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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. ==Operation== 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.〔(【引用サイトリンク】 url =http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10006131 )〕〔(【引用サイトリンク】 url =http://www.buchenwald.de/561/ )〕〔(【引用サイトリンク】 url =http://www.otz.de/web/zgt/politik/detail/-/specific/Spurensuche-in-der-Hoelle-von-Ohrdruf-1216823025 )〕 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.〔(【引用サイトリンク】 url =http://www.buchenwald.de/563/ )〕 In January 1945, the SS guards were reinforced by units from Auschwitz.〔 Towards the end of the war, the prisoners were used to construct a subterranean headquarter for the government (''Führerhauptquartier'') to be used following a possible evacuation of Berlin. It was never completed.〔(【引用サイトリンク】 url =http://www.buchenwald.de/562/ )〕 It is still not clear exactly what projects the prisoners of Ohrdruf were working on. Besides the temporary quarters for the ''Reich'' leadership, the extensive tunneling and other works at Jonastal point to an armament factory of some kind. There is a theory, advanced by Rainer Karlsch that the facility was intended as (and was in fact used as) a testing site for a German nuclear bomb. Other possibilities are an improved V-2 rocket or long-range jet-powered bombers, but all of this is speculative.〔 Those unable to work were moved by the SS to ''Sterbelager'': 4,300 sick inmates were moved to Bergen-Belsen concentration camp or the ''Kleines Lager'' at Buchenwald. In late March 1945, the camp had a prisoner population of some 11,700 to 13,000. As the American troops advanced towards Ohrdruf, the SS began evacuating almost all the prisoners on death marches to Buchenwald on April 1. During these marches, SS, Volkssturm and members of the Hitler-Jugend killed an estimated 1,000 prisoners. Mass graves were re-opened and SS men tried to burn the corpses. The SS guards killed many of the remaining prisoners in the ''Nordlager'' deemed too ill to walk to the railcars. After luring them to the parade ground, claiming that they were to be fed, the SS shot them and left their corpses lying in the open.〔〔 In addition to those killed on the death marches, an estimated 3,000 inmates died from exhaustion or were murdered inside the camp.〔 Together with those worked to death here but moved elsewhere to die, estimates of the total number of victims are around 7,000.〔(【引用サイトリンク】 url =http://www.buchenwald.de/564/ )〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Ohrdruf concentration camp」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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