
The third leg of the race stared on June 8 in Chemnitz and ended in Erfurt. Shortly before the finish line, the race passed through Weimar. Renowned for its cultural sites, the city was the state and so-called "Gau" capital, and the centre of the Nazi movement in Thuringia. The Nazi "Gau" head Fritz Saukel sponsored the victory prize for the first cyclist to reach Weimar, which Reinhold Wendel from Schweinfurt managed to win.
Approximately five weeks after the celebrated ride of the Deutschland-Rundfahrt cyclists, 149 men reached Ettersberg Mountain, just outside Weimar. These were the first inmates of the newly established Buchenwald Concentration Camp.