Patton, and Omar Bradley toured the site, led by a prisoner familiar with the camp. On April 12, a week after the camp’s liberation, Generals Dwight D. ![]() Ohrdruf was the first Nazi camp to be liberated by US forces. Many prisoners who were too weak or ill to partake in the march were summarily killed.Įisenhower viewing a demonstration of torture methods SS guards used in Ohrdruf. In early April, with the oncoming advance of Allied forces, the SS evacuated almost all of the prisoners in a death march to Buchenwald. In addition, the camp housed prisoners who the Nazis judged as anti-social, plus homosexuals and Jews. The prisoners included people of various nationalities-French, Belgian, German, Hungarian, Czech, Latvian, Italian, Russian, Ukrainian, Polish, and Yugoslav. The communications center, however, was never completed and the project was abandoned due to the advance of US troops.īy March 1945, the prisoner population in Ohrdruf reached 11,700. With poor working conditions and no protective gear offered, many prisoners suffered from serious injuries and often were killed in the process. Local civilians were hired to handle the dynamiting, while prisoners would come in behind to dig and pick up rocks. The tunnels would also serve as an emergency shelter for the train that contained Hitler’s headquarters, the Führersonderzug, in the event of an evacuation from Berlin. Prisoners were to connect the castle with a railway by digging tunnels through nearby mountains. Codenamed SIII, the Ohrdruf camp was established to supply forced labor to construct a route that would lead to a communications center in the basement of nearby Mühlberg Castle, located in the town of Ohrdruf. As a subcamp, Ohrdruf was located about 30 miles west of Buchenwald. ![]() ![]() In November 1944, the Nazis established Ohrdruf south of Gotha, Germany.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |