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Goethe oak, 1943. Photo: identification service of the Buchenwald concentration camp.
©Musée de la Résistance et de la Déportation, Besançon
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The stump of the Goethe oak was preserved, 2022. Photo: Lukas Damm
©Buchenwald Memorial
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"The Last Face", after August 1944. Author: Bruno Apitz.
©German Historical Museum, Berlin
In the memory of the inmates, this tree was associated with their knowledge of Goethe, who over one hundred years before had often spent time at Ettersberg Mountain. One of his remarks has been preserved from when he had paused at the nearby location known as "Hottelstedter Ecke":
On August 24, 1944, when the armament factory of the Deutsche Ausrüstungswerke was bombed by the Allied forces, the "fat oak" caught fired and burned. The SS then had it cut down.
From a piece of the tree
Today, the roots of the Goethe oak represent the self-empowerment of the inmates and their memories of a better world.
