Since 1945, the reconstruction and interpretation of the history of Buchenwald
have been decisively influenced by the fact that, in comparison with other Nazi
concentration camps, a relatively large number of German political inmates, particularly
Communists and Social Democrats, were imprisoned in Buchenwald Concentration Camp
and survived. What these political inmates had in common was the view that essential
impulses for the reshaping of the German state would have to emerge from the experience
of political persecution and the resistance struggle against the Nazi regime carried
out within Buchenwald, and that the victims of political persecution were entitled
to a major role in the reshaping process.
Buchenwald Concentration Camp was the first to be liberated by a Western Allied
army. Press coverage took place immediately in the form of reports, films and
photographs, and lastingly influenced the Western world's perception of Nazi
crimes and the reality of the concentration camps. Referring in his memoirs
to a tour of the Ohrdruf sub-camp (i) on April 12, 1945 – i.e. one day after
the liberation of Buchenwald – Dwight D. Eisenhower, the supreme commander
of the Allied forces and future American president, noted: "I have never
felt able to describe my emotional reactions when I first came face to face
with indisputable evidence of Nazi brutality and ruthless disregard of every
shred of decency. … I have never at any other time experienced an equal
sense of shock. …As soon as I returned to Patton's headquarters that evening
I sent communications to both Washington and London, urging the two governments
to send instantly to Germany a random group of newspaper editors and representative
groups from the national legislatures. I felt that the evidence should be immediately
placed before the American and British publics in a fashion that would leave
no room for cynical doubt."
Likewise under the influence of his impressions of the camp, General Patton,
the commander of the Third U.S. Army, ordered a representatively selected group
of Weimar citizens to tour the camp on April 16.
In addition to guided tours and photo and film documentation, the collection
of reports written by inmate survivors contributed substantially to the perception
of camp reality and the dissemination of the history of Buchenwald Concentration
Camp. In the very first days following liberation, over one hundred inmate survivors
– primarily persons who had carried out functions within the camp and were
therefore more familiar with the system than others – produced approximately
150 firsthand reports at the request of the Intelligence Team of the Allied
Forces Psychological Warfare Division. Originally intended as a report for the
Allied Forces Supreme Headquarters, the first standard work on the Nazi concentration
camp system was drawn up by the former Austrian inmate and publicist Eugen Kogon.
Kogon had been strongly involved in the production and compilation of the survivors'
reports. The first edition of his book SS-Staat appeared (in German) in 1946.
A bibliography of the literature published internationally on Buchenwald Concentration
Camp would comprise far more than a thousand titles.
In July 1949, even before the dissolution of Special Camp No. 2, and before
the official foundation of the German Democratic Republic (GDR (i)), the information
bureau of the Soviet military administration recommended that the V.V.N. (i) (Vereinigung
der Verfolgten des Naziregimes; association of victims of Nazi persecution)
"establish a national museum in Buchenwald Camp" after the example
of Auschwitz and Theresienstadt.
But the V.V.N.'s (i) vision of a "large-scale museum of the resistance,"
in which former barracks would be placed at the disposal of various nations
for their own exhibitions, was never realised. The politburo of the SED (i) (Socialist
Unity Party of Germany) had other plans. At a meeting of the Buchenwald Committee (i)
in January 1950, Walter Bartel (i) announced tersely: "The party has commissioned
the erection of a Thälmann memorial." The consequences this would
have for the camp grounds became clear in a resolution passed by the secretariat
of the SED (i) Central Committee on October 9, 1950: On the basis of preparations
carried out by the former inmates Walter Bartel (i) and Robert Siewert as well as
Willy Kalinke, the chairman of the Thuringian branch of the V.V.N. (i), it was decreed
that the entire camp, along with all of its barracks, was to be torn down. Only
the crematorium – as the site of Ernst Thälmann (i)'s death –, the
gate building, and the western and eastern towers were to remain standing. The
resolution was later supplemented by a plan to afforest the grounds.
The facilities were not demolished with the intention of covering the traces
of the former concentration camp's use as a Soviet special camp. If that had
been the aim, it would neither have been necessary to turn the former concentration
camp over to the German authorities nor to transform it into a national museum.
Rather, the combination of obliteration and preservation was dictated by a specific
concept for interpreting the history of Buchenwald Concentration Camp. As per
agreement with Walter Bartel (i), Robert Siewert felt compelled to justify the demolition
once again in 1952 by saying: "The essence of Buchenwald Concentration
Camp is not embodied in the barracks or the stone blocks … The essence
was the deep comradeship, the mutual help, bonded and steeled by the struggle
against fascist terror, organised resistance and the deep faith in the triumph
of our just cause!"
Although the afforestation ruling was revoked, more than fifty percent of the
grounds were abandoned to the forces of nature, while the leitmotif "triumph
through death and struggle" determined the shape finally assumed by the
areas of the inmates' camp that were left intact. On the one hand, the impression
of merciless desolation and inhospitality was to be evoked, on the other hand
the "conscious defeat of fascist horror" under the leadership of Ernst
Thälmann's adherents to be expressed. In keeping with this line of interpretation,
the memorial grounds were covered in the 1950s with a network of information
plaques topographically summarising the Communist resistance and international
solidarity under the leadership of members of the KPD (i). This simplified view
of the events was further reinforced by exhibitions installed in 1954 and the
years that followed.
Finally, on September 14, 1958, the Nationale Mahn- und Gedenkstätte Buchenwald
(National Buchenwald Memorial) was dedicated. The newly erected monumental memorial
facility adhered to the hero cult of Socialist Realism, while there were also
clearly recognisable formal references to the nationalist-conservative memorial
architecture built in the wake of World War I and Nazi Germany alike, for example
the funerary monuments by Wilhelm Kreis. An archaistic gate provided access
to a stairway leading down the slope. Accompanied by relief steles arranged
according to the above-mentioned motto "triumph through death and struggle,"
the visitor climbed downward to the burial places of the dead. Passing mass
graves surrounded by Roman-style ring walls, the visitor walked along the pylon-lined
"Avenue of the Nations." The descent and the graves were intended
to symbolise the "Night of Fascism," while the "Avenue of the
Nations" represented militant international solidarity. Once he had crossed
the third ring grave, the visitor ascended the "Stairway of Freedom"
to the sculpture of the liberated inmates and the "Tower of Freedom."
Here he was to become aware of the inmates' "self-liberation" and
of the "liberated part of Germany," i.e. the GDR (i), as his native country
and his antifascist fatherland. He was to emerge convinced of the historical
necessity of the triumph of Communism and conscious of the fact that this form
of government had not yet taken hold everywhere and he must therefore remain
alert and militant. The identification with the GDR (i) and the eastern bloc went
hand in hand with the rejection of Western Germany and the western alliance
as potential successors to the SS (i) state. Commemoration was not so much a matter
of critically examining the Nazi past as it was a process of binding oneself
to the SED (i) state.
The essential commemoration programme of the National Buchenwald Memorial was
hardly modified throughout the existence of the GDR (i). The few changes that were
carried out had to do with the expansion of the memorial's infrastructure and
the modernisation of the historical exhibitions.
It was not until the mid 1980s that certain aspects of the memorial's work
were questioned. It was ascertained that fewer and fewer young people were actually
being reached by the memorial and the outdated commemoration rituals. Against
this background there were thoughts of establishing a young people's centre
and a history workshop. What is more, the historical exhibition was to undergo
revision following the refurbishment of the former depot (i), and in this context
"unjustified gaps" in the concept were addressed, e.g. the Hitler-Stalin
pact and the fates of the Jewish inmates, the homosexuals, the Jehovah's Witnesses
and the Sinti and Romani. The new concern with these gaps never got past the
level of scientific discussion and specialised conferences, however, finding
substantial expression neither in the new historical exhibition nor in the memorial's
general scientific work.
The history of Soviet Special Camp No. 2 represented a further gap. While its
existence was not fundamentally denied, its stereotypical characterisation as
a normal internment camp for Nazi and war criminals was intended to make any
preoccupation with its history appear an obsolete act and an unjustified affront
to the concentration camp inmates. No acknowledgement whatsoever was made of
deaths occurring in the special camp or of the graves in the immediate vicinity
of the memorial.
Beginning in 1990, following the fall of the GDR (i), the Buchenwald Memorial underwent
a process of reconception. By September 1991, the fundamental guidelines of
the new plans had already been summarised as follows by a historians' commission
appointed by the Thuringian Ministry of Science:
"Both the Nazi concentration camp and Soviet Special Camp No. 2 are to
be commemorated. |
