Ernst Thälmann was brought to the Buchenwald Concentration Camp in the night of August 17 to 18, 1944 from a prison in Bautzen and was shot by members of the SS upon entering the crematorium. Commemorating his death was fundamental to the design of the memorial site. In 1951 a "Memorial Planning Committee" wrote: "The crematorium should be the focal point of the camp, in which the yard of the crematorium should be surrounded by an artistically designed wall, in the intersection of which a monument should be installed to Ernst Thälmann."
The commemorative plaque, which still exists today, dates from 1953 and was the first to be installed in the area of the inmates' camp. During the GDR period the visitor flow into the crematorium was intentionally directed through the back door, the route by which Thälmann had entered the building.
Even if the memorialization of Ernst Thälmann was a focal point of the memory cultivated around Buchenwald, the original plan for a more extensive redesign of the site was never carried out. Historical preservationists and museum experts of the GDR strongly advocated for retaining the "authentic atmosphere" of the crematorium.
