Number of deaths in Buchenwald

The concentration camp Buchenwald was established in 1937 10 kilometers from Weimar. The prisoners of the camp were jews, political prisoners, religious prisoners and prisoners of war. They came from Russia, Poland, France, Germany, Austria and other countries.

The American army came to Buchenwald 11. April 1945. In the days before thousands of the prisoners were forced to join the evacuation marches.

Causes of death in Buchenwald
One cause of the deaths in the concentration camp Buchenwald was illness due to the harsh conditions in the camp. Furthermore many were murdered. The two primary methods of execution were shooting in the back of the head or hanging.

Number of deaths in Buchenwald
SS left behind accounts of the number of prisoners and people coming to the camp and leaving the camp, split into releases transfers and deaths. This material is one of the sources to the estimation of the number of deaths in Buchenwald. According to the SS material 33,462 died in Buchenwald. There are defects in the material left behind by SS though. Among others people executed before 1944 were posted as ”transferred to Gestapo”. Furthermore from 1941 there were mass killings of Soviet prisoners of war. The prisoners arriving determined for execution were not enlisted in the register of the camp, and are not included in the 33,462 dead according to the SS material.

One of the prisoners in Buchenwald Armin Walter has made a calculation of the number of executions by shooting in the back of the head. As a prisoner in Buchenwald, he was instructed to connect and take care of a radio installation in the facilities, where people got shot in the back of the head. He counted the numbers, which came on telex and hid this information. He says that 8,483 Soviet prisoners of war were shot.

In "Buchenwald : Mahnung und Verpflichtung : Dokumente und Berichte" by Walter Bartel the number of deaths in Buchenwald is estimated at 56,545 .This number is the sum of


 * The number of deaths according to material left behind by SS: 33,462.
 * Executions by shooting: 8,483.
 * Executions by hanging (estimate): 1,100.
 * Deaths during evacuation transports: 13,500.

This total (56,545) corresponds to a death rate of 24 percent assuming that the number of persons passing through the camp according to documents left by the SS, 238,979 prisoners, is accurate.

Deaths among the deported Danish policemen
Out of the 1960 deported Danish policemen, which came to Buchenwald late September and start of October 1944 62 (3 %) died in Buchenwald. The reason that the death frequency was not as high as for other groups was that the policemen received packs from Danish Red Cross. Furthermore the length of the stay was relatively short. The 16. december 1944 1604 of the policemen got transferred to Mühlberg after having got status as prisoners of war.