Buchenwald - German Nazi concentration camp, Germany
October 27th, 2007 / / Links: Google Earth, Google Maps, Yahoo! Maps, Virtual Earth / Nearest placesBuchenwald concentration camp was a German Nazi concentration camp established on the Ettersberg (Etter Mountain) near Weimar, Thuringia, Germany, in July 1937, and one of the largest such camps on German soil. Camp prisoners worked primarily as slave labour in local armament factories. Inmates were Jews, political prisoners, religious prisoners, and prisoners of war. Up to 1942 the majority of the political prisoners consisted of communists, later the proportion of other political prisoners increased considerably. Among the prisoners were also writers, doctors, artists, former nobility, and an Italian Princess. They came from countries as varied as Russia, Poland, France, Germany, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Netherlands, Belgium, Norway, Denmark, Spanish Republic and Italy. Most of the political prisoners from the occupied countries were people of the resistance.
From 1945 to 1950, the camp was used by the Soviet occupation authorities.
Buchenwald (German: “beech forest”) was chosen as the name for the camp because the Nazi authorities were unwilling to name the facility 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). The Goethe Eiche (Goethe’s Oak) stood inside the camp’s perimeter. Similarly, the camp could not be named for another town nearby (Hottelstedt) because of administrative considerations (it would have resulted in a lower pay grade for the camp’s SS guards).[citation needed]
Between July 1937 and April 1945, some 250,000 people were incarcerated in Buchenwald by the Nazi regime, including 168 Western Allied POWs. One estimate places the number of deaths in Buchenwald at 56,000 (discussed further below).
During an American bombing raid on 24 August 1944 that was directed at a nearby armament factory, several bombs, including incendiaries, also fell on the camp, resulting in heavy casualties amongst the inmates.
[Source: Wikipedia]
Send by: ixlop
Former months archives:
- May 2008
- April 2008
- March 2008
- February 2008
- January 2008
- December 2007
- November 2007
- October 2007
- September 2007
- August 2007
- July 2007
- Jun 2007
- May 2007
- April 2007
- March 2007
- February 2007
- January 2007
- December 2006
- November 2006
- October 2006
- September 2006
- August 2006
- July 2006
- Jun 2006
- May 2006
- April 2006
- March 2006
- February 2006
- January 2006
- December 2005
- November 2005
- October 2005
- September 2005
- August 2005
- July 2005
- June 2005
Leave a Reply