| Original Caption: “American soldiers stand by here, while ‘visiting’ German civilians gaze at this pile of bones, remains of about four hundred people, in the yard of the Nazi prison camp Buchenwald. In the foreground is the portable gallows which [Schutzstaffel] SS men carried about with them for convenience, and which could set up at a moment’s notice to take care of the latest victims of the German brutality.” On the orders of United States Army General George S. Patton (November 11, 1885 – December 21, 1945), commanding 3rd Army, who had inspected Buchenwald the previous day, 1,000 citizens of Weimar are taken on a tour of the concentration camp on April 16, 1945. In the yard at the back of the crematorium, the SS stored its mobile show gallows, with which they carried out public hangings outside the camp for the Gestapo. In the early years of Buchenwald’s existence, many hundreds of prisoners were indeed shot by the SS murderers or killed in other ways, but only 2 public executions were carried out. 2 prisoners who had beaten an SS man to death were hanged — before the eyes of all the prisoners. The SS carried out the next executions for the most part secretly in a room of the dog kennel. These were almost exclusively cases of Polish workers who had been deported to Germany and had entered into intimate relationships here with German women. In these cases denunciations without supporting evidence were frequently taken as proven facts. Many people in the vicinity of Weimar and Buchenwald came to these executions. When a case of alleged or actual relations between a Pole and a German became known in the tiniest village or in a larger town, the SS drove out from Buchenwald with a portable gallows and hanged the Poles. 2 prisoners served the SS as executioner assistants on these expeditions. It is no longer possible to determine exactly the number of those the SS murdered in this way, though probably at least 250 to 300 people a year lost their lives in this horrible manner. On April 26, 1942, a Polish forced laborer, who worked at Bauern Schmidt’s courtyard was beaten to the point of unconsciousness by a German policeman, Albin Gottwald (July 30, 1901 – April 26, 1942). 2 Poles took revenge on Gottwald and stabbed him to death on a forest path between Poppenhausen and Einoed. The 2 Poles then escaped. 1 of the 2 Poles, Jan Sowka, born October 19, 1922, in Thayngen, Switzerland, was apprehended shortly after his escape. On May 11, 1942, 19 prisoners from Buchenwald were taken to the place in the woods where Gottwald’s body had been found. The Buchenwald SS built 3 of these portable gallows — 2 consisted of 10 hooks each, and 1 was a single gallows. The 19 Polish prisoners were positioned behind the gallows, and Jan Sowka stood on the opposite side. The executions began at 1050 Hours, where the prisoners and Jan Sowka were hanged 1 after another on the single gallows. At the end, their bodies were all hanged from the 2 group gallows. Hundreds of Polish forced laborers from the surrounding area were rounded up and forced to watch the executions. For a time beginning in 1943, the SS conducted hangings in roll call square, executing those who had escaped and were recaptured or had only attempted to escape. These took place on the express orders of Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler (October 7, 1900 – May 23, 1945), who hoped to put a stop to the rash of escape attempts. But all the public executions were of no avail; on the contrary, hatred and defiance grew, and resistance against the SS became ever stronger. When the SS noticed this effect, they stopped all public executions, and instead the victims of the Nazi hangmen were hanged in the crematorium by the Kapo there and by an SS Sergeant. The exact number of these victims, who were often reported as “transferred,” can no longer be determined either, but it would probably be at least equal to the numbers in previous years. The prisoners succeeded in compiling a complete list of all those executed only for the last year, 1944-1945. According to the list, 287 people were hanged in the final 12 months before the liberation of Buchenwald. Even by the most conservative estimate, the number of people Himmler’s SS hanged at Buchenwald would be at least 1,100. Roll call, which happened twice a day, was simply an opportunity for the SS to terrorize inmates. Some roll calls lasted up to 72 hours and often lead to multiple deaths. Roll call square is also where the SS whipped inmates on the so-called “beating rack.” The gallows were erected here, where inmates were hung in front of all their companions. | |
| Image Filename | wwii0581.jpg |
| Image Size | 442.13 KB |
| Image Dimensions | 2048 x 1386 |
| Photographer | |
| Photographer Title | |
| Caption Author | Written or Adapted by Jason McDonald |
| Date Photographed | April 16, 1945 |
| Location | Konzentrationslager Buchenwald |
| City | Weimar |
| State or Province | Thuringia |
| Country | Germany |
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| Record Number | |
| Status | Caption ©2026 MFA Productions LLC Please Do Not Duplicate or Distribute Without Permission; Image in the Public Domain |
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