| original caption: “German civilians remove the bodies of the massacred at the murder camp. The G-5 Military Government officer at Nordhausen, Major David W. Paulette (November 19, 1891 – March 19, 1968) of Farmville, Virginia, ordered the Burgermeister to round up six hundred men to dig graves for the twenty-five hundred slain political prisoners and bury them. Polish survivors, however, would not permit the Germans to touch their dead.” Residents of Nordhausen carry deceased prisoners of Boelcke-Kaserne Konzentrationslager (“Concentration Camp”) for burial in mass graves under the supervision of American soldiers. American soldiers made a gruesome discovery when they entered the Thüringen city of Nordhausen on April 11, 1945. In the ruins of the Luftwaffe barracks, destroyed during a British air raid, they found the corpses of more than 1,000 emaciated concentration camp prisoners and forced laborers. A few 100 lay dying among the corpses. For these people, help had come too late. In the following weeks and months the photographs and film that were taken in the courtyard of the barracks of the dead laid out in rows (they included many young children and babies) went around the world. In many places they became the defining image of National Socialist camp terror. The barracks (Kaserne) in which the dead were found was named after a World War I fighter pilot, Oswald Boelcke (May 19, 1891 – October 28, 1916). The dead came from a number of forced labor camps and prison camps that had been established on the barracks grounds during the last year of the war. Boelcke-Kaserne Konzentrationslager showed in microcosm the varied hierarchy of the National Socialist camp system: Schutzstaffel (SS) Arbeitslager (“labor camps”) directly adjoined Gestapo (abbreviation for Geheime Staatspolizei – “Secret State Police”), Sonderlager (“special camps”) and forced labor camps for local industry and relocated industries. Altogether, there were at the beginning of 1945 more than 10,000 forced laborers and prisoners of various categories held on the expansive barrack grounds. The gruesome kernel of this National Socialist camp system was the Mittelbau subcamp, a death zone. The Boelcke-Kaserne subcamp was established on January 8, 1945, and lasted for only 3 months. It was originally planned as a Sammellager (“Collection Camp”) for prisoner detachments, which had to work on the B-11 construction site near Niedersachswerfen and in more than 20 Nordhausen factories. They had been previously held in the Mittelbau main camp. From the end of January 1945, countless transports with exhausted, sick, and dead concentration camp prisoners arrived from the dissolved Auschwitz and Gross-Rosen Konzentrationslager in the South Harz Mountains. At the same time the number of sick in the Mittelbau camps dramatically increased. As a result, the SS administration changed the function of the camp to become the central Mittelbau camp for the sick and the dying. In the middle of February 1945, more than 3,500 totally exhausted and emaciated prisoners arrived from the Gross-Rosen concentration camp. With this arrival, increasingly large numbers of inmates could not be used for labor, even according to SS standards. In the end, the camp held thousands of dying prisoners who were provided no amenities. Dozens died daily, and toward the end, they died in the hundreds. The “accommodation” in the Boelcke-Kaserne was, even according to concentration camp standards, completely inadequate. It consisted of 2 long 2-story garages on the northern edge of the barracks area, which were bordered by an electrified fence. The 1st garage held Blocks 1 to 4 and the kitchen. The prisoners who could “work” were held here in comparatively bearable conditions, at least when compared to the conditions in the 2nd garage. The 2nd garage, isolated from the rest of the camp by a 2nd barbed-wire fence, was the location for the infamous Blocks 13 on the ground floor. They held the ill and the dying. The 1st floor held the infirmary and Block 5, which from March 1945 be-came the central infirmary for those prisoners from the main camp and other Mittelbau subcamps who were suffering from tuberculosis. Death occurred by organized neglect. Those classified as incapable of working were regarded as useless and were allowed to die. It is difficult to describe in words the conditions in this building. At times the SS forced more than 3,000 dying prisoners into Blocks 13, which together had an area of not even 1,800 square meters (2,153 square yards). There were no beds in these blocks. Instead, the prisoners were forced to lie 1 next to the other on the concrete floor on which there was a thin layer of sawdust. There was a toilet area, but it could not be used because there was no water. In any event, many of the weakened prisoners, because of their condition, would not have been able to get to the toilets. The dying lay on the concrete floor. Every now and then, they would be hosed down to clean them from the worst of the human excrement. According to the SS files 1,662 prisoners died in this camp between January 8 and April 2, 1945. An additional unknown number of deaths must be added to this official record as well as the 2,250 sick and dying prisoners who were transferred from Bergen-Belsen to the Boelcke-Kaserne around March 8, 1945. The Boelcke-Kaserne subcamp had the largest proportion of Jewish prisoners in the Mittelbau-Dora concentration camp system. The reason for this was because a large number of exhausted Jewish prisoners arrived in Mittelbau in January 1945 from Gross-Rosen and Auschwitz. The exception to this was the Gross-Werther camp, which held only Jewish women. However, while there are no exact numbers, it can be assumed that the large majority of Polish prisoners, who from April 1, 1945, accounted for more than 40 percent of the total numbers in the camp, were Jews. There were also relatively large numbers of Russian and French prisoners as well as Hungarian Jews. As the camp only lasted for 3 months, the survivors were able to report little on the behavior of the SS camp administration. The camp leader was 50-year-old SS-Obersturmführer Heinrich Josten (December 11, 1893 – January 24, 1948), who had arrived in Nordhausen from Auschwitz. His deputy was SS-Hauptscharführer Josef Kestel (October 29, 1904 – November 19, 1948), who had been the Rapportführer in the Dora main camp. Both men do not figure in survivors’ memoirs, which is hardly surprising, as the SS scarcely entered the camp. This also applied to SS-Hauptsturmführer Doctor Heinrich Schmidt (March 27, 1912 – November 28, 2000), who was the camp doctor for a few weeks. His presence is most noted for his inactivity. The catastrophic conditions in the Boelcke-Kaserne subcamp can largely be attributed to him. The SS installed mostly German prisoners as prisoner-functionaries in Boelcke-Kaserne. They wore the green triangle of the “criminals.” Their appointment worsened the conditions in the camp. There were around 5,700 inmates in the camp on April 1, 1945. The camp’s dissolution began on April 2-3, 1945, when around 3,000 prisoners were transferred to the camps at Mittelbau and Ellrich-Juliushütte. British bomber squadrons attacked Nordhausen on the afternoon of April 3 and on the following day. The garages in Boelcke-Kaserne were heavily damaged. Although a prisoner infirmary, it had not been marked with a Red Cross symbol. The garage that held Blocks 13 suffered heavy damage and was almost completely destroyed. The guards had sought refuge in the air-raid shelters, but the prisoners were left where they were to the mercy of the bombs. On April 3, there were 450 dead during the 1st attack in the afternoon in the block for those suffering from tuberculosis. The SS evacuated Nordhausen after the air raid, leaving the survivors behind, most of whom were more dead than alive. Hundreds lay dying in the rubble in the garages; no 1 cared for them. Some prisoners had managed to escape during the air raids, hiding in the rubble of Nordhausen and the nearby forests until they were liberated by the Americans on April 11, 1945. The Americans immediately established a hospital after they entered Nordhausen. They brought in additional medical units, who treated the sick and injured in the barracks. For more than 1,300 prisoners, this help came too late. Many of those who survived the air raids died in the days that followed from starvation and exhaustion. On April 16, 1945, 5 days after liberation, the United States military administration had the Nordhausen local population bury the corpses from Boelcke-Kaserne, including women and children, in the city’s main cemetery. At the same time, the United States Army began investigations into those responsible for the crimes committed in the Mittelbau concentration camp. Captain Ralph W. Lambert (June 10, 1898 – June 21, 1975) was sent out as a scout and took charge of the 1st necessary provisions. “I arrived in Nordhausen (Germany) on April 12, 1945, as an outpost and on the orders of the detachment. It was around 1100 Hours. My instructions stated that I had to locate a concentration camp south of the city. I also had to prepare the way for the detachment that would soon follow.” “On my arrival I found only three official personalities, whom I ordered to conduct me to the camp, while I explained my mission. They, however, professed to know nothing of the existence of such a camp. They told me that the only camp in the city – perhaps the one I was looking for – was on the west side of the city. And they also spoke of a camp called Dora , north of the city, adding that this camp was certainly empty. I ordered the mayor to conduct me to both camps. A guide took me to them, but I found that it was not what I was looking for. In the meantime the detachment had also arrived, and I was now accompanied by Lieutenant Colonel David W. Paulette and Major Malcolm L. Downs. We halted on the south side of the city and began to question our guide about the camp described south of the city. He was formal in his statement that there was nothing on the south side of the city. A French soldier overheard our conversation and approached. He told us that there were still some camp – Blocks and that he wanted to take us there. Then the German guide remembered that there was a camp on this side of the city, but he assured us that it was only a few military barracks. We went to that camp and found there the most horrible picture of Nazi terrorism imaginable.” “The medical department of the 104th Infantry Division had already arrived at the camp. It was busy collecting the surviving camp inmates and transferring them to the Fifty-First Field Hospital. During the afternoon, about five hundred living were transferred on stretchers. It was assumed that there were three thousand people scattered throughout the camp. I went to the temporary city reception center with instructions that a service should be organized to solve the camp situation and the problems of the deportees.” “Lieutenant Colonel Paulette was to take charge of the camp and Major Downs was to look after the situation of the deportees. In the course of the afternoon I was able to arrange for six hundred German civilians to report to Lieutenant Colonel Paulette the following morning at the camp. I gave the mayor one hour to draw up a plan for the burial of the victims and made it clear to him that it had to be a good plan. The plan submitted was approved, except for the location of the site.” “During the next two days I was occupied exclusively with administrative measures concerning the work in the camp and in the cemeteries. Major Downs, who got the situation of the deportees under his control, needed almost no support from my services. Apart from this work I also organized the following: a. designate and deliver approximately seven hundred blankets to the Fifty-First Field Hospital; b. establish a laundry for the exclusive use of the Fifty-First Field Hospital and for the purpose of cleaning surgical equipment, tools, etc.; c. transport of five hundred water tanks to the bakery of Krimderode, with the aim of baking bread for distribution in three temporary hospitals, where sick and wounded deportees from the camp were cared for; the first loaf of bread left this bakery on April 14, 1945 at 1930 Hours.” Major Malcolm L. Downs (July 14, 1911 – September 7, 1976) took charge of the health situation, arranging for the bodies to be removed from the barracks and for the survivors to be housed. “After arriving in Nordhausen on Thursday, April 12, 1945, at about 1300 Hours, I immediately went to the concentration camp south of the city. Lieutenant Colonel Paulette informed me that I was charged with removing the dead bodies.” “A medical unit of the 104th Infantry Division had already begun to transfer the sick. Major Kelly (???? – ????) of the 104th Division placed sixteen law enforcement officers at my disposal. They collected about four hundred German civilians. Of these, about hundred and fifty men were employed in cleaning the area, while the remaining two hundred and fifty had to remove the bodies from the buildings and transfer them to an open space. At about 1500 Hours, the work was interrupted for about thirty minutes; during this interval the Catholic chaplain celebrated a Mass in memory of the dead. By 1900 Hours about fifteen hundred bodies had been transferred and work ceased for the day.” “On April 13 at 1600 Hours, I was ordered to organize the transfer of the deportees and to set up a camp. This camp was set up in Kasselstrasse, for about a hundred people. There were also two small camps: one at about seven kilometers (four miles) north of the city, where there were eight hundred Russians and another on three kilometers east of Guidenslamer with five hundred Russians. Then we got to know the labor camp of Dora, five kilometers north of the city. Excellent sanitary facilities were found that could suffice for eighteen thousand five hundred people. Electricity and running water were in order and there was still a supply of three hundred to five hundred tons of coal. The camp itself was empty, except for the hospital where nine hundred patients were. The army was then asked for twenty-eight thousand rations to feed the deportees. It is estimated that there were thirty-five thousand deportees in the Landkreis.” “On Saturday, April 14, 1945, a first detachment of five Military Police Officers and ten Non-Commissioned Officers, led by Captain Fleischman (???? – ????), arrived and the camp was handed over to them. The transfer of the deportees from the camp on Kasselstrasse to Dora began at 1300 Hours.” “On Sunday, April 15, at 1700 Hours, Lieutenant Colonel Robert D. Cameron (December 22, 1895 – October 31, 1965) of the Seventh Detachment assumed charge of the deportee camps. I accompanied him in the inspection of these camps, explaining to him what had been done. The United States First Army then received five trucks of food and sent them immediately to the Dora camp. By 1200 Hours everything had been transferred and the detachment was able to rejoin.” United States Army Lieutenant Colonel David W. Paulette of the 104th Infantry Division, in his capacity as camp supervisor, arranged for the survivors of Nordhausen to be transferred to hospital services and for a cemetery to be prepared for the burial of the 2,017 bodies. In his unit’s report, Paulette recalled his actions at Boelcke-Kaserne: “In accordance with instructions from the G-5 Jayhawk [Seventh Corps Government Operations Officer], it was decided to give preference to the work in the concentration camp, south of the city. Captain Lambert was sent ahead of the detachment as an outpost to contact the city authorities, to see if a solution could be found for the necessary work, and to discuss other necessary details with the camp occupants. Lieutenant Colonel Paulette and Major Downs then went directly to the camp for an initial inspection. On our arrival we found Cranbery’s (???? – ????) medical unit busy evacuating surviving camp inmates. A temporary hospital was set up in a row of apartment houses, on Steinstrasse, to which seven hundred prisoners were transferred. Due to lack of supplies and comfort, and because of the terrible physical condition of the evacuees, a very critical situation had developed. The Fifty-First Field Hospital was then called in and the four hundred worst cases were taken there. By 1530 hours all the living had been removed from the camp and taken under cover, where they were given a medical check-up. Major Downs then gathered together about four hundred German civilians from the vicinity and the gathering of the dead could begin. By nightfall twelve hundred bodies had been removed from the buildings. In the meantime we sought an acceptable solution for the burial. It was decided to do this towards the end of the afternoon. The mayor on duty was informed by Captain Lambert that six hundred German civilians were to report to the cemetery the following morning at 0700 Hours. These workers were immediately divided into two groups: four hundred were employed to clear the cemetery and prepare the graves, the remaining two hundred were sent to the part of the camp under the command of Sergeant Harold (???? – ????) and his five Military Police Officers (MPs). The gathering of the bodies continued in the meantime, while the other civilians were required to dig the graves. In the late afternoon four hundred bodies were brought out on improvised stretchers, from the camp to the cemetery. The burial had begun. By Saturday night all the bodies had been removed from the camp and 1,958 victims had been buried.” “During Saturday and Saturday night, there were another sixty-nine deaths among those who had been taken to the hospital. They were collected by the German stretcher-bearers and taken to the cemetery. Today, April 15, 1945 at 1400 Hours, 2,027 bodies were buried. The cemetery was cleaned and white markings were placed at the head of the graves. Attached is a plan of the cemetery, with the arrangement of the graves. It is recommended that the detachment of the military administration assigned to Nordhausen should exercise constant control over the cemetery and see that grass is sown. And that every possible effort should be made to beautify that place. The city should also be urged to erect a kind of monument at the place in question.” In a nationally syndicated article by Christopher R. Cunningham (October 12, 1910 – April 28, 1947), United Press War Correspondent, it was reported that “German Civilians Begin Paying For Country’s Sins – Nordhausen, Germany — It was a day of reckoning today for protesting German civilians, who began part payment for their country’s sins.” “The German civilians buried the dead — twenty-seven hundred allied political prisoners who had died after months of starvation and torture while imprisoned in this industrial city.” “It probably was the first time that the American military government had forced the German people to pay personally for their misdeeds.” “They didn’t like it. Some became violently ill, One husky young man collapsed with a heart attack.” “The Germans were compelled to pick up the bodies from the ruins of the concentration camp. They objected strenuously but futilely.” “They carried the bodies up a hill to a communal burial ground. Another group dug long, rows of six-foot trenches and covered the ravaged bodies. This city, the center of Germany’s largest underground manufacturing area, witnessed some of the most cruel acts of sadism ever committed by the Nazis.” “Storm troopers tortured to death batches of foreign slave laborers and prisoners by piercing their mouths with iron hooks and hanging them to a wall.” “When the Nordhausen camp was overrun early this week, American Third Armored Division officers found three thousand living skeletons and twenty-seven hundred unburied bodies. About six hundred had died of starvation during the past two weeks. The others had been killed during two allied ajr attacks. In the group were Russians, Poles, Belgians, Frenchmen and Czechs.” “But today was the payoff. Grim-faced American doughboys silently watched the Germans perform the service under the supervision of Major David W. Paulette of Farmville, Virginia, an Army, veteran of twenty-nine years.” “One Pole and his son spurned a German detail and burled their mother and grandmother. They had died of starvation and the men to were required to walk, along great lines of dead in order to find them. When they were found, the men became hysterical, clutching, the bodies as though they were alive. Paulette ordered a special grave for the two women.” A few days before Boelcke-Kaserne Konzentrationslager was liberated by the United States Army, Kommandant Josten and other SS men set off from Konzentrationslager Bergen-Belsen in early April 1945. After his arrest, Josten was tried in Poland in the Auschwitz trial before the Supreme National Tribunal of Krakow, Poland. Sentenced to death in December 1947 for his involvement in selections, Josten was hung on January 24, 1948, in Krakow’s Montelupich prison. The former camp doctor Schmidt was tried in the 1947 Dachau Dora Trial, as was 1 other SS member from Boelcke-Kaserne. Schmidt was acquitted for lack of evidence. Likewise, he was acquitted for lack of evidence in the 1979 Majdanek Trial in Düsseldorf. There were no other trials regarding crimes committed in the Boelcke-Kaserne subcamp. | |
| Image Filename | wwii0605.jpg |
| Image Size | 562.94 KB |
| Image Dimensions | 2144 x 1552 |
| Photographer | |
| Photographer Title | United States Army Signal Corps |
| Caption Author | Written or Adapted by Jason McDonald |
| Date Photographed | April 11, 1945 |
| Location | Konzentrationslager-Außenlager Boelcke-Kaserne |
| City | Nordhausen |
| State or Province | Thuringia |
| Country | Germany |
| Archive | United States Holocaust Memorial Museum |
| Record Number | 11533 |
| Status | Caption ©2026 MFA Productions LLC Please Do Not Duplicate or Distribute Without Permission; Image in the Public Domain |
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