Ohrdruf was a German forced labor and concentration camp located near Ohrdruf, south of Gotha, in Thuringia, Germany. It was part of the Buchenwald concentration camp network.

2021年1月25日 · The Ohrdruf camp was a subcamp of the Buchenwald concentration camp, and the first Nazi camp liberated by US troops. The year 2020 marked the 75th anniversary of the liberation of concentration camps by US forces and the end of Nazi tyranny in Europe.

On April 4, 1945, the US 4th Armored Division and 89th Infantry Division of the Third US Army came face to face with the horrors of Nazi brutality. The men discovered Ohrdruf, a Nazi labor camp and a subcamp of the Buchenwald system.

Created in November 1944 near the town of Gotha, Germany, Ohrdruf 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.

General Dwight D. Eisenhower's visit to the Ohrdruf concentration camp in April of 1945 drew great interest from the American public. His tour of the camp helped generate a massive publicity campaign to expose the crimes of the Nazi regime to the world.

On April 4, 1945, the United States 602nd Tank Destroyers’ Battalion, the 4th Armored Division, and the 89th Infantry of the Third United States Army liberated Ohrdruf. The Ohrdruf camp was an extension of the Buchenwald Concentration Camp and supplied forced labor.

Ohrdruf (code name: S III), a subcamp of Buchenwald, was the first concentration camp to be liberated by the Western Allied troops in 1945. The photos of the emaciated, burnt and bullet-ridden bodies of inmates found by the shocked soldiers of the 3rd U.S. Army still shape our image of the National Socialist crimes to this day.