97-507: Buchenwald ( German pronunciation: [ˈbuːxn̩valt] ; literally ' beech forest ') was a Nazi concentration camp established on Ettersberg hill near Weimar , Germany , in July 1937. It was one of the first and the largest of the concentration camps within the Altreich . Many actual or suspected communists were among the first internees. Prisoners came from all over Europe and
194-631: A Military Commission Court at Dachau . The life sentence imposed by the Dachau court was reduced to four years upon review. Upon her release from U.S. custody in October 1949, she was arrested by West German authorities, tried at Augsburg, and again sentenced to life imprisonment; she committed suicide in Aichach (Bavaria) prison in September 1967. The second commandant of the camp, between 1942 and 1945,
291-613: A Bauhaus typeface for it, even though Bauhaus was seen as degenerate art by the National Socialists and was prohibited. This defiance however went unnoticed by the SS. Buchenwald's first commandant was SS- Obersturmbannführer Karl-Otto Koch , who ran the camp from 1 August 1937 to July 1941. His second wife, Ilse Koch , became notorious as Die Hexe von Buchenwald ("the witch of Buchenwald") for her cruelty and brutality. In February 1940 Koch had an indoor riding hall built by
388-453: A US military tribunal in 1947, including Higher SS and Police Leader Josias Erbprinz zu Waldeck und Pyrmont , who oversaw the SS district that Buchenwald was located in, and many of the doctors responsible for Nazi human experimentation. Almost all of the defendants were convicted, and 22 were sentenced to death. However, only nine death sentences were carried out, and by the mid-1950s, all perpetrators had been freed except for Ilse Koch , who
485-651: A bitter, astringent, or in some cases, mild and nut-like taste. According to the Roman statesman Pliny the Elder in his work Natural History , beechnut was eaten by the people of Chios when the town was besieged, writing of the fruit: "that of the beech is the sweetest of all; so much so, that, according to Cornelius Alexander, the people of the city of Chios, when besieged, supported themselves wholly on mast". They can also be roasted and pulverized into an adequate coffee substitute . The leaves can be steeped in liquor to give
582-519: A central role in the GDR's remembrance policy under Erich Honecker . They were controlled by the Ministry of Culture and thus by the government. According to their statute, these memorials served as places of identification and legitimisation of the GDR. The political instrumentalisation of these memorials, especially for the current needs of the GDR, became particularly clear during the major celebrations of
679-650: A certain prisoner had been shot while attempting to escape, and discovered that in fact, the prisoner had been told to get water from a well some distance from the camp, then was shot from behind; he had also helped treat Koch for syphilis. By that time, Koch had been transferred to the Majdanek concentration camp in Poland, but his wife, Ilse, was still living at the Commandant's house in Buchenwald. Waldeck ordered
776-842: A commercial apprenticeship. In 1916, he volunteered to join the Imperial German Army and fought on the Western Front until he was captured by the British. Koch spent the rest of the war as a prisoner of war and returned to Germany in 1919. As a soldier, he behaved well and was awarded the Iron Cross Second Class, the Observer's Badge and the Wound Badge in Black. After World War I, Koch worked as
873-626: A commercial manager, an authorized signatory and insurance agent and became unemployed in 1932 (he had served a prison sentence in 1930 for embezzlement and forgery). In 1931, he joined the Nazi Party and the Schutzstaffel (SS). Koch served with several SS-Standarten (Thirty-fifth SS Regiment Kassel, SS Special Detachment Saxony). In 1934, he took command of the Sachsenburg Concentration Camp . Briefly, he
970-1022: A concentration camp: first, that they had managed to make contact with the French Resistance , some were disguised as civilians, and they were carrying false papers when caught; they were therefore categorized by the Germans as spies , which meant their rights under the Geneva Convention were not respected. The second explanation is that they had been categorised as Terrorflieger ("terror aviators"). The aviators were initially held in Gestapo prisons and headquarters in France. In April or August 1944, they and other Gestapo prisoners were packed into covered goods wagons and sent to Buchenwald. The journey took five days, during which they received very little food or water. A primary cause of death
1067-429: A decorative wood. The timber can be used to build chalets, houses, and log cabins. Beech wood is used for the stocks of military rifles when traditionally preferred woods such as walnut are scarce or unavailable or as a lower-cost alternative. The edible fruit of the beech tree, known as beechnuts or mast, is found in small burrs that drop from the tree in autumn. They are small, roughly triangular, and edible, with
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#17327662277891164-619: A full-scale investigation of the camp by Georg Konrad Morgen , an SS officer who was an SS-judge in the SS Court Main Office . As a result of the investigation, more of Koch's orders to kill prisoners at the camp were revealed, as well as embezzlement of property stolen from prisoners. The Kochs had used the massive Nazi apparatus to gain an enormous amount of wealth. The Kochs were both arrested in August 1943 to await trial by an SS court. SS Judge Konrad Morgen formally indicted
1261-399: A letter of the alphabet) is буква ( bukva ), while Serbo-Croatian and Slovene use " bukva " to refer to the tree. The pigment bistre was made from beech wood soot . Beech litter raking as a replacement for straw in animal husbandry was an old non-timber practice in forest management that once occurred in parts of Switzerland in the 17th century. Beech has been listed as one of
1358-459: A light green/yellow liqueur. In antiquity, the bark of the beech tree was used by Indo-European people for writing-related purposes, especially in a religious context. Beech wood tablets were a common writing material in Germanic societies before the development of paper . The Old English bōc has the primary sense of "beech" but also a secondary sense of "book", and it is from bōc that
1455-490: A long history of cultivation, Bulgaria for example, do not exhibit this pattern, so how much human activity has influenced the spread of beech trees is as yet unclear. The primeval beech forests of the Carpathians are also an example of a singular, complete, and comprehensive forest dominated by a single tree species - the beech tree. Forest dynamics here were allowed to proceed without interruption or interference since
1552-623: A murder. Koch commanded the Majdanek camp for only one year; he was relieved from his duties when 86 Soviet POWs escaped from the camp in August 1942. Koch was charged with criminal negligence and transferred to Berlin, where he worked at the SS Personnel Main Office and as a liaison between the SS and the German Post Office. Koch's actions at Buchenwald first caught the attention of SS-Obergruppenführer Josias , Prince of Waldeck and Pyrmont, in 1941. While perusing
1649-687: A naturally growing forest tree, beech marks the important border between the European deciduous forest zone and the northern pine forest zone. This border is important for wildlife and fauna. In Denmark and Scania at the southernmost peak of the Scandinavian peninsula, southwest of the natural spruce boundary, it is the most common forest tree. It grows naturally in Denmark and southern Norway and Sweden up to about 57–59°N. The most northern known naturally growing (not planted) beech trees are found in
1746-574: A private photo album of his was discovered in the FSB archives in Moscow. Koch received the album from his co-workers as a gift for his 40th birthday. The album documents the construction process of the Sachsenhausen concentration camp . It consists of 460 photographs, including 200 neatly labeled photos — some with cynical remarks — of the creation of the camp in 1936 and 1937. The photos also depict
1843-789: A separate family, the Nothofagaceae (which remains a member of the order Fagales ). They are found throughout the Southern Hemisphere in Australia , New Zealand , New Guinea , New Caledonia , as well as Argentina and Chile (principally Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego ). Species treated in Denk et al. (2024) and listed in Plants of the World Online (POWO) : Erroneously synonymized by some authors (e.g. POWO) with
1940-560: A small grove north of Bergen on the west coast of Norway. Near the city of Larvik is the largest naturally occurring beech forest in Norway, Bøkeskogen . Some research suggests that early agriculture patterns supported the spread of beech in continental Europe. Research has linked the establishment of beech stands in Scandinavia and Germany with cultivation and fire disturbance, i.e. early agricultural practices. Other areas which have
2037-541: A smaller scale. One such experiment aimed at determining the precise fatal dose of a poison of the alkaloid group; according to the testimony of one doctor, four Soviet POWs were administered the poison, and when it proved not to be fatal they were "strangled in the crematorium" and subsequently "dissected". Among various other experiments was one which, in order to test the effectiveness of a balm for wounds from incendiary bombs , involved inflicting "very severe" white phosphorus burns on inmates. When challenged at trial over
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#17327662277892134-509: A son and two daughters. Ilse became known later as "The Witch of Buchenwald" ( Die Hexe von Buchenwald ), usually rendered in English as "The Bitch of Buchenwald." Though Ilse Koch never had any official job at Buchenwald or at any other concentration camp, many inmates alleged that she used the tacit authority she had as the commandant's wife to abuse prisoners, or seek their punishment by the camp SS. More than 55 years after Koch's execution,
2231-578: A substantially different nucleome (nuclear DNA) , especially in noncoding, highly variable gene regions such as the spacers of the nuclear-encoded ribosomal RNA genes (ribosomal DNA) . Further differentiating characteristics include the whitish bloom on the underside of the leaves, the visible tertiary leaf veins, and a long, smooth cupule-peduncle. Originally proposed but not formalized by botanist Chung-Fu Shen in 1992, this group comprised two Japanese species, F. japonica and F. okamotoi, and one Chinese species, F. engleriana . While
2328-440: A tone between those of maple and birch , the two most popular drum woods. The textile modal is a kind of rayon often made wholly from reconstituted cellulose of pulped beech wood. The European species Fagus sylvatica yields a tough, utility timber. It weighs about 720 kg per cubic metre and is widely used for furniture construction, flooring, and engineering purposes, in plywood and household items, but rarely as
2425-448: A tour of Dresden Castle and Church of Our Lady . During the visit they were accompanied by Elie Wiesel and Bertrand Herz , both survivors of the camp. Volkhard Knigge [ de ] , the director of the Buchenwald and Mittelbau-Dora Memorials Foundation and honorary professor of University of Jena , guided the four guests through the remainder of the site of the camp. During the visit Wiesel, who together with Herz were sent to
2522-524: A utility timber used for furniture construction, flooring and engineering purposes, in plywood, and household items. The timber can be used to build homes. Beechwood makes excellent firewood . Slats of washed beech wood are spread around the bottom of fermentation tanks for Budweiser beer. Beech logs are burned to dry the malt used in some German smoked beers . Beech is also used to smoke Westphalian ham , andouille sausage, and some cheeses. Beeches are monoecious , bearing both male and female flowers on
2619-795: A variety of spine- to scale-like appendages, the character of which is, in addition to leaf shape, one of the primary ways beeches are differentiated. The nuts are called beechnuts or beech mast and have a bitter taste (though not nearly as bitter as acorns ) and a high tannin content. The most recent classification system of the genus recognizes 14 species in two distinct subgenera, subgenus Englerianae and Fagus . Beech species can be diagnosed by phenotypical and/or genotypical traits. Species of subgenus Engleriana are found only in East Asia, and are notably distinct from species of subgenus Fagus in that these beeches are low-branching trees, often made up of several major trunks with yellowish bark and
2716-415: Is found only in East Asia, distinctive for its low branches, often made up of several major trunks with yellowish bark. The better known species of subgenus Fagus are native to Europe , western and eastern Asia and eastern North America. They are high-branching trees with tall, stout trunks and smooth silver-grey bark. The European beech Fagus sylvatica is the most commonly cultivated species, yielding
2813-428: Is not planted much as an ornamental due to slower growth and less resistance to urban pollution. It most commonly occurs as an overstory component in the northern part of its range with sugar maple, transitioning to other forest types further south such as beech-magnolia. American beech is rarely encountered in developed areas except as a remnant of a forest that was cut down for land development. The dead brown leaves of
2910-559: Is the most commonly cultivated, although few important differences are seen between species aside from detail elements such as leaf shape. The leaves of beech trees are entire or sparsely toothed, from 5–15 centimetres (2–6 inches) long and 4–10 cm (2–4 in) broad. The bark is smooth and light gray. The fruit is a small, sharply three-angled nut 10–15 mm ( 3 ⁄ 8 – 5 ⁄ 8 in) long, borne singly or in pairs in soft-spined husks 1.5–2.5 cm ( 5 ⁄ 8 –1 in) long, known as cupules. The husk can have
3007-475: The Little camp as 16-year-old boys, said, "if these trees could talk." His statement marked the irony about the beauty of the landscape and the horrors that took place within the camp. President Obama mentioned during his visit that he had heard stories as a child from his great uncle, who was part of the 89th Infantry Division , the first Americans to reach the camp at Ohrdruf, one of Buchenwald's satellites. Obama
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3104-582: The Soviet Union , and included Jews , Poles , and other Slavs , the mentally ill, and physically disabled, political prisoners, Romani people , Freemasons , and prisoners of war. There were also ordinary criminals and those perceived as sexual deviants by the Nazi regime. All prisoners worked primarily as forced labor in local armaments factories. The insufficient food and poor conditions, as well as deliberate executions, led to 56,545 deaths at Buchenwald of
3201-653: The cryptic sister species F. hayatae and F. pashanica ) , two pseudo-cryptic species in eastern North America ( F. grandifolia , F. mexicana ), and a species complex of at least four species ( F. caspica , F. hohenackeriana , F. orientalis , F. sylvatica ) in Western Eurasia . Their genetics are highly complex and include both species-unique alleles as well as alleles and ribosomal DNA spacers that are shared between two or more species. The western Eurasian species are characterized by morphological and genetical gradients. Research suggests that
3298-601: The "singing forest", so named because of the screams which emanated from this wooded area. Summary executions of Soviet POWs were also carried out at Buchenwald. At least 1,000 men were selected in 1941–42 by a task force of three Dresden Gestapo officers and sent to the camp for immediate liquidation by a gunshot to the back of the neck, the infamous Genickschuss . The camp was also a site of large-scale trials for vaccines against epidemic typhus in 1942 and 1943. In all 729 inmates were used as test subjects, of whom 154 died. Other "experimentation" occurred at Buchenwald on
3395-612: The 280,000 prisoners who passed through the camp and its 139 subcamps . The camp gained notoriety when it was liberated by the United States Army in April 1945; Allied commander Dwight D. Eisenhower visited one of its subcamps. From August 1945 to March 1950, the camp was used by the Soviet occupation authorities as an internment camp, NKVD special camp Nr. 2 , where 28,455 prisoners were held and 7,113 of whom died. Today
3492-496: The 33,462 dead listed. One former Buchenwald prisoner, Armin Walter, calculated the number of executions by the number of shootings in the spine at the base of the head. His job at Buchenwald was to set up and care for a radio installation at the facility where people were executed; he counted the numbers, which arrived by telex, and hid the information. He says that 8,483 Soviet prisoners of war were shot in this manner. According to
3589-454: The 38 plants whose flowers are used to prepare Bach flower remedies . Karl-Otto Koch Karl-Otto Koch ( German: [kɔx] ; 2 August 1897 – 5 April 1945) was a mid-ranking commander in the Schutzstaffel (SS) of Nazi Germany who was the first commandant of the Nazi concentration camps at Buchenwald and Sachsenhausen . From September 1941 until August 1942, he served as
3686-636: The American beech remain on the branches until well into the following spring, when the new buds finally push them off. East Asia is home to eight species of Fagus , only one of which ( F. crenata ) is occasionally planted in Western countries. Smaller than F. sylvatica and F. grandifolia , this beech is one of the most common hardwoods in its native range. Beech grows on a wide range of soil types, acidic or basic, provided they are not waterlogged. The tree canopy casts dense shade and thickens
3783-723: The Crimean F. × taurica, from which it differs morphologically and genetically. Numerous species have been named globally from the fossil record spanning from the Cretaceous to the Pleistocene . Fossil species formerly placed in Fagus include: The name of the tree in Latin, fagus (from whence the generic epithet ), is cognate with English "beech" and of Indo-European origin, and played an important role in early debates on
3880-575: The Kochs on 17 August 1944, charging Karl Koch with the "embezzlement and concealing of funds and goods in an amount of at least 200,000 RM," and the "premeditated murder" of three inmates—ostensibly to prevent them from giving evidence to the SS investigatory commission. Ilse was charged with the "habitual receiving of stolen goods, and taking for her benefit at least 25,000 RM..." The trial resulted in Koch being sentenced to death for disgracing both himself and
3977-535: The NKVD camp closed, much of the camp was razed, while signs were erected to provide a Soviet interpretation of the camp's legacy. The first monument to victims was erected by Buchenwald inmates days after the initial liberation. It was made of wood and only intended to be temporary. A second monument to commemorate the dead was erected in 1958 by the German Democratic Republic (GDR) government near
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4074-613: The SS. Koch was executed by firing squad on 5 April 1945 one week before American allied troops arrived to liberate the camp . Contrary to some claims, however, Karl's body was not burned in the camp's crematoria, as they had run short of coal and had stopped operating in mid-March 1945. Instead, his body was disposed of in an unknown location. Koch first married Käte Müller in 1924 and had one psychiatrically troubled son named Manfred; however, this marriage ended with divorce in 1931 due to his infidelity. On 25 May 1937, Koch married Ilse Koch (née Margarete Ilse Köhler), with whom he had
4171-407: 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
4268-521: The bottom of fermentation tanks for Budweiser beer. This provides a complex surface on which the yeast can settle, so that it does not pile up, preventing yeast autolysis which would contribute off-flavours to the beer. Beech logs are burned to dry the malt used in German smoked beers . Beech is also used to smoke Westphalian ham , traditional andouille (an offal sausage) from Normandy, and some cheeses. Some drums are made from beech, which has
4365-634: 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…'. Thirty SS perpetrators at Buchenwald were tried before
4462-415: The camp was to be named Buchenwald, in reference to the beech forest in the area. However, Holocaust researcher James E. Young [ de ] wrote that SS leaders chose the site of the camp precisely to erase the cultural legacy of the area. After the area of the camp was cleared of trees, only one large oak remained, supposedly one of Goethe's Oaks . The camp, designed to hold 8,000 prisoners,
4559-587: The camp workers for personal gain. Other camp officials were charged, including Ilse Koch. The trial resulted in Karl Koch being sentenced to death for disgracing both himself and the SS; he was executed by firing squad on 5 April 1945, one week before American troops arrived. Ilse Koch was acquitted by the SS court and released. However, she was rearrested by American occupation authorities in June 1945, and chosen as one of 31 Buchenwald defendants to stand trial before
4656-483: The camp's brothel . The SS later fired the SS woman on duty in the brothel for corruption; her position was taken over by "brothel mothers" as ordered by SS chief Heinrich Himmler . The majority of women prisoners, however, arrived in 1944 and 1945 from other camps, mainly Auschwitz , Ravensbrück , and Bergen Belsen . Only one barracks was set aside for them; this was overseen by the female block leader ( Blockführerin ) Franziska Hoengesberg, who came from Essen when it
4753-424: The camp's structures. By September, the population had risen to 2,400 following transfers from Bad Sulza, Sachsenburg, and Lichtenburg. On the camp's main gate, the motto Jedem das Seine (English: "To each his own"), was inscribed. The SS interpreted this to mean the " master race " had a right to humiliate and destroy others. It was designed by Buchenwald prisoner and Bauhaus architect Franz Ehrlich , who used
4850-449: The camp, and hurried medical supplies forward from the 20th Field Hospital. Third Army Headquarters sent elements of the 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: I asked to see one of
4947-544: 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 25 kilometres (16 mi) 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 take responsibility for Nazi crimes, instead of dismissing them as atrocity propaganda . Gen. Dwight Eisenhower also invited two groups of Americans to tour
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#17327662277895044-425: The camp, nor ever acted as guard. In total, however, more than 530 women served as guards in the vast Buchenwald system of subcamps and external commands across Germany. Only 22 women served/trained in Buchenwald, compared to over 15,500 men. About 136 subcamps and satellite commandos belonged to Buchenwald concentration camp. In 1942, the SS began to use its forced labor supply for armaments production. Because it
5141-660: The camp, the Belgian Edmond Vandievoet, recounted his experiences in a book whose English title is "I escaped from a Nazi Death Camp" [Editions Jourdan, 2015]. In his work Night , Elie Wiesel talks about his stay in Buchenwald, including his father's death. Jacques Lusseyran , a leader in the underground resistance to the German occupation of France, was eventually sent to Buchenwald after being arrested, and described his time there in his autobiography. On 5 June 2009 U.S. President Barack Obama and German Chancellor Angela Merkel visited Buchenwald after
5238-562: The choice between slave labor or inevitable execution. Many inmates were killed by human experimentation or fell victim to arbitrary acts perpetrated by the SS guards. Other prisoners were simply murdered, primarily by shooting and hanging. As part of Action 14f13 , prisoners deemed too weak or sick to work were sent to Sonnenstein Killing Facility , where they were murdered with carbon monoxide gas. Walter Gerhard Martin Sommer
5335-444: 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. Later in the day, elements of the 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, ordered the mayor of Langenstein to send food and water to
5432-570: The death list of Buchenwald, Hereditary Prince Josias had seen the name of Walter Krämer , a head hospital orderly at Buchenwald, which he recognized because Krämer had successfully treated him in the past. Hereditary Prince Josias investigated the case and found that Koch, as the Camp Commandant, had ordered Krämer and Karl Peix, a hospital attendant, killed as "political prisoners" because they had treated him for syphilis and he feared it might be discovered. Josias also received reports that
5529-578: The disease has become widespread in Connecticut, Massachusetts and Rhode Island, and in portions of coastal New Hampshire and coastal and central Maine. The beech most commonly grown as an ornamental tree is the European beech ( Fagus sylvatica ), widely cultivated in North America as well as its native Europe. Many varieties are in cultivation, notably the weeping beech F. sylvatica 'Pendula', several varieties of copper or purple beech,
5626-821: The eastern United States and southeastern Canada, with a disjunct sister species in Mexico ( F. mexicana ). There are the only extant (surviving) Fagus species in the Western Hemisphere. Before the Pleistocene Ice Age, it is believed to have spanned the entire width of the continent from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific but now is confined to the east of the Great Plains. F. grandifolia tolerates hotter climates than European species but
5723-662: The exception of the Western Eurasian and North American species. Fagus is the first diverging lineage in the evolution of the Fagaceae family, which also includes oaks and chestnuts . The oldest fossils that can be assigned to the beech lineage are 81–82 million years old pollen from the Late Cretaceous of Wyoming , United States. The southern beeches (genus Nothofagus ) historically thought closely related to beeches, are treated as members of
5820-728: The fern-leaved beech F. sylvatica 'Asplenifolia', and the tricolour beech F. sylvatica 'Roseomarginata'. The columnar Dawyck beech ( F. sylvatica 'Dawyck') occurs in green, gold, and purple forms, named after Dawyck Botanic Garden in the Scottish Borders, one of the four garden sites of the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh . Beech wood is an excellent firewood , easily split and burning for many hours with bright but calm flames. Slats of beech wood are washed in caustic soda to leach out any flavour or aroma characteristics and are spread around
5917-585: The first commandant of the Majdanek concentration camp in occupied Poland , stealing vast amounts of valuables and money from murdered Jews. His wife, Ilse Koch , also participated in the crimes at Buchenwald. Koch was born in Darmstadt , Grand Duchy of Hesse-Darmstadt , on 2 August 1897. His father worked in a local registrar's office and died when Karl was eight years old. After completing elementary school in 1912, Koch attended Mittelschule and completed
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#17327662277896014-759: The first representatives of the modern-day genus were already present in the Paleocene of Arctic North America (western Greenland ) and quickly radiated across the high latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere , with a first diversity peak in the Miocene of northeastern Asia . The contemporary species are the product of past, repeated reticulate evolutionary processes ( outbreeding , introgression , hybridization ). As far as studied, heterozygosity and intragenomic variation are common in beech species, and their chloroplast genomes are nonspecific with
6111-429: The geographical origins of the Indo-European people , the beech argument . Greek φηγός (figós) is from the same root, but the word was transferred to the oak tree (e.g. Iliad 16.767) as a result of the absence of beech trees in southern Greece . Fagus sylvatica was a late entrant to Great Britain after the last glaciation, and may have been restricted to basic soils in the south of England. Some suggest that it
6208-479: The ground with leaf litter . In North America, they can form beech-maple climax forests by partnering with the sugar maple . The beech blight aphid ( Grylloprociphilus imbricator ) is a common pest of American beech trees. Beeches are also used as food plants by some species of Lepidoptera . Beech bark is extremely thin and scars easily. Since the beech tree has such delicate bark, carvings, such as lovers' initials and other forms of graffiti, remain because
6305-440: The last ice age. Nowadays, they are amongst the last pure beech forests in Europe to document the undisturbed postglacial repopulation of the species, which also includes the unbroken existence of typical animals and plants. These virgin beech forests and similar forests across 12 countries in continental Europe were inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2007. The American beech ( Fagus grandifolia ) occurs across much of
6402-651: The liberation of the concentration camps, as historian Anne-Kathleen Tillack-Graf analysis in her thesis about the official party newspaper Neues Deutschland . Today the Buchenwald camp site serves as a Holocaust memorial. It has a museum with permanent exhibitions about the history of the camp. It is managed by Buchenwald and Mittelbau-Dora Memorials Foundation, which also looks after the camp memorial at Mittelbau-Dora . Survivors who have written about their camp experiences include Jorge Semprún , who in Quel beau dimanche! describes conversations involving Goethe and Léon Blum , and Ernst Wiechert , whose Der Totenwald
6499-414: 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. After Patton toured
6596-522: The main camp, with prisoners provided insufficient food and inadequate shelter. Although it was highly unusual for German authorities to send Western Allied POWs to concentration camps, Buchenwald held a group of 168 aviators for two months. These men were from the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Jamaica. They all arrived at Buchenwald on 20 August 1944. All these airmen were in aircraft that had crashed in occupied France . Two explanations are given for them being sent to
6693-467: The mass graves. It was inaugurated on 14 September 1958 by GDR Prime Minister Otto Grotewohl . Inside the camp, there is a stainless steel monument on the spot where the first, temporary monument stood. Its surface is maintained at 37 °C (99 °F), the temperature of human skin, all year round. The three National Memorials of the GDR, built next to or on the sites of the former concentration camps Buchenwald, Sachsenhausen , and Ravensbrück , played
6790-418: The message. 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
6887-429: The modern word derives. In modern German, the word for "book" is Buch, with Buche meaning "beech tree". In modern Dutch, the word for "book" is boek, with beuk meaning "beech tree". In Swedish, these words are the same, bok meaning both "beech tree" and "book". There is a similar relationship in some Slavic languages. In Russian and Bulgarian , the word for beech is бук ( buk ), while that for "letter" (as in
6984-471: The nature of this testing, and particularly over the fact that the testing was designed in some cases to cause death and only to measure the time which elapsed until death was caused, one Nazi doctor's defence was that, although a doctor, he was a "legally appointed executioner". The SS left behind accounts of the number of prisoners and people coming to and leaving the camp, categorizing those leaving them by release, transfer, or death. These accounts are one of
7081-520: The prisoners who died by the dozen due to the harsh conditions of the construction site. The hall was built inside the camp, near the canteen, so that oftentimes Ilse Koch could be seen riding in the morning to the beat of the prisoner orchestra. Koch himself was eventually imprisoned at Buchenwald by the Nazi authorities for incitement to murder. The charges were lodged by Prince Waldeck and Morgen , to which were later added charges of corruption , embezzlement , black market dealings, and exploitation of
7178-589: The prisoners' movie room. On April 8 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): To the Allies. To the army of 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
7275-633: The remains of Buchenwald serve as a memorial and permanent exhibition and museum. The Schutzstaffel (SS) established Buchenwald concentration camp at the beginning of July 1937. The camp was to be named Ettersberg , after the hill in Thuringia upon whose north slope the camp was established. The proposed name was deemed inappropriate because it carried associations with several important figures in German culture, especially Enlightenment writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe who had lived in Weimar . Instead
7372-455: The same plant. The small flowers are unisexual, the female flowers borne in pairs, the male flowers wind-pollinating catkins . They are produced in spring shortly after the new leaves appear. The fruit of the beech tree, known as beechnuts or mast, is found in small burrs that drop from the tree in autumn. They are small, roughly triangular, and edible, with a bitter, astringent, or mild and nut-like taste. The European beech ( Fagus sylvatica )
7469-416: The same source, the total number of deaths at Buchenwald is estimated at 56,545. This number is the sum of: 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, 240,000 prisoners, is accurate. On 4 April 1945 the U.S. 89th Infantry Division overran Ohrdruf , a subcamp of Buchenwald. Buchenwald
7566-479: The sources of estimates for the number of deaths in Buchenwald. According to SS documents, 33,462 died. These documents were not, however, necessarily accurate: Among those executed before 1944, many were listed as "transferred to the Gestapo". Furthermore, from 1941, Soviet POWs were executed in mass killings. Arriving prisoners selected for execution were not entered into the camp register and therefore were not among
7663-793: The status of F. okamotoi remains uncertain, the most recent systematic treatment based on morphological and genetic data confirmed a third species, F. multinervis, endemic to Ulleungdo , a South Korean island in the Sea of Japan . The beeches of Ulleungdo have been traditionally treated as a subspecies of F. engleriana, to which they are phenotypically identical, or as a variety of F. japonica. The differ from their siblings by their unique nuclear and plastid genotypes. The better known subgenus Fagus beeches are high-branching with tall, stout trunks and smooth silver-gray bark. This group includes five extant species in continental and insular East Asia ( F. crenata , F. longipetiolata , F. lucida , and
7760-622: The tree is unable to heal itself. Beech bark disease is a fungal infection that attacks the American beech through damage caused by scale insects. Infection can lead to the death of the tree. Beech leaf disease is a disease that affects American beeches spread by the newly discovered nematode, Litylenchus crenatae mccannii . This disease was first discovered in Lake County, Ohio, in 2012 and has now spread to over 41 counties in Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, and Ontario, Canada. As of 2024,
7857-530: The world (according to Guinness World Records ) is the Meikleour Beech Hedge in Meikleour , Perth and Kinross , Scotland. Fagus sylvatica is one of the most common hardwood trees in north-central Europe, in France constituting alone about 15% of all nonconifers. The Balkans are also home to the lesser-known oriental beech ( F. orientalis ) and Crimean beech ( F. taurica ). As
7954-531: Was Hermann Pister (1942–1945). He was tried in 1947 ( Dachau Trials ) and sentenced to death, but on 28 September 1948 he died in Landsberg Prison of a heart attack. The number of women held in Buchenwald was somewhere between 500 and 1,000. The first female inmates were twenty political prisoners who were accompanied by a female SS guard ( Aufseherin ) ; these women were brought to Buchenwald from Ravensbrück in 1941 and forced into sexual slavery at
8051-461: Was an SS- Hauptscharführer who served as a guard at the concentration camps of Dachau and Buchenwald. Known as the "Hangman of Buchenwald", he was considered a depraved sadist who reportedly ordered Otto Neururer and Mathias Spanlang , two Austrian priests, to be crucified upside-down . Sommer was especially infamous for hanging prisoners from trees by their wrists, which had been tied behind their backs (a torture technique known as strappado ) in
8148-536: Was assigned to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp. By September 1937 he had advanced to SS-Standartenführer (colonel). On 1 August 1937, he was given command of the new Buchenwald concentration camp . He remained at Buchenwald until September 1941, when he was transferred to the Majdanek concentration camp for POWs near Lublin , Poland. That was due largely to an investigation based on allegations of his improper behavior at Buchenwald, which included corruption, fraud, embezzlement, drunkenness, sexual offences and
8245-513: Was designated for its beech woodlands, which are believed to be on the western edge of their natural range in this steep limestone gorge. Beech is not native to Ireland; however, it was widely planted in the 18th century and can become a problem shading out the native woodland understory. Beech is widely planted for hedging and in deciduous woodlands, and mature, regenerating stands occur throughout mainland Britain at elevations below about 650 m (2,100 ft). The tallest and longest hedge in
8342-489: Was evacuated. All the women prisoners were later shipped out to one of Buchenwald's many female satellite camps in Sömmerda , Buttelstedt , Mühlhausen , Gotha , Gelsenkirchen , Essen , Lippstadt , Weimar , Magdeburg , and Penig , to name a few. No female guards were permanently stationed at Buchenwald. Contrary to popular opinion, the notorious "Bitch of Buchenwald" Ilse Koch never served in any official capacity at
8439-467: Was illness due to harsh camp conditions. Like all concentration camps, prisoners at Buchenwald were deliberately kept in a state of starvation , many while performing grueling forced labor , making consequent illnesses prevalent. Malnourished and suffering from disease, many were literally "worked to death" under the Vernichtung durch Arbeit policy ( extermination through labor ), as inmates only had
8536-406: Was intended to replace several smaller concentration camps nearby, including Bad Sulza [ de ] , Sachsenburg , and Lichtenburg . Compared to these camps, Buchenwald had a greater potential to profit the SS because the nearby clay deposits could be made into bricks by the forced labor of prisoners. The first prisoners arrived on 15 July 1937, and had to clear the area of trees and build
8633-459: Was introduced by Neolithic tribes who planted the trees for their edible nuts. The beech is classified as a native in the south of England and as a non-native in the north where it is often removed from 'native' woods. Large areas of the Chilterns are covered with beech woods, which are habitat to the common bluebell and other flora. The Cwm Clydach National Nature Reserve in southeast Wales
8730-477: Was more economical to rent out prisoners to private firms, subcamps were set up near factories which had a demand for prisoner labor. Private firms paid the SS between 4 and 6 Reichsmarks per day per prisoner, resulting in an estimated 95,758,843 Reichsmarks in revenue for the SS between June 1943 and February 1945. So the subcamps of Buchenwald were mainly used for armament production and other fabrications and are considered labour camps. Conditions were worse than at
8827-465: Was not true. US Corporal Rick Carrier discovered the camp on April 10th 1945, and reported the location up the chain of command. A detachment of troops of the U.S. 9th Armored Infantry Battalion, from the 6th Armored Division , part of the U.S. Third Army , and under the command of Captain Frederic Keffer, arrived at Buchenwald on 11 April 1945 at 3:15 p.m. (now the permanent time of
8924-422: 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 forcibly evacuated on foot . Thanks in large part to the efforts of Polish engineer (and short-wave 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
9021-495: 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 U.S. Third Army responded: KZ Bu. Hold out. Rushing to your aid. Staff of Third Army. According to Teofil Witek, a fellow Polish prisoner who witnessed the transmissions, Damazyn fainted after receiving
9118-588: Was the first sitting US President to visit the Buchenwald concentration camp. Sources 51°01′20″N 11°14′53″E / 51.02222°N 11.24806°E / 51.02222; 11.24806 Beech See text Beech ( Fagus ) is a genus of deciduous trees in the family Fagaceae , native to subtropical (accessory forest element) and temperate (as dominant element of mesophytic forests) Eurasia and North America . There are 14 accepted species in two distinct subgenera, Englerianae Denk & G.W.Grimm and Fagus . The subgenus Englerianae
9215-696: Was the officer in charge of the Esterwegen Concentration Camp guard unit, officer in charge of the preventive custody camp in the Lichtenburg Concentration Camp, and the adjutant at Dachau Concentration Camp. On 13 June 1935, he became commander of the Columbia concentration camp in Berlin-Tempelhof and, in April 1936, he was assigned to the concentration camp at Esterwegen . Four months later, he
9312-401: Was tried by a West German court and given a life sentence. Additional perpetrators were tried before German courts during the 1960s. Between August 1945 and 1 March 1950, Buchenwald was the site of NKVD special camp Nr. 2 , where the Soviet secret police imprisoned former Nazis and anti-communist dissidents. According to Soviet records, 28,455 people were detained, 7,113 of whom died. After
9409-482: Was written in 1939 but not published until 1945, and which likewise involved Goethe. Scholars have investigated how camp inmates used art to help deal with their circumstances, and according to Theodor Ziolkowski writers often did so by turning to Goethe. Artist Léon Delarbre sketched, besides other scenes of camp life, the Goethe Oak , under which he used to sit and write. One of the few prisoners who escaped from
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