©Buchenwald Memorial
In late 1941, the SS reached a collaborative agreement with government representatives, the Wehrmacht, the Robert Koch Institute, and the Behringwerke factory of the IG Farben company. The aim was to test new typhus vaccines on inmates. Block 46 was built for this purpose, a massive, fenced-in stone barracks, initially a test station. Starting in 1943, Block 50 was the headquarters of the "Department for Typhus and Virus Research" of the Waffen SS Hygiene Institute. Among other purposes, this included guest laboratories for external scientists, who took part in experiments on humans. Experiments were carried out in approximately three dozen series of tests, most of which were related to typhus. However, there were also experiments with gas gangrene, and vaccines against typhus, smallpox, diphtheria, and yellow fever. In Block 46, the Danish SS doctor Carl Vaernet also conducted experiments and performed operations on homosexuals.
In the 1990s, the basement of Block 50 was made visible, and the remaining foundations of Block 46 were reconstructed.
