year on January 27, the day of the liberation of the concentration camp. I don't know why it rang during my visit, if that is the case (unfortunately I was alone and couldn't ask anyone).

The site is located on the former Bismarck tower area, which was blown up for the establishment of the memorial in May 1949. The mass graves consist of three funnel-shaped earth pits where the SS buried the corpses of murdered inmates in 1945. In the tower itself, urns with human ashes were stored.

Later, a cemetery was created for over 400 prisoners who died after liberation as well as for the ashes from over 1286 urns. In the early years after the war, this area was redesigned as the memorial grove for the unknown dead of the concentration camp.

An equally haunting yet beautifully designed place with a great view over Weimar and the Thuringian countryside.

Visiting the memorial site is free of charge. However, you can book a guided tour. A tour lasts about 2 hours and takes place twice or four times from Tuesday to Sunday, depending on the season. These tours are conducted by employees of the Buchenwald Memorial Foundation.

There are a few things you should know if you intend to visit the Buchenwald memorial site of the former camp.

The distance from Weimar to Buchenwald is 10 km and takes about 15 minutes by car. The route follows the notorious Blood Road to Buchenwald.

From Weimar, you can take the bus from the Weimar main station to Buchenwald in 20 minutes. Buses run regularly to the visitor information center including the memorial as well as stops at the obelisk, Buchenwald railway memorial pathway, and bell tower. You can check the current schedule for city bus line 6 on the Website of the Weimar Public Utilities or simply use Google Maps.

If, like me, you arrive with your own car or motorhome, you can park in a large parking lot at the entrance. The walk to the gate of the concentration camp takes about 10 minutes.

The visitor information center, all exhibition buildings, the museum café, as well as the archive and library, are designed to be barrier-free and feature ramps, elevators, and wheelchair-accessible restrooms.

Due to preservation laws, some buildings and pathways in the former inmate camp, such as the camp prison ("Bunker"), the crematorium, the inmates' canteen, and the disinfection building (today an art exhibition), are only partially accessible. You can get information at the visitor information center.

Directly at the entrance of the memorial site, there is a youth hostel (here's the website)

A motorhome parking space can be found in Weimar and in Erfurt.

In Weimar and Erfurt, which is only 30 minutes away, you will find several hotels.

Koch was considered one of the most brutal concentration camp commanders. He was camp commander from 1937 to 1941. He was shot in 1945 by his own men due to corruption.

The wife of the former commandant, Ilse Koch, was also called the "Witch of Buchenwald." You must watch this film if you want to learn more about this cruel woman.

Watch "The Witch of Buchenwald" film on YouTube here.

He followed Koch in 1942 as camp commander, was an SS Oberführer, and was sentenced to death by a US military court after liberation in 1947.

Then leave me a comment at the end of the article.

Please always remember: The Buchenwald memorial site commemorates the victims of the concentration camp and serves as a reminder that the crimes of National Socialism must never be forgotten. It is the largest concentration camp memorial in Germany.

Behave appropriately on the grounds and adhere to the rules. Quiet, appropriate clothing, and no eating and drinking on the premises. If you wish, you should also drop a donation in the donation box at the entrance (when leaving the grounds at the left gate after the "To Each His Own" door). All people on the premises work on a voluntary basis.

Let us not repeat this cruel chapter of German history. Never.

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