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Henri Christiaan Pieck (19 April 1895, in Den Helder – 12 January 1972, in The Hague) was a Dutch architect, painter and graphic artist.
Pieck married twice. On 12 July 1922, he married Geziena van Gelder, with whom he had one son. This union was dissolved on 14 May 1928. His second wife, Bernharda Hugona Johanna van Lier, whom he married on 25 May 1928 in St. Giles, England, bore him two daughters. Pieck was the twin brother of Anton Franciscus Pieck, another Dutch painter and graphic artist.
Contents
1 Political activity
2 Sources
3 Further reading
4 External links
Political activity[edit]
Han Pieck in Egypt (1920)
During the 1930s, Pieck operated as an agent for Soviet intelligence under Ignace Reiss.[1] During this time he cultivated friendship with several British Foreign Office clerks, including Captain John H King, who handed over to Pieck many telegrams, code books and other Foreign Office correspondence [2]
After being arrested on 9 June 1941 for resistance activities, Pieck spent the rest of World War II in German custody, first in the "Oranjehotel" (a detention center used at the beginning of the war by the Dutch as a POW camp that was later taken over by the Germans), after which he was deported to Buchenwald via the Nazi transit camp in Amersfoort.
Pieck was assigned to the “Never-Never Shipment,” sparing him from being killed at Auschwitz because of SS officials’ desire to have him produce paintings that they could sell to their acquaintances for high prices.[3] ****
PIECK, Henri Christiaan
(roepnaam: Han), communistisch schilder en illustrator en spion voor de Sovjet-Unie, is geboren te Den Helder op 19 april 1895 en overleden te Den Haag op 12 januari 1972. Hij was de zoon van Henri Christiaan Pieck, hoofdmachinist bij de marine, en Stoffelina Petronella Neijts. Op 12 juli 1922 trad hij in het huwelijk met Geziena van Gelder, kantoorbediende, met wie hij een zoon kreeg. Dit huwelijk werd op 14 mei 1928 ontbonden. Op 25 mei 1928 hertrouwde hij in St. Giles (Groot-Brittannië) met Bernharda Hugona Johanna (Bernie) van Lier, bibliothecaresse, met wie hij twee dochters kreeg.
De tweelingbroers Anton en Han Pieck, tot hun zeventiende vrijwel onafscheidelijk, groeiden onder vrij arme omstandigheden op. Hun vader, een man met liberale opvattingen, was veel weg en liet nogal eens na een deel van zijn gage over te maken. Hun moeder liet de jongens vrij zodat zij zich van heel jong af konden overgeven aan hun beider passie, de tekenkunst. In 1912 volgde Pieck een tekenopleiding in Den Haag, daarna lessen aan de Rijksacademie in Amsterdam. Volgens Anton was zijn broer een geniaal artiest, een groter kunstenaar dan hij zelf. Enkele malen sprak hij er zijn teleurstelling over uit dat Han zo weinig gebruik had gemaakt van zijn grote talent. Tot zijn 24ste jaar leefde Pieck, een joviale, gulle, impulsieve en soms naïeve man, het onbekommerde bestaan van een succesvol schilder. Hij had in die jaren, zoals hij later zelf zei, een grote belangstelling voor het artistieke en mondaine leven van 'Nes en Zeedijk'. Een ontmoeting in 1922 met Piet Mondriaan betekende een keerpunt in zijn leven. Hij kwam door die kennismaking tot het inzicht dat de manier waarop hij de beeldende kunsten beoefende, achterhaald was en geen bijdrage aan de strijd van de arbeidersbeweging was. Hij stopte met het maken van 'vrije' kunst en richtte zich op de 'toegepaste'. Hij werd een van Nederlands produktiefste reclametekenaars (onder meer affiches) en boekillustratoren. In politiek opzicht was een reis in 1919 naar Hongarije zeker van even groot belang voor de rest van zijn leven. In dat jaar nodigde een oudere vriend, Simon de Vries, een freelance journalist, hem uit mee te gaan naar Boedapest. Later verklaarde Pieck zijn ommezwaai naar links uit zijn ervaringen tijdens de kortstondige radenrepubliek van Béla Kun. De waarheidsgetrouwe artikelen van zijn vriend werden door The Times niet geplaatst. Vermoedelijk zijn de eerste contacten tussen functionarissen van de Communistische Internationale en Pieck tijdens dit verblijf in Hongarije gelegd.
Veel van Piecks leven speelde zich daarna achter de schermen af. Dat hij lid werd van de Communistische Partij in Nederland (CPN) is waarschijnlijk. In ieder geval sympathiseerde hij met de beweging. Alex de Leeuw, Leo van Lakerveld en de beeldhouwer Hildo Krop waren in de jaren twintig en dertig huisvrienden. Een blijvende vriendschap ontstond ook met mr. Simon de Jong, de eerste echtgenoot van Bernie van Lier en een bekend strafpleiter voor communisten. Tijdens de hongersnood in de Sovjet-Unie van 1921 maakte Pieck, staande op een handkar, sneltekeningen. De opbrengst was voor de hulp aan Rusland. In de jaren twintig maakte Pieck tekeningen voor het dagblad De Tribune en illustreerde uitgaven van de Roode Hulp. In mei 1929 verbood de Gorkumse politie een nummer van De Tribune vanwege een prent van Pieck die een Indonesische arbeider toont wiens mond wordt gesnoerd door het kolonialisme. De redactie maakte niet bekend wie de tekenaar was maar uit de signering die hij vaker toepaste (de initialen H en P die een hamer en sikkel vormen) was voor insiders duidelijk wie de prent had gemaakt. In 1929 maakte Pieck, die lid was van het Genootschap Nederland-Nieuw Rusland een reis met onder anderen Apie Prins, de architect H.P. Berlage, de journalist Philip Mechanicus, de econoom Herman Frijda en de Leidse studente in de Russische en Franse taal Frenny de Graaff naar de Sovjet-Unie. Hij schreef er een dik boek over onder de titel Zwart en wit uit het Roode Rusland (Amsterdam 1930). Het is een saai, kritiekloos verslag, uitgegeven door Scheltens & Giltay. Of Pieck, die helemaal geen schrijver was, het boek zelf schreef is twijfelachtig. Mogelijk deed Johan Visscher dat.
Enige naam kreeg Pieck door het illustreren van tientallen kinder-, meest meisjesboeken voor Becht, Kluitman, Valkhoff en Co. en andere uitgevers. Hij maakte ook de tekeningen voor De klas van twaalf (Baarn 1926) van Carry van Bruggen die hij persoonlijk kende. Voor het boek van de Amsterdamse arts dr. P.J. de Bruïne Ploos van Amstel De prostitutie door alle eeuwen (1928) gebruikte hij illustraties die hij tijdens een verblijf in Egypte (1920) had gemaakt. Pieck, die ook affiches maakte, Pietje Bell-boeken illustreerde en kalenders vervaardigde, nam zijn werk weinig serieus. Naar het oordeel van zijn broer, die zich eraan stoorde dat hij soms simpel met Pieck signeerde, flodderde de tweelingbroer het werk af. Over het illustreren van een kinderboek deed hij een dag. Als het manuscript 's morgens binnenkwam, kon het 's avonds mét de illustraties worden teruggestuurd naar de uitgever. Het honorarium daarvoor lag gemiddeld op tweehonderd gulden 'en dan konden we weer een hele tijd vooruit', vertelde zijn vrouw later. Eind jaren twintig, begin jaren dertig tekende Pieck minder en richtte zich meer op binnenhuisarchitectuur en het ontwerpen en inrichten van tentoonstellingsgebouwen.
Omstreeks 1930 ging Pieck voor een geheime dienst uit de Sovjet-Unie werken. Waarschijnlijk begon hij met kleine opdrachten en ontwikkelde dat werk zich tot een fulltime agentschap. Van zijn chefs zijn Samuel Ginsberg (alias Walter Krivitsky) en Ignace S. Poretsky (alias Ignace Reiss) bekend geworden. Vooral voor Reiss koesterde het echtpaar Pieck grote sympathie. Er waren meer Nederlandse communisten die koeriersdiensten voor een geheime dienst uit de Sovjet-Unie verrichtten maar de Piecks waren volgens de Binnenlandse Veiligheidsdienst (BVD) - die tot in de jaren zeventig geïnteresseerd bleef in de samenstelling van het vooroorlogse 'netwerk' - de enigen die dit werk fulltime deden en hun leven volkomen ondergeschikt maakten aan de opdrachten van Moskou. Begin jaren dertig verhuisde Pieck naar Genève. Hij nam zijn oude beroep als schilder weer op, maar nu als dekmantel. Als artiest moest hij van Reiss in contact proberen te komen met Britse diplomaten die bij de Volkenbond werkten. Via hen moest hij aan politieke informatie komen die voor de Sovjet-Unie van belang was. Dat lukte Pieck. Hij schilderde behalve exotische dames ook diplomaten met wie hij bevriend was geraakt. Een van de Britse diplomaten, John Herbert King, geloofde Piecks verhaal dat deze een vriend had die bankier was en wel voor informatie wilde betalen. King werd pas in 1939 gearresteerd en veroordeeld. Toen King in 1934 naar Londen werd overgeplaatst, volgde Pieck hem. Een van de opdrachten die Pieck met succes uitvoerde, betrof de aankoop tijdens de Spaanse burgeroorlog van vliegtuigen in Griekenland voor de wettige regering in Madrid.
In de zomer van 1937 brak Reiss, diep teleurgesteld door Stalins misdaden, met Moskou. Hij schreef een brief aan het Centraal Comité van de Communistische Partij van de Sovjet-Unie, waarin hij zijn besluit kenbaar maakte en aankondigde zich te zullen aansluiten bij de aanhangers van Leo Trotski. Enkele maanden later werd Reiss in de buurt van Lausanne door voor Moskou werkende huurmoordenaars vermoord. Kort daarop besloot ook Krivitsky die in Den Haag als Oostenrijks antiquair had geleefd, met Moskou te breken. Hoe Pieck deze gebeurtenissen beoordeelde, is nooit duidelijk geworden. Volgens zijn weduwe beschouwde hij de dood van Reiss als een bedrijfsongeval, een misverstand. Hij zelf werd waarschijnlijk als medewerker van twee 'overlopers' voor het geheime werk uitgeschakeld. Intussen stelde hij in het begin van de oorlog zijn atelier ter beschikking voor de vervaardiging van De Vonk, de Haagse editie van De Waarheid. Voor dat illegale werk werd hij gearresteerd en via de strafgevangenis in Scheveningen en het kamp Amersfoort in 1941 naar Buchenwald gestuurd. Ook in gevangenschap bleef Pieck een onverbeterlijk optimist die voor zijn medelotgenoten vaak een grote steun en hulp was. Zijn tekentalent was hem behulpzaam bij het overleven. Zijn redding was dat de Sicherheitsdienst niets wist van zijn vooroorlogse activiteiten voor de Sovjet-Unie.
Pieck, die in Buchenwald als communist deel uitmaakte van de illegale kampleiding, kwam schijnbaar ongebroken uit gevangenschap terug naar Nederland. Hij had grote verwachtingen van de politieke vernieuwing die hij noodzakelijk achtte. Een progressieve volkspartij van communisten, sociaal-democraten en burgerlijke radicalen had zijn steun. Hij ijverde daar in Buchenwald al voor. Dat hij nog steeds grote sympathie had voor de Sovjet-zaak bleek uit het feit dat hij kort na zijn eigen bevrijding bij de Sovjet-ambassade aanbood zijn vooroorlogse spionagewerk te hervatten. Moskou ging op het aanbod niet in. Pieck nam het beroep weer op dat hij ook voor de oorlog had uitgeoefend, dat van tentoonstellingsarchitect. Hij richtte onder meer de tentoonstelling De Nederlandse vrouw in die in 1948 aan koningin Wilhelmina werd aangeboden ter gelegenheid van haar vijftig-jarig jubileum. Schilderen deed hij nog maar zelden. Een verzoek actief te worden voor de CPN had hij in 1945 al genegeerd. De Piecks leidden gaandeweg een geïsoleerd bestaan. De vrienden van vroeger waren er niet meer en, wat nog zwaarder woog, niemand wist of mocht weten welk werk de Piecks vóór de oorlog voor Moskou hadden verricht. Dat hij er toch graag over wilde praten - enig snobisme was hem niet vreemd - bleek toen hij een ambtenaar van de BVD tijdens vele gesprekken, gespreid over vele jaren vertelde wat hij zich herinnerde van zijn vooroorlogse activiteiten.
Omstreeks 1950 ging de lichamelijke en geestelijke toestand van Pieck achteruit. Tot werken was hij steeds minder in staat. Soms begon hij met een portret maar dan kwam het niet af. Tegen Elsa Poretsky, de weduwe van Reiss, zei hij: 'Ik kan niet meer scheppen, alleen maar reproduceren; een kleurenfoto is net zo goed, en misschien zelfs wel beter'. Kort na de oorlog werden van hem twee mappen tekeningen uitgegeven, Buchenwald en Verwoest Nederland, waarvan vooral de eerste veel indruk maakte. Het was een van de weinige momenten dat hij, zoals hij het zelf uitdrukte, op papier nog iets te zeggen had. Omstreeks 1955 was zijn geloof in de Sovjet-Unie verdwenen. Tegen Jan Kassies, met wie hij in Scheveningen gevangen had gezeten, zei hij: 'Wat zijn wij verschrikkelijk bedrogen, Jan'. Toen in 1956 de Hongaarse revolutie door Russische tanks werd neergeslagen, hing hij in zijn tuin aan de Scheveningse Duinroosweg de vlag halfstok. Tijdens zijn crematie werd op zijn verzoek Russische treurmuziek gespeeld. Behalve door een advertentie van de familie werd van zijn dood in 1972 melding gemaakt door de Stichting Oranjehotel waarvan hij vice-voorzitter was. De Stichting roemde zijn grote hulpvaardigheid en diep menselijk begrip. Pieck was geen politicus en nog veel minder een theoreticus. In de historische kanten van een vraagstuk verdiepte hij zich niet. Van de kranten las hij alleen de koppen. Dat hij zijn spionagewerk zo lang kon volhouden zonder dat zijn omgeving het merkte, kwam ook door zijn grote charme. Iedereen vond hem aardig en innemend. Vijanden had hij niet. Voordat in 1989 het boek De GPOe op de Overtoom uitkwam, waarin de levens van de Sovjet-spionnen Reiss, Krivitsky en Pieck centraal staan, dacht menig kunstbroeder van Pieck dat hij in de politiek ter rechterzijde stond of op zijn minst a-politiek was. Zelfs zijn tweelingbroer wist van zijn spionage-activiteiten niets af. ***** Henri Pieck
1895 (Den Halder, Netherlands) - 1972 (Den Haag)
Painter, Graphic Designer and Illustrator
"In memory of a horrendous time, in which there were also moments of great beauty."
Henri Pieck was born to a working-class family in Den Helder, Netherlands on 19 April 1895, and received his first drawing lessons at the age of six. In 1914 he joined the Communist Party. He became a painter, graphic artist and illustrator; his main pictorial subjects were studies of life in poor districts, the glamourous world of vaudeville, and paintings of nudes. His work included illustrations for non-fiction books, book jacket designs and both advertising and political posters. From 1930 onwards he spent periods living in Geneva, London and Paris. Officially he was working as a courier for the Netherlands Foreign Ministry while in fact he and his wife Bernie Pieck-van Lier were spying for Soviet intelligence; he is considered to have been one of the most important agents at the League of Nations in Geneva. In 1934 a solo exhibition in Geneva’s "Club International" presented his portraits of female dancers and his nudes. During the German occupation of the Netherlands he supported the communist underground journal De Vonk ("The Spark") and continued to design exhibitions for the Dutch authorities.
Pieck was arrested in June 1941 in connection with the illegal production of De Vonk, and after a period in the Scheveningen prison and then in the Amersfoort camp he was transferred to Buchenwald Concentration Camp in April 1942. Here he carried out portrait commissions for the SS, which helped to ensure his survival. He belonged to the Dutch section of the International Camp Committee, which protected him so that he could secretly make drawings of the camp. When the SS was about to send him on a transport he contrived to disguise himself as a Russian prisoner of war and go into hiding in the Little Camp.
Following liberation Pieck returned to his family in the Netherlands. In 1946 he published a portfolio entitled containing the drawings he had made in Buchenwald, and another, Verwoest Nederland ("The Destroyed Netherlands"), with drawings of war damage in the Netherlands which he had executed both before and after his time in the camp. In the post-war period he worked mainly as a designer for international trade fairs and prestigious exhibitions.
Henri Pieck died in The Hague on 12 January 1972. ****
Henri Pieck
Sections
Ernest Holloway Oldham
John Herbert King
Second World War
Primary Sources
Henri Pieck was born in Den Helder, Netherlands, on 19th April 1895. An artist, he developed left-wing views and was recruited as an NKVD agent by Walter Krivitsky. According to Gary Kern, the author of A Death in Washington: Walter G. Krivitsky and the Stalin Terror (2004) Pieck posed as a Dutch businessman in Leipzig: "He could always find a reason to drive home. As an artist, he could make frequent visits to London." Pieck was instructed to "stay as long as you can and photograph all you can."
Peter Wright, a senior figure in MI5, explained in his book, Spycatcher (1987) that Pieck was one of a group of "great illegals" that included Ignaz Reiss, Walter Krivitsky, Theodore Maly, Arnold Deutsch, Richard Sorge, Leopold Trepper, Hans Brusse and Alexander Radó. "They were often not Russians at all, although they held Russian citizenship. They were Trotskyist Communists who believed in international Communism and the Comintern. They worked undercover, often at great personal risk, and traveled throughout the world in search of potential recruits. They were the best recruiters and controllers the Russian Intelligence Service ever had."
Ernest Holloway Oldham
Pieck also worked with by Soviet agent, Dmitri Bystrolyotov. In 1929 Bystrolyotov recruited Ernest Holloway Oldham, who headed the department that distributed coded diplomatic telegrams at the Foreign Office. According to John Costello and Oleg Tsarev, the authors of Deadly Illusions (1993): "Bystrolyotov... paid him £2,000 and put Oldham and his wife (who according to his report had seduced him) under Soviet control.... Because of British secrecy, the significance of the Oldham case has remained undisclosed and underestimated. The truth, as revealed by NKVD, files is that Oldham was not just a code clerk but a cypher expert who developed codes and was therefore able to provide Moscow with a great deal of information on security and secret traffic systems. The resourceful Bystrolyotov, who operated under the alias of Hans Gallieni in England, had also obtained from Oldham not only the keys to unlock a considerable volume of British cypher cables but also the names of the other paid members of the Communications Department who became targets for Soviet recruitment."
Oldham was then passed on to Henri Pieck. Oldham's codename was ARNO. His wife, Lucy Oldham, was also part of the network (codename MADAM). Oldham was paid $1,000 a month for the information he provided to the Soviet Union. It is believed that Oldham was the first Soviet spy recruited in Britain. Richard Deacon has argued: "There is evidence that Oldham did more harm to the USA and Canada than to Britain by providing the names of prospective agents in key positions in those countries. It is thought that he obtained some of these names from a mysterious female agent named Leonore. One of the Soviet contacts was a Russian oilman named Feldman who operated in Britain under the name of Voldarsky and who later started a Soviet network to spy on the USA from Canada."
According to Gary Kern, the author of A Death in Washington: Walter G. Krivitsky and the Stalin Terror (2004), Oldham in the 1930s displayed behaviour that was "a riot of drunkenness, alcohol-related sickness, professional sloppiness, wife beating, unaccountable spending and insubordination." This led to him being suspected of being a German spy. "He fell under suspicion of espionage when a codebook could not be found in a safe to which he had access. Then a batch of telegrams disappeared. Warned to observe standard procedures, he steadfastly refused and was forced to retire in September 1932, without pension."
Kern claims that Oldham was surprisingly allowed "to come into the workplace, chatted with former colleagues and crept around mysteriously with nothing to do. Keys to the super-secret storeroom were left out as a test for him and were not taken, but found to contain traces of wax after one of his visits." His controller, Walter Krivitsky, who was based in Rotterdam, described how immense was his astonishment when he heard that in spite of his dismissal Oldham was still allowed free access to the FO and to visit his friends."
Ernest Holloway Oldham was found dead in in Kensington on 29th September, 1933. The following day The Times reported: "Kensington police are trying to trace the identity of a man aged about thirty-five, who was found dead in a gas-filled kitchen at 31 Pembroke Gardens, Kensington... the shirt bore the initials EHO." According to Richard Deacon: "After that there was absolute silence in the press, both national and local - no mention of an inquest, no obituary, no indication of the man's identity." His death certificate showed that he died from "coal gas poisoning" and a verdict of suicide "while of unsound mind" was recorded.
John Herbert King
In 1935 Pieck was involved in the recruitment of John Herbert King, who also worked at the Foreign Office. According to Gary Kern King was approached by Pieck: "Captain John Herbert King was a clerk without a pension or decent prospects for the future. Over beer with Pieck, he expressed himself as a disgruntled Irishman, a victim of English discrimination, under appreciated and underpaid. He had a son who deserved the best things in life and an American mistress whose tastes were not inexpensive. Pieck sympathized. He and his wife took King and his mistress on a paid vacation to Spain and made King hunger for the pleasures of high society."
King's codename was MAG. During the first year King routinely delivered a package after work to a photographic studio at 34 Buckingham Gate, not far from the Foreign Office in Whitehall, and picked it up on his way to work the next morning. The studio was rented by Pieck's business partner, Conrad Parlanti, who thought it had something to do with interior decorating. Donald Maclean (code-named WAISE) who joined the Foreign Office in October 1935, and became part of the same spy network. King was able to provide a verbatim account of a meeting that Lord Halifax had with Adolf Hitler in 1936. This was then passed on to Joseph Stalin. The man who oversaw the operation in Moscow was Dmitri Bystrolyotov. He recorded that "MAG works with clockwork precision."
Donald Maclean and Theodore Maly
In January 1936 Henri Pieck developed security problems and King and Donald Maclean were passed on to Theodore Maly. Over the next few years he provided Foreign Office telegraphic traffic to the Russian Intelligence Service. On 24th May 1936, Maly reported: "Tonight WAISE (Maclean) arrived with an enormous bundle of dispatches, of which MAG (King) had supplied only a few. Only part of them have been photographed, which we have marked with a W, because we have run out of film and today is Sunday - and night-time at that. We wanted him (Maclean) to take out a military intelligence bulletin, but he did not succeed in doing this. On Saturday he must stay on duty in London and we hope that he will be able to bring out more, including those which he has not managed to get out yet."
Second World War
During the Second World War Pieck was involved with the resistance in the Netherlands against the occupation of the German Army. He was arrested on 9th June 1941 and spent the rest of the war in German custody. First of all he was in the Oranjehotel until being deported to Buchenwald. On his release in 1945 he brought over to London where he was interviewed by MI5 about his involvement with Soviet spies, Ernest Holloway Oldham and John Herbert King. He also provided information on Lucy Oldham. The MI5 file report shows that Lucy Oldham threw herself into the Thames at Richmond in 1950. According to Gary Kern: "The timing of her demise, apparently fortuitous for the NKVD, raised suspicions that she had been silenced."
Henri Pieck died in The Hague on 12th January, 1972. ***** Henri Pieck
1895 (Den Halder, Netherlands) - 1972 (Den Haag)
Painter, graphic artist and illustrator
"In memory of a hideous time, in which there were also the most beautiful moments."
Henri Christiaan Pieck (Han Pieck) was born on April 19, 1895 in the North Holland port city of Den Helder into a family of seafarers. Together with his twin brother Anton, who later became known to almost every Dutchman for his old Dutch motifs and winter views, he took drawing lessons at school. Henri Pieck studies in The Hague, later at the Rijksakademie Amsterdam and acquires the license to teach. Then he was drawn into the wide world: in 1919 he was impressed by the Hungarian Soviet Republic. In the years that followed he met representatives of the Dutch labor movement and in 1921 designed a poster against the famine in the Soviet Union. An encounter with the painter Piet Mondrian encouraged him not only to work as a "freelance" artist, but also to use his art for social goals. In the following years he designed numerous posters and became a well-known exhibition architect. Among other things, he works for the Leipzig Trade Fair and designs trade fair exhibitions in Liège, Geneva, London, Paris and Madrid on behalf of the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs. At the same time, a graphic and painterly work is created in which nude painting, variety shows and social themes dominate.
In June 1941, Henri Pieck was arrested because the illegal communist newspaper “De Vonk” was being produced in his studio in The Hague; on April 2, 1942 he was deported to the Buchenwald concentration camp. There Henri Pieck belongs to the Dutch camp resistance and to the close leadership of the secret international camp organization. He finds shelter in the "Virus Research Block 50" commando, a former prisoner block of flats that has been converted into a laboratory for the production of typhus vaccines, in which the SS has prisoners produce vaccines. Political prisoners in camp functions, such as Eugen Kogon, helped him to get commissions for panel paintings for the SS. He also drew and painted portraits of fellow prisoners and secretly sketched the suffering he perceived around him.
After the war he revised his sketches and published them in a portfolio at the end of 1945 in the publishing house “Het Centrum” in The Hague and in 1949 in the VVN-Verlag GmbH Berlin-Potsdam. He is known to a broad public in the Netherlands primarily for the cover design of young adult books such as Pietje Bell and Dick Trom, for his cityscapes of Amsterdam and Paris and for his portraits. Henri Pieck died in The Hague on January 12, 1972. ****
BUCHENWALD
Between 1933 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its allies established more than 44,000 camps and other incarceration sites (including ghettos). The perpetrators used these locations for a range of purposes, including forced labor, detention of people deemed to be "enemies of the state," and mass murder. Millions of people suffered and died or were killed. Among these sites was the Buchenwald camp near the city of Weimar.
KEY FACTS
1
The Nazi regime established the Buchenwald concentration camp already in 1937, before the start of World War II.
2
Prisoners of Buchenwald included Jews, political prisoners, repeat offenders, Jehovah's Witnesses, Roma View This Term in the Glossary (Gypsies), German military deserters, asocials, and prisoners-of-war.
3
On April 11, 1945, in expectation of liberation, Buchenwald prisoners stormed the watchtowers. They seized control of the camp. Later that afternoon, US forces entered Buchenwald and found more than 21,000 people in the camp.
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IntroductionClick here to copy a link to this section
Together with its many satellite camps, Buchenwald was one of the largest concentration camps established within the German borders of 1937.
Location of the CampClick here to copy a link to this section
The Buchenwald concentration camp was constructed in 1937 about five miles northwest of the city of Weimar in east-central Germany. It was located in a wooded area on the northern slopes of the Ettersberg, a hill north of the city of Weimar.
Before the Nazis rose to power, Weimar was primarily associated with Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832). Goethe was a leading European literary figure and a product of German liberal tradition in the 18th and early 19th centuries. It was in Weimar that Goethe made his home.
Weimar was also known as the birthplace of German constitutional democracy, the Weimar Republic (1918–1933).
During the Nazi regime, Weimar became associated with the Buchenwald concentration camp.
Buchenwald concentration camp, spring 1945
US Holocaust Memorial Museum
Camp FacilitiesClick here to copy a link to this section
Prisoners lived in the Buchenwald main camp. This area was surrounded by an electrified barbed-wire fence, watchtowers, and a chain of sentries outfitted with automatic machine guns.
Inside the main camp, there was a notorious punishment block, known as the Bunker. It was located at the entrance to the main camp. This is where prisoners who violated camp regulations were punished and often tortured to death.
In addition to the punishment block, the main camp included
33 wooden barracks
15 two-story stone buildings
a prisoners’ infirmary
kitchen
laundry
canteen
warehouses
workshops
disinfection buildings
It also eventually had a railway station, brothel, and crematorium. View This Term in the Glossary SS guard barracks and the camp administration compound were located in the southern part of the camp.
Prisoner PopulationClick here to copy a link to this section
SS authorities opened Buchenwald for male prisoners in July 1937.
Women were not part of the Buchenwald camp system until 1943. The presence of female prisoners significantly increased in 1944. At that time Buchenwald took over subcamps from the Ravensbrück concentration camp, which primarily imprisoned women.
Political Prisoners
Most of the early inmates at Buchenwald were political prisoners, people who had been arrested for some form of political opposition to the Nazi regime. Given their long-term presence at the site, these "politicals" played an important role in the camp's prisoner infrastructure.
In 1944, camp officials established a "special compound" for prominent German political prisoners near the camp administration building in Buchenwald.
One of the most prominent political victims of Buchenwald was Ernst Thälmann. Before Hitler's rise to power in 1933, Thälmann had been the chairman of the Communist Party of Germany. In 1933, he was arrested by the Nazi regime. In August 1944, the SS staff murdered Thälmann in Buchenwald after holding him there for several years.
Jewish Prisoners
In 1938, in the aftermath of Kristallnacht, German SS and police sent almost 10,000 Jews to Buchenwald. There, camp authorities subjected them to extraordinarily cruel treatment upon arrival. Over 250 of these prisoners died as a result of injuries incurred during their arrest or from their initial mistreatment at the camp.
Other Prisoner Groups
In addition to political prisoners and Jews, the SS also interned the following groups of people at Buchenwald:
repeat offenders
Jehovah's Witnesses
Sinti and Roma (Gypsies)
German military deserters
Furthermore, Buchenwald was one of the only concentration camps that held so-called “work-shy” individuals. These were people whom the regime incarcerated as “asocials” because they could not, or would not, find gainful employment.
In the camp's later stages, the SS also incarcerated
prisoners-of-war from various nations, including the United States
resistance fighters
prominent former government officials of German-occupied countries
foreign forced laborers
Starting in late summer 1941 until 1943, a special guard unit named "SS Kommando View This Term in the Glossary 99" shot 8,000 Soviet prisoners-of-war at an SS stable adjacent to the camp. The SS often shot prisoners in the stables and hanged other prisoners in the crematorium View This Term in the Glossary area.
Medical Experiments at BuchenwaldClick here to copy a link to this section
Beginning in 1941, a number of physicians and scientists carried out a program of medical experimentation on prisoners at Buchenwald. These experiments took place in special barracks in the northern part of the main camp. Medical experiments aimed at testing the efficacy of vaccines and treatments against contagious diseases, such as typhus, typhoid, cholera, and diphtheria. They resulted in hundreds of deaths.
In 1944, Danish physician Dr. Carl Vaernet began a series of experiments that he claimed would "cure" inmates who had been imprisoned for homosexuality. In particular, these were prisoners who had already served prison sentences for violating Paragraph 175 and were sent to a concentration camp instead of being released. These experiments involved transplanting an artificial male sex gland. The experiments proved a failure. Vaernet quickly lost favor with Nazi officials.
Forced Labor and SubcampsClick here to copy a link to this section
During World War II, the Buchenwald main camp administered at least 88 subcamps. These subcamps were located across Germany, from Düsseldorf in the western part of Germany to Germany’s eastern border with the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia.
While some subcamps were state-owned, others were private enterprises. For example, in February 1942, the Gustloff firm established a subcamp of Buchenwald to support its armaments works. In March 1943, the company opened a large munitions plant adjacent to the camp. A rail siding completed in 1943 connected the camp with the freight yards in Weimar, facilitating the shipment of war supplies.
In these subcamps, the Nazi regime used prisoners in the Buchenwald camp system as forced laborers. SS authorities and firm executives (both state-owned and private) deployed Buchenwald prisoners to
the German Equipment Works (Deutsche-Ausrüstungswerke; DAW), an enterprise owned and operated by the SS
camp workshops
armaments factories
stone quarries
construction projects
Periodically, the SS physicians conducted selections throughout the Buchenwald camp system and dispatched those too weak or disabled to work to so-called euthanasia facilities such as Sonnenstein. At these facilities, euthanasia operatives gassed them as part of Operation 14f13, the extension of euthanasia killing operations to ill and exhausted concentration camp prisoners. SS physicians or orderlies used phenol injections to kill other prisoners unable to work.
Evacuation and Liberation of BuchenwaldClick here to copy a link to this section
As Soviet forces entered German-occupied Poland, the Germans evacuated thousands of prisoners from Nazi German concentration camps. After long, brutal marches, more than 10,000 weak and exhausted prisoners from Auschwitz and Gross-Rosen, most of them Jews, arrived in Buchenwald in January 1945. By February, the number of prisoners in Buchenwald reached 112,000.
In early April 1945, as US forces approached the camp, the Germans began to evacuate some 28,000 prisoners from the main camp and an additional several thousand prisoners from the subcamps of Buchenwald. There are no records of the deaths resulting from starvation, exposure, exhaustion, or murder by guards.
The underground resistance organization in Buchenwald, whose members held key administrative posts in the camp, saved many lives. They obstructed Nazi orders and delayed the evacuation.
On April 11, 1945, in expectation of liberation, prisoners stormed the watchtowers. They seized control of the camp. Later that afternoon, US forces entered Buchenwald. Soldiers from the 6th Armored Division, part of the Third Army, found more than 21,000 people in the camp.
Liberation of Buchenwald
The US army filmed the weak and emaciated survivors of the Buchenwald concentration camp in Germany to document Nazi crimes against humanity. This film was shot shortly after the liberation of the camp in April 1945.
National Archives - Film
View Archival Details
Between July 1937 and April 1945, the SS imprisoned some 250,000 persons from all countries of Europe in Buchenwald. Exact mortality figures for the Buchenwald site can only be estimated, as camp authorities never registered a significant number of the prisoners. The SS murdered at least 56,000 male prisoners in the Buchenwald camp system. Some 11,000 of them were Jews.
Barack Obama's 2009 Visit to the SiteClick here to copy a link to this section
Then President Barack Obama visited Buchenwald concentration camp in Germany on June 5, 2009. In a speech at the site, he repudiated Holocaust denial. June 6, 2009, marked the 65th anniversary of D-Day. Obama’s great-uncle Charlie Payne, with the US Army in 1945, was one of the liberators of Ohrdruf, a satellite forced-labor camp close to Buchenwald. ****
Buchenwald Concentration Camp, 1937–1945
In July 1937, the SS has the forest cleared on the Ettersberg near Weimar and builds a new concentration camp in its place. The purpose of the camp is to combat political opponents, persecute Jews, Sinti and Roma, and permanently ostracize “strangers to the community” – among them homosexuals, homeless persons, Jehovah’s Witnesses and ex-convicts – from the “body of the German people”. It is not long before Buchenwald has become a synonym for the Nazi concentration camp system.
After the war begins, people are deported to Buchenwald from all over Europe. Altogether almost 280,000 persons are ultimately imprisoned in the concentration camp on the Ettersberg and its 139 subcamps. The SS forces them to perform labour for the German armament industry.
By the end of the war, Buchenwald is the largest concentration camp in the German Reich. More than 56,000 die there as the result of torture, medical experiments and consumption. Over 8,000 Soviet prisoners of war are shot to death in a killing facility erected especially for that purpose. Members of the resistance form an underground organization in the camp in the effort to curb SS violence. The “Little Camp” nevertheless becomes the “hell of Buchenwald”. The enfeebled inmates continue to die by the thousands right up until the camp’s liberation.
When the Americans reach Buchenwald and its subcamps in April 1945, the supreme commander of the Allied Forces, Dwight D. Eisenhower, writes: "Nothing has ever shocked me as much as that sight." **** Buchenwald Concentration Camp and the Rescue of Jews
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Buchenwald Concentration Camp was established in 16 July 1937 on Mount Ettersberg, seven Kilometres north of the city of Weimar that played an important role in the development of German culture and was home to many great men, including Goethe, Schiller, Luther, Bach, Liszt and others. The two places: Weimar – a symbol for the greatness of German culture – and Buchenwald, the manifestation of Nazi barbarism, are often juxtaposed when discussing German history.
The initial purpose was to incarcerate opponents of the regime and other German undesirables, but in the eight years of its existence around 240,000 inmates from 30 nationalities passed through the camp – it is estimated that around 56 ,000 out of them were killed or died from the harsh conditions. In 1938 around 2,000 Jews were brought to Buchenwald from Austria, and following Kristallnacht, another 10,000 German Jews were imprisoned in the camp. They were subjected to brutal terror. 600 of them perished; the others were released after they committed to leave Germany.
During the war years the camp held many political prisoners and the camp population grew to 37,000 in 1943 and 63,000 in the beginning of 1944.
The Communist political prisoners in Buchenwald formed an underground movement, which managed to sabotage the work in the ammunition factories and smuggle weapons into the camp. Several of its members also engaged in saving inmates' lives. Some of these inmates in the resistance movement rescued Jewish inmates and were recognized as Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem. Among them: Walter Kraemer who illegally smuggled a Jewish prisoner out of the "Small Camp" for medical treatment and who was killed because he refused orders of the SS doctor; Willi Bleicher who rescued Stefan, the three-year-old son of the Polish Jewish doctor Dr. Zacharia Zweig; Wilhelm Hammann who was the head of Barrack 8 where the children were held, among them Rabbi Lau, and who had the children replace the patches identifying them as Jews; Walter Sonntag who prevented the evacuation of the Jewish in his Barrack – Block 49 – on 6 April 1945, thus saving them from the death march.
In January 1945 the Germans began to evacuate Auschwitz and other camps in the East in face of the advancing Red Army. Many thousands of inmates – many of them Jews – arrived with these death marches in Buchenwald. The number of inmates swelled to 86,000. The Jewish inmates were put in the so-called small camp and in a tent camp where conditions were terrible.
On 6 April 1945, as the American forces were close by the Germans began to evacuate the camp. Between 15,000-25,000 inmates died in the process. The camp resistance managed to slow down the evacuation, and when the camp was liberated on 11 April 1945, there were 21,000 survivors, including 4,000 Jews and 1,000 children. **** Buchenwald (German pronunciation: [ˈbuːxn̩valt]; literally 'beech wood') was a Nazi concentration camp established on Ettersberg [de] hill near Weimar, Germany, in July 1937. It was one of the first and the largest of the concentration camps within Germany's 1937 borders. Many actual or suspected communists were among the first internees.
Prisoners came from all over Europe and the Soviet Union—Jews, Poles and other Slavs, the mentally ill and physically disabled, political prisoners, Romani people, Freemasons, and prisoners of war. There were also ordinary criminals and sexual "deviants". All prisoners worked primarily as forced labor in local armaments factories. The insufficient food and poor conditions, as well as deliberate executions, led to 56,545 deaths at Buchenwald of the 280,000 prisoners who passed through the camp and its 139 subcamps.[1] The camp gained notoriety when it was liberated by the United States Army in April 1945; Allied commander Dwight D. Eisenhower visited one of its subcamps.
From August 1945 to March 1950, the camp was used by the Soviet occupation authorities as an internment camp, NKVD special camp Nr. 2, where 28,455 prisoners were held and 7,113 of whom died. Today the remains of Buchenwald serve as a memorial and permanent exhibition and museum.
Contents
1 Establishment
2 Command structure
2.1 Organization
2.2 Female prisoners and overseers
2.3 Subcamps
3 Allied POWs
4 Death toll
4.1 Causes of death
4.2 Number of deaths
5 Liberation
5.1 Civilian tour
6 Aftermath
6.1 Buchenwald Trial
6.2 The site
6.3 Literature
6.4 Visit from President Obama and Chancellor Merkel
7 See also
8 References
9 Further reading
10 External links
Establishment[edit]
Entrance gate of the Buchenwald concentration camp, inscribed Jedem das Seine ("To each his own")
Dutch Jews stand during a roll call after their prisoner transport from Buchenwald in May 1941 in camp Mauthausen on 26 June 1941[2]
Prisoners forced to work on the Buchenwald–Weimar rail line, 1943
The Schutzstaffel (SS) established Buchenwald concentration camp at the beginning of July 1937.[3] The camp was to be named Ettersberg [de], after the hill in Thuringia upon whose north slope the camp was established.[3][4] The proposed name was deemed inappropriate because it carried associations with several important figures in German culture, especially Enlightenment writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe who was living in Weimar. Instead the camp was to be named Buchenwald, in reference to the beech forest in the area. However, Holocaust researcher James E. Young [de] wrote that SS leaders chose the site of the camp precisely to erase the cultural legacy of the area. After the area of the camp was cleared of trees, only one large oak remained, supposedly one of Goethe's Oaks.[5][6]
The camp, designed to hold 8,000 prisoners, was intended to replace several smaller concentration camps nearby, including Bad Sulza [de], Sachsenburg, and Lichtenburg. Compared to these camps, Buchenwald had a greater potential to profit the SS because the nearby clay deposits could be made into bricks by the forced labor of prisoners. The first prisoners arrived on 15 July 1937, and had to clear the area of trees and build the camp's structures.[3] By September, the population had risen to 2,400 following transfers from Bad Sulza, Sachsenburg, and Lichtenburg.[7]
On the camp's main gate, the motto Jedem das Seine (English: "To each his own"), was inscribed. The SS interpreted this to mean the "master race" had a right to humiliate and destroy others.[8] It was designed by Buchenwald prisoner and Bauhaus architect Franz Ehrlich, who used a Bauhaus typeface for it, even though Bauhaus was seen as degenerate art by the National Socialists and was prohibited. This defiance however went unnoticed by the SS.[9]
Command structure[edit]
Organization[edit]
Buchenwald's first commandant was SS-Obersturmbannführer Karl-Otto Koch, who ran the camp from 1 August 1937 to July 1941. His second wife, Ilse Koch, became notorious as Die Hexe von Buchenwald ("the witch of Buchenwald") for her cruelty and brutality. In February 1940 Koch had an indoor riding hall built by the prisoners who died by the dozen due to the harsh conditions of the construction site. The hall was built inside the camp, near the canteen, so that oftentimes Ilse Koch could be seen riding in the morning to the beat of the prisoner orchestra.[10] Koch himself was eventually imprisoned at Buchenwald by the Nazi authorities for incitement to murder. The charges were lodged by Prince Waldeck and Dr. Morgen, to which were later added charges of corruption, embezzlement, black market dealings, and exploitation of the camp workers for personal gain.[11] Other camp officials were charged, including Ilse Koch. The trial resulted in Karl Koch being sentenced to death for disgracing both himself and the SS; he was executed by firing squad on 5 April 1945, one week before American troops arrived. Ilse Koch was sentenced to a term of four years' imprisonment after the war. Her sentence was reduced to two years and she was set free. She was subsequently arrested again and sentenced to life imprisonment by the post-war German authorities; she committed suicide in Aichach (Bavaria) prison in September 1967.[12] The second commandant of the camp, between 1942 and 1945, was Hermann Pister (1942–1945). He was tried in 1947 (Dachau Trials) and sentenced to death, but on 28 September 1948 he died in Landsberg Prison of a heart attack before the sentence could be carried out.[13]
Female prisoners and overseers[edit]
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The number of women held in Buchenwald was somewhere between 500 and 1,000. The first female inmates were twenty political prisoners who were accompanied by a female SS guard (Aufseherin); these women were brought to Buchenwald from Ravensbrück in 1941 and forced into sexual slavery at the camp's brothel. The SS later fired the SS woman on duty in the brothel for corruption; her position was taken over by "brothel mothers" as ordered by SS chief Heinrich Himmler.
The majority of women prisoners, however, arrived in 1944 and 1945 from other camps, mainly Auschwitz, Ravensbrück, and Bergen Belsen. Only one barracks was set aside for them; this was overseen by the female block leader (Blockführerin) Franziska Hoengesberg, who came from Essen when it was evacuated. All the women prisoners were later shipped out to one of Buchenwald's many female satellite camps in Sömmerda, Buttelstedt, Mühlhausen, Gotha, Gelsenkirchen, Essen, Lippstadt, Weimar, Magdeburg, and Penig, to name a few. No female guards were permanently stationed at Buchenwald.
Ilse Koch served as head supervisor (Oberaufseherin) of 22 other female guards and hundreds of women prisoners in the main camp. More than 530 women served as guards in the vast Buchenwald system of subcamps and external commands across Germany. Only 22 women served/trained in Buchenwald, compared to over 15,500 men.[14]
Subcamps[edit]
Main article: List of subcamps of Buchenwald
About 136 subcamps and satellite commandos belonged to Buchenwald concentration camp.[15] The first subcamps of Buchenwald were established in 1941 so that the prisoners could work in nearby SS industries.
In 1942, the SS began to use its forced labor supply for armaments production. Because it was more economical to rent out prisoners to private firms, subcamps were set up near factories which had a demand for prisoner labor. Private firms paid the SS between 4 and 6 Reichsmarks per day per prisoner, resulting in an estimated 95,758,843 Reichsmarks in revenue for the SS between June 1943 and February 1945.[16] So the subcamps of Buchenwald were mainly used for armament production and other fabrications and are considered labour camps. Conditions were worse than at the main camp, with prisoners provided insufficient food and inadequate shelter.[17]
Allied POWs[edit]
Main article: Allied airmen at Buchenwald concentration camp
Although it was highly unusual for German authorities to send Western Allied POWs to concentration camps, Buchenwald held a group of 168 aviators for two months.[18] These men were from the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Jamaica. They all arrived at Buchenwald on 20 August 1944.[19][20]
All these airmen were in aircraft that had crashed in occupied France. Two explanations are given for them being sent to a concentration camp: first, that they had managed to make contact with the French Resistance, some were disguised as civilians, and they were carrying false papers when caught; they were therefore categorized by the Germans as spies, which meant their rights under the Geneva Convention were not respected. The second explanation is that they had been categorised as Terrorflieger ("terror aviators"). The aviators were initially held in Gestapo prisons and headquarters in France. In April or August 1944, they and other Gestapo prisoners were packed into covered goods wagons (US: boxcars) and sent to Buchenwald. The journey took five days, during which they received very little food or water.[21]
Death toll[edit]
Causes of death[edit]
On 26 April 1942, twenty Polish prisoners were hanged in retaliation for the killing of a German overseer. Pictured awaiting execution.
A primary cause of death was illness due to harsh camp conditions, with starvation—and its consequent illnesses—prevalent. Malnourished and suffering from disease, many were literally "worked to death" under the Vernichtung durch Arbeit policy (extermination through labor), as inmates only had the choice between slave labor or inevitable execution. Many inmates died as a result of human experimentation or fell victim to arbitrary acts perpetrated by the SS guards. Other prisoners were simply murdered, primarily by shooting and hanging.
Walter Gerhard Martin Sommer was an SS-Hauptscharführer who served as a guard at the concentration camps of Dachau and Buchenwald. Known as the "Hangman of Buchenwald", he was considered a depraved sadist who reportedly ordered Otto Neururer and Mathias Spanlang, two Austrian priests, to be crucified upside-down. Sommer was especially infamous for hanging prisoners off of trees from their wrists, which had been tied behind their backs (a torture technique known as strappado) in the "singing forest", so named because of the screams which emanated from this wooded area.[22][23]
Summary executions of Soviet POWs were also carried out at Buchenwald. At least 1,000 men were selected in 1941–42 by a task force of three Dresden Gestapo officers and sent to the camp for immediate liquidation by a gunshot to the back of the neck, the infamous Genickschuss.
The camp was also a site of large-scale trials for vaccines against epidemic typhus in 1942 and 1943. In all 729 inmates were used as test subjects, of whom 154 died.[24] Other "experimentation" occurred at Buchenwald on a smaller scale. One such experiment aimed at determining the precise fatal dose of a poison of the alkaloid group; according to the testimony of one doctor, four Soviet POWs were administered the poison, and when it proved not to be fatal they were "strangled in the crematorium" and subsequently "dissected".[25] Among various other experiments was one which, in order to test the effectiveness of a balm for wounds from incendiary bombs, involved inflicting "very severe" white phosphorus burns on inmates.[26] When challenged at trial over the nature of this testing, and particularly over the fact that the testing was designed in some cases to cause death and only to measure the time which elapsed until death was caused, one Nazi doctor's defence was that, although a doctor, he was a "legally appointed executioner".[27]
Number of deaths[edit]
Main article: Number of deaths in Buchenwald
Corpses found in the camp after liberation
The SS left behind accounts of the number of prisoners and people coming to and leaving the camp, categorizing those leaving them by release, transfer, or death. These accounts are one of the sources of estimates for the number of deaths in Buchenwald. According to SS documents, 33,462 died. These documents were not, however, necessarily accurate: Among those executed before 1944, many were listed as "transferred to the Gestapo". Furthermore, from 1941, Soviet POWs were executed in mass killings. Arriving prisoners selected for execution were not entered into the camp register and therefore were not among the 33,462 dead listed.[28]
One former Buchenwald prisoner, Armin Walter, calculated the number of executions by the number of shootings in the spine at the base of the head. His job at Buchenwald was to set up and care for a radio installation at the facility where people were executed; he counted the numbers, which arrived by telex, and hid the information. He says that 8,483 Soviet prisoners of war were shot in this manner.[29]
According to the same source, the total number of deaths at Buchenwald is estimated at 56,545. This number is the sum of:
Deaths according to material left behind by the SS: 33,462[30]
Executions by shooting: 8,483
Executions by hanging (estimate): 1,100
Deaths during evacuation transports (estimate): 13,500[31]
This total (56,545) corresponds to a death rate of 24 percent, assuming that the number of persons passing through the camp according to documents left by the SS, 240,000 prisoners, is accurate.[32]
Liberation[edit]
Prisoner of KZ Buchenwald with member of SS personnel after entry of U.S. Army, 1945
U.S. Senator Alben W. Barkley (D-Kentucky) looks on after Buchenwald's liberation.
'Orphans of Buchenwald Ex-Prisoners Coming Home Air Views HQ and Camps (1945)' - film from US National Archives
On 4 April 1945 the U.S. 89th Infantry Division overran Ohrdruf, a subcamp of Buchenwald.
Buchenwald was partially evacuated by the Germans from 6 to 11 April 1945. In the days before the arrival of the American army, thousands of the prisoners were forced to join the evacuation marches.[33] Thanks in large part to the efforts of Polish engineer (and short-wave radio-amateur, his pre-war callsign was SP2BD) Gwidon Damazyn, an inmate since March 1941, a secret short-wave transmitter and small generator were built and hidden in the prisoners' movie room. On April 8 at noon, Damazyn and Russian prisoner Konstantin Ivanovich Leonov sent the Morse code message prepared by leaders of the prisoners' underground resistance (supposedly Walter Bartel and Harry Kuhn):
To the Allies. To the army of General Patton. This is the Buchenwald concentration camp. SOS. We request help. They want to evacuate us. The SS wants to destroy us.
The text was repeated several times in English, German, and Russian. Damazyn sent the English and German transmissions, while Leonov sent the Russian version. Three minutes after the last transmission sent by Damazyn, the headquarters of the U.S. Third Army responded:
KZ Bu. Hold out. Rushing to your aid. Staff of Third Army.
Interior of the barracks, pictured after liberation by Jules Rouard [fr] on 16 April 1945
According to Teofil Witek, a fellow Polish prisoner who witnessed the transmissions, Damazyn fainted after receiving the message.[34]
3:15 p.m. is the permanent time of the clock at the entrance gate.
As American forces closed in, Gestapo headquarters at Weimar telephoned the camp administration to announce that it was sending explosives to blow up any evidence of the camp, including its inmates. The Gestapo did not know that the administrators had already fled. A prisoner answered the phone and informed headquarters that explosives would not be needed, as the camp had already been blown up, which was not true.[35]
A detachment of troops of the U.S. 9th Armored Infantry Battalion, from the 6th Armored Division, part of the U.S. Third Army, and under the command of Captain Frederic Keffer, arrived at Buchenwald on 11 April 1945 at 3:15 p.m. (now the permanent time of the clock at the entrance gate). The soldiers were given a hero's welcome, with the emaciated survivors finding the strength to toss some liberators into the air in celebration.[36]
Later in the day, elements of the U.S. 83rd Infantry Division overran Langenstein, one of a number of smaller camps comprising the Buchenwald complex. There, the division liberated over 21,000 prisoners,[36] ordered the mayor of Langenstein to send food and water to the camp, and hurried medical supplies forward from the 20th Field Hospital.
Third Army Headquarters sent elements of the 80th Infantry Division to take control of the camp on the morning of Thursday 12 April 1945. Several journalists arrived on the same day, perhaps with the 80th, including Edward R. Murrow, whose radio report of his arrival and reception was broadcast on CBS and became one of his most famous:
I asked to see one of the barracks. It happened to be occupied by Czechoslovaks. When I entered, men crowded around, tried to lift me to their shoulders. They were too weak. Many of them could not get out of bed. I was told that this building had once stabled 80 horses. There were 1,200 men in it, five to a bunk. The stink was beyond all description.
They called the doctor. We inspected his records. There were only names in the little black book, nothing more. Nothing about who these men were, what they had done, or hoped. Behind the names of those who had died, there was a cross. I counted them. They totaled 242. 242 out of 1,200, in one month.
As we walked out into the courtyard, a man fell dead. Two others, they must have been over 60, were crawling toward the latrine. I saw it, but will not describe it.
— Extract from Edward R. Murrow's Buchenwald Report – 15 April 1945.[37]
Civilian tour[edit]
After Patton toured the camp, he ordered the mayor of Weimar to bring 1,000 citizens to Buchenwald; these were to be predominantly men of military age from the middle and upper classes. The Germans had to walk 25 kilometres (16 mi) roundtrip under armed American guard and were shown the crematorium and other evidence of Nazi atrocities. The Americans wanted to ensure that the German people would take responsibility for Nazi crimes, instead of dismissing them as atrocity propaganda.[38] Gen. Dwight Eisenhower also invited two groups of Americans to tour the camp in mid-April 1945; journalists and editors from some of the principal U.S. publications, and then a dozen members of the Congress from both the House and the Senate, led by Senate Majority Leader Alben W. Barkley.
Aftermath[edit]
Ilse Koch testifies
Buchenwald Trial[edit]
Main article: Buchenwald Trial
Thirty SS perpetrators at Buchenwald were tried before a US military tribunal in 1947, including Higher SS and Police Leader Josias Erbprinz zu Waldeck und Pyrmont, who oversaw the SS district that Buchenwald was located in, and many of the doctors responsible for Nazi human experimentation. Almost all of the defendants were convicted, and 22 were sentenced to death. However, only nine death sentences were carried out, and by the mid-1950s, all perpetrators had been freed except for Ilse Koch. Additional perpetrators were tried before German courts during the 1960s.[39]
The site[edit]
Buchenwald memorial by Fritz Cremer
Between August 1945 and 1 March 1950, Buchenwald was the site of NKVD special camp Nr. 2, where the Soviet secret police imprisoned former Nazis and anti-communist dissidents.[40] According to Soviet records, 28,455 people were detained, 7,113 of whom died. After the NKVD camp closed, much of the camp was razed, while signs were erected to provide a Soviet interpretation of the camp's legacy.[41] The first monument to victims was erected by Buchenwald inmates days after the initial liberation. It was made of wood and only intended to be temporary. A second monument to commemorate the dead was erected in 1958 by the German Democratic Republic (GDR) government near the mass graves. It was inaugurated on 14 September 1958 by GDR Prime Minister Otto Grotewohl.[42] Inside the camp, there is a stainless steel monument on the spot where the first, temporary monument stood. Its surface is maintained at 37 °C (99 °F), the temperature of human skin, all year round.[43][44]
The three National Memorials of the GDR, built next to or on the sites of the former concentration camps Buchenwald, Sachsenhausen, and Ravensbrück, played a central role in the GDR's remembrance policy under Erich Honecker.[45] They were controlled by the Ministry of Culture and thus by the government. According to their statute, these memorials served as places of identification and legitimisation of the GDR.[46] The political instrumentalisation of these memorials, especially for the current needs of the GDR, became particularly clear during the major celebrations of the liberation of the concentration camps, as historian Anne-Kathleen Tillack-Graf analysis in her thesis about the official party newspaper Neues Deutschland.[47]
Today the Buchenwald camp site serves as a Holocaust memorial. It has a museum with permanent exhibitions about the history of the camp. It is managed by Buchenwald and Mittelbau-Dora Memorials Foundation, which also looks after the camp memorial at Mittelbau-Dora.[48]
Literature[edit]
Slave laborers at Buchenwald after liberation in 1945
Survivors who have written about their camp experiences include Jorge Semprún, who in Quel beau dimanche! describes conversations involving Goethe and Léon Blum, and Ernst Wiechert, whose Der Totenwald was written in 1939 but not published until 1945, and which likewise involved Goethe. Scholars have investigated how camp inmates used art to help deal with their circumstances, and according to Theodor Ziolkowski writers often did so by turning to Goethe.[49] Artist Léon Delarbre sketched, besides other scenes of camp life, the Goethe Oak, under which he used to sit and write.[50] One of the few prisoners who escaped from the camp, the Belgian Edmond Vandievoet, recounted his experiences in a book whose English title is "I escaped from a Nazi Death Camp" [Editions Jourdan, 2015]. In his work Night, Elie Wiesel talks about his stay in Buchenwald, including his father's death.[51] Jacques Lusseyran, a leader in the underground resistance to the German occupation of France, was eventually sent to Buchenwald after being arrested, and described his time there in his autobiography.[52]
Visit from President Obama and Chancellor Merkel[edit]
Video of President Obama's visit
On 5 June 2009 U.S. President Barack Obama and German Chancellor Angela Merkel visited Buchenwald after a tour of Dresden Castle and Church of Our Lady. During the visit they were accompanied by Elie Wiesel and Bertrand Herz, both survivors of the camp.[53] Volkhard Knigge [de], the director of the Buchenwald and Mittelbau-Dora Memorials Foundation and honorary professor of University of Jena, guided the four guests through the remainder of the site of the camp.[54] During the visit Wiesel, who together with Herz were sent to the Little camp as 16-year-old boys, said, "if these trees could talk." His statement marked the irony about the beauty of the landscape and the horrors that took place within the camp.[54] President Obama mentioned during his visit that he had heard stories as a child from his great uncle, who was part of the 89th Infantry Division, the first Americans to reach the camp at Ohrdruf, one of Buchenwald's satellites.[53] Obama was the first sitting US President to visit the Buchenwald concentration camp.[44] ebay5766/203