Ohrdruf forced labor camp

Ohrdruf
Concentration camp
View of the camp including a watchtower, barracks, and barbed wire fencing.
Location of Ohrdruf in Germany
Coordinates	50°50′1″N 10°45′17″E / 50.83361°N 10.75472°E / 50.83361; 10.75472Coordinates: 50°50′1″N 10°45′17″E / 50.83361°N 10.75472°E / 50.83361; 10.75472
Location	Thuringia, Germany
Operated by	German Army, later Schutzstaffel (SS)
Original use	Prisoner of war camp
Operational	1944-1945 (as concentration camp)
Number of gas chambers	none
Liberated by	U.S. Army, April 4, 1945

Ohrdruf concentration camp was a Nazi forced labor and concentration camp located near Ohrdruf, south of Gotha, in Thuringia, Germany. It was part of the Buchenwald concentration camp network and the first Nazi concentration camp liberated by U.S. troops.

Created in November 1944 near the town of Ohrdruf, south of Gotha, in Thuringia, Germany, Ohrdruf was initially a separate forced labour camp directly controlled by the SS-Wirtschafts- und Verwaltungshauptamt (SS-WVHA) but then became a subcamp of the Buchenwald concentration camp near Weimar. It made use of huts originally built in 1940 for Wehrmacht troops using the Truppenübungsplatz nearby as well as other facilities. The camp, code-named Außenlager S III, consisted of a northern and a southern camp, later a tent camp at Espenfeld and a camp at Crawinkel were added. The camp supplied forced labor in the form of concentration camp prisoners for railway construction leading to a proposed communications center, which was never completed due to the rapid American advance.

By late 1944, around 10,000 prisoners were housed here, through March 1945 the total number sent here was around 20,000, mainly Russians, Poles, Hungarian Jews, some French, Czechs, Italians, Belgians, Greeks, Yugoslavians and Germans. Conditions were atrocious: In the huts there were no beds, "only blood-covered straw and lice". Despite the season, not all prisoners were housed in huts, some were accommodated in stables, tents and old bunkers. Work days were initially 10 to 11 hours long, later 14 hours, involving strenuous physical labor building roads, railways and tunnels. In addition, inmates had to cope with long marches and musterings, total lack of sanitary equipment or medical facilities, insufficient food and clothing.