Editing Buchenwald concentration camp (section)

==Liberation==
[[File:Concentration_camp_SS.jpg|thumb|Prisoner of KZ Buchenwald with [[SS-Totenkopfverbände|member of SS personnel]] after entry of U.S. Army, 1945]]
[[Image:Buchenwald-bei-Weimar-am-24-April-1945.jpg|thumb|U.S. Senator [[Alben W. Barkley]] (D-Kentucky) looks on after Buchenwald's liberation.]]
[[File:Orphans of Buchenwald Ex-Prisoners Coming Home Air Views HQ and Camps (1945).webm|thumb|right|'Orphans of Buchenwald Ex-Prisoners Coming Home Air Views HQ and Camps (1945)' – film from US National Archives]]

In April 1945 an [[Alsos Mission]] team was searching for a German nuclear physicist near Weimar, eastern Germany. Taking a side road through woods to avoid German forces, they struck a ghastly smell from a clearing, and saw a barbed wire enclosure with a few pathetic figures and piles of corpses. Before continuing their mission they broke secrecy protocol to radio a request for the Army to send medical help. A group of survivors had just taken control of the camp from the few remaining Nazi guards. The four-man team was under linguist Hugh Montgomery and included Corporal Rick Carrier. Montgomery recalled the survivors made a final request: ''Please give the guards to us, and we’ll take care of them ..... And I’m sure they did''. Montgomery later joined the CIA, and took part in [[Operation Gold]] in Berlin.<ref>{{cite book |last= Vogel |first=Steve |title= Betrayal in Berlin |accessdate=  |edition=  |origyear=  |year= 2019  |publisher=CustomHouse/HarperCollins, New York |isbn= 978-0-06-244962-7 |oclc= |page= |pages=  }}</ref>

On 4 April 1945 the [[89th Division (United States)|U.S. 89th Infantry Division]] overran [[Ohrdruf forced labor camp|Ohrdruf]], a subcamp of Buchenwald.

Buchenwald was partially evacuated by the Germans from 6 to 11 April 1945. In the days before the arrival of the American army, thousands of the prisoners were [[death march|forcibly evacuated 
on foot]].{{sfn|Stein|2005|p=227}}
Thanks in large part to the efforts of Polish engineer (and [[Shortwave radio|short-wave]] [[Amateur radio operator|radio-amateur]], his pre-war callsign was SP2BD) Gwidon Damazyn, an inmate since March 1941, a secret short-wave transmitter and small generator were built and hidden in the prisoners' movie room. On 8 April at noon, Damazyn and Russian prisoner Konstantin Ivanovich Leonov sent the [[Morse code]] message prepared by leaders of the prisoners' underground resistance (supposedly [[Walter Bartel]] and Harry Kuhn):

{{Blockquote|text=To the Allies. To the army of [[George S. Patton|General Patton]]. This is the Buchenwald concentration camp. SOS. We request help. They want to evacuate us. The SS wants to destroy us.}}

The text was repeated several times in English, German, and Russian. Damazyn sent the English and German transmissions, while Leonov sent the Russian version. Three minutes after the last transmission sent by Damazyn, the headquarters of the [[Third United States Army|U.S. Third Army]] responded:

{{Blockquote|text=KZ Bu. Hold out. Rushing to your aid. Staff of Third Army.}}
[[File:Buchenwald-J-Rouard-25.jpg|thumb|Interior of the barracks, pictured after liberation by {{ill|Jules Rouard|fr}} on 16 April 1945]]
According to Teofil Witek, a fellow Polish prisoner who witnessed the transmissions, Damazyn fainted after receiving the message.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Langbein|first1=Hermann|title=Against All Hope: Resistance in the Nazi Concentration Camps, 1938–1945|year=1994|publisher=Paragon House|location=New York|isbn=1-55778-363-2|page=502|translator=Harry Zohn|language=en}}</ref>
[[File:Portão de entrada Buchenwald.jpg|thumb|3:15 p.m. was the time the camp was liberated, and is the permanent time of the clock at the entrance gate.]]

As American forces closed in, Gestapo headquarters at Weimar telephoned the camp administration to announce that it was sending explosives to blow up any evidence of the camp, including its inmates. The Gestapo did not know that the administrators had already fled. A prisoner answered the phone and informed headquarters that explosives would not be needed, as the camp had already been blown up, which was not true.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Best |first1=Brian |title=Reporting the Second World War |date=2015 |publisher=Casemate Publishers |isbn=9781473870666 |pages=234 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gWHNDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT234 |access-date=8 July 2020}}</ref>

A detachment of troops of the U.S. 9th Armored Infantry Battalion, from the [[6th Armored Division (United States)|6th Armored Division]], part of the [[Third United States Army|U.S. Third Army]], and under the command of [[Captain (U.S. Army)|Captain]] Frederic Keffer, arrived at Buchenwald on 11 April 1945 at 3:15&nbsp;p.m. (now the permanent time of the clock at the entrance gate). The soldiers were given a hero's welcome, with the emaciated survivors finding the strength to toss some liberators into the air in celebration.<ref name="liberators">{{Cite news |url=http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/08/14/buchenwald.liberator/ |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090129174639/http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/08/14/buchenwald.liberator/ |url-status=dead |archive-date=2009-01-29 |title=Buchenwald liberator, American hero [James Hoyt] dies at 83 |work=CNN |date=14 August 2008 |author=Wayne Drash}}</ref>

Later in the day, elements of the [[83rd Infantry Division (United States)|U.S. 83rd Infantry Division]] overran Langenstein, one of a number of smaller camps comprising the Buchenwald complex. There, the division liberated over 21,000 prisoners,<ref name="liberators"/> ordered the mayor of Langenstein to send food and water to the camp, and hurried medical supplies forward from the 20th Field Hospital.

Third Army Headquarters sent elements of the [[80th Division (United States)|80th Infantry Division]] to take control of the camp on the morning of Thursday 12 April 1945. Several journalists arrived on the same day, perhaps with the 80th, including [[Edward R. Murrow]], whose radio report of his arrival and reception was broadcast on [[CBS]] and became one of his most famous:{{Blockquote|text=I asked to see one of the barracks. It happened to be occupied by Czechoslovaks. When I entered, men crowded around, tried to lift me to their shoulders. They were too weak. Many of them could not get out of bed. I was told that this building had once stabled 80 horses. There were 1,200 men in it, five to a bunk. The stink was beyond all description.

They called the doctor. We inspected his records. There were only names in the little black book, nothing more. Nothing about who these men were, what they had done, or hoped. Behind the names of those who had died, there was a cross. I counted them. They totaled 242. 242 out of 1,200, in one month.

As we walked out into the courtyard, a man fell dead. Two others, they must have been over 60, were crawling toward the latrine. I saw it, but will not describe it. |author=Extract from [[Edward R. Murrow]]'s Buchenwald Report – 15 April 1945.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.otr.com/murrow_buchenwald.html|title=Edward R. Murrow Reports From Buchenwald|website=www.otr.com|access-date=10 April 2014|archive-date=24 January 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160124060237/http://www.otr.com/murrow_buchenwald.html|url-status=dead}}</ref> }}

===Civilian tour===
After Patton toured the camp, he ordered the mayor of Weimar to bring 1,000 citizens to Buchenwald; these were to be predominantly men of military age from the middle and upper classes. The Germans had to walk {{convert|25|km}} roundtrip under armed American guard and were shown the crematorium and other evidence of Nazi atrocities. The Americans wanted to ensure that the German people would [[German collective guilt|take responsibility]] for Nazi crimes, instead of dismissing them as [[atrocity propaganda]].{{sfn|Mauriello|2017|pp=32–34}}  Gen. Dwight Eisenhower also invited two groups of Americans to tour the camp in mid-April 1945; journalists and editors from some of the principal U.S. publications, and then a dozen members of the Congress from both the House and the Senate, led by Senate Majority Leader [[Alben W. Barkley]].

War correspondent [[Osmar White]] reported that above the crematorium door was a verse beginning 'Worms shall not devour me, but flames consume this body. I always loved the heat and light…'.<ref>White's dispatch on Buchenwald 18 April 1945 reproduced in his book ''Conquerors' Road'' (Harper Collins, 1996) p. 189.</ref>