July 7, 2010 - Buchenwald and Gießen, then on to Köln

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After an easy non-driving day in Leipzig, we girded our loins for a tougher day driving across northern Germany. Our route would take us to Buchenwald (near Weimar), then to Gießen, then on to Köln. All told, the journey would be some 519 km (322 miles). This area of Germany is mostly rolling hills, forested in areas, and driving on the modern highways is very easy. Most of the driving was on freeways. I like getting off onto smaller roads, but it is not really very practical when you need to cover significant distances.

We would have liked to spend some time in Weimar, an important in German cultural history, but there was simply not enough time, and our object was Buchenwald, the concentration camp nearby. I had never previously seen a concentration camp, and always thought I should. We have toured the Holocaust Museum in Washington twice, but I thought touring a concentration camp would be different, and indeed it was. Leaving Weimar, you drive out into forested countryside, about as peaceful a place as you can imagine. On the way into the area of the actual camp, we stopped at the railhead that was built by the forced laborers. When we got to the camp, we found a large parking lot and several large barracks-type buildings that had been there from the time of the operation of the camp. We obtained audio guides, and then headed into the camp itself. All of the living quarters for the inmates have been torn down, and the rectangular outlines filled with blackish copper slag that makes each outline stand out from the surrounding rock and gravel. Several structures remain. One that was particularly bothersome was the one containing the crematorium. This contained the newer style ovens that could process many more bodies per day, a necessity at Buchenwald. Just outside the room with the ovens was a fairly modern-looking autopsy table, where gold teeth were removed. In the basement, there was a cellar with hooks lining the upper wall, from which prisoners could be hung to strangle. No quick death from a broken neck here. There was also a room where prisoners, mostly Russian, were brought in and told to stand up with their backs to the wall to have their height measured, then a German soldier could open a slit and shoot the prisoner in the base of the neck and not have to look him in the face. The Depot has been converted into a museum, with the expected disturbing exhibitions. Buchenwald was a Class II concentration camp for hard-core political prisoners, so people who passed through here including some high-ranking people. The hard-core political prisoners included the noted theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer. The building where medical experiments were performed no longer stands, but in the remains you can see shower stalls with tile floors and sides to allow easy cleaning. Here prisoners were infected with typhus to study ways to prevent or treat it, and I believe some were even used to harvest serum before dying. Other medical experiments were also performed, many of them even more gruesome.

The clock above the entrance gate stands permanently at 3:15, the hour the camp was liberated. The camp was liberated by Patton’s 6th Armored Division on April 11, 1945. 5 days later Edward Murrow described his visit. Ironically, FDR (to whom many of the prisoners had looked for salvation) had died the day after the camp was liberated.

There is a popular misconception that all of the Nazi concentration camps were merely extermination facilities. In fact, only four (Treblinka, Sobibor, Belzec, and Chelmno) were extermination camps. Auschwitz and Majdanek were combination concentration-extermination camps. Concentration camps are not unique to Nazi Germany. The United States established concentration camps for native Americans in the 1830’s and for Filipinos during the Spanish-American War. What sets the Nazi concentration camps apart was the deliberate intent to kill large numbers, and as far as I know the exterminatin camps were unprecedented.

Following the liberation of Buchenwald, the citizens of Weimar denied knowing anything about what went on there, so they were forcibly marched through the camp. The mayor of Ohrdruf and his wife, after being forcibly marched through the Buchenwald subcamp near his town, committed suicide.

I have trouble seeing these things and writing about them, both because they are horrible and because I am unable to reconcile the reality of this past with the reality of the German people I know, who are unfailingly wonderful people. I keep thinking that under the right circumstances this could happen elsewhere. Certainly the events in the Balkans in recent times are reminiscent. I guess all we can do is remember and vow “Never again”.

After the War, from 1945-1952, the Russians used the camp for retribution, and worked 7000 Germans to death deliberately.

Leaving Buchenwald, we headed on for Gießen. I noticed this town along our route and in a moment of casual research on Google discovered that it is the final resting place of Conrad Wilhelm Röntgen. Since I consider him one of the sponsors of our trip, I thought we should visit. After some trouble we located his gravesite. We then headed on to Köln, where we bedded down for the evening after a visit downtown to have dinner. We had some trouble finding a place to eat since most restaurants had TV’s set up for the World Cup match and all seats were occupied. Unfortunately, Germany lost, and there was a very subdued mood afterward.

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