On April 11, 1945, the Buchenwald concentration camp and the Mittelbau-Dora forced labor camp were liberated by prisoners and U.S. soldiers. Nearly 80 000 people had been murdered in these two Nazi death facilities by means of torture, forced starvation and pseudo-medical experiments. Soviet prisoners of war were shot. The concentration camp was located in the immediate vicinity of the “Dichter- und Denkerstadt” Weimar. Buchenwald remains a symbol of the Nazi reign of terror brought forth by the nation of Goethe and Schiller. But Buchenwald is also remembered for the prisoners’ resistance, both secret and open, against the SS.
11 April 1945, armed prisoners arresting SS men in the vicinity of the liberated camp. (Buchenwald and Mittelbau-Dora Memorials Foundation)
Thomas Gatter 
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