In my recent article covering the origins of the famous piece of ‘Remarkable Holocaust Nonsense’ concerning the alleged daily murder of jews by the German guards of the Buchenwald concentration camp by throwing them in a cage with a hungry bear and an eagle which originates in 1988 with a ‘Holocaust Survivor’ named Rabbi Morris Hubert. (1)
I pointed out that there is a grain of truth in the claim as regards Buchenwald because rather bizarrely the camp did in fact have its own small zoo on site, which also did indeed house bears although we have no record of any eagles being on display. Their presence in the zoo is not impossible if somewhat unlikely. (2)
However, the immediate response was wait… what… a zoo?
So credulous reaction isn’t the fault of my readers though because most of them have grown up with the images portrayed by ‘Schindler’s List’ and also of the photographs taken at the very end of the war of the camps after the German logistical system and economy had almost completely stopped functioning. However, the origins of the concentration camp system was both as a way of safeguarding German society from various individuals for political and/or social reasons (for example many inmates were originally habitual criminals and homosexuals as well as significant political opponents of the Third Reich) and providing an opportunity for rehabilitation of those who were possible to rehabilitate. (3)
Part of this process was the provision of facilities meant to improve the mental and/or physical health of the inmates in the camps with group exercise being a common strategy. (4) This led to some rather unusual innovations in the German concentration camp system that led to the famous swimming pool of Auschwitz, the barely known bowling alley of Sobibor and also the similarly barely known zoo of Buchenwald.
While not widely known outside of the rather specialist world of the literature on the Buchenwald camp itself; it is openly attested by the Buchenwald Camp Memorial.
They explain how:
‘In 1938 the camp commander had a zoo built in close proximity to the camp with the support of the Leipzig Zoo. On view were monkeys, brown bears, and deer. The zoo was financed by forced “donations” from the inmates.
Members of the SS and their families as well as the civilian foremen from the Deutschen Ausrüstungswerke (DAW) used the zoo during their free time and lunch breaks as a leisure area. Postcards printed by the SS advertised the zoo.
The zoo demonstratively placed the well-being of the animals over that of the inmates. Members of the SS were punished for any mistreatment of an animal. This contrast to the mass suffering in the camp was apparently intended. In the early years of the camp, the morgue was situated next to the zoo, alongside the nearby watchtower.’ (5)
You can immediately see from the Buchenwald Memorial’s description of it that the existence of the zoo at Buchenwald presents a major issue for the ‘evil Nazis’ narrative in large part because; how on earth do you explain why the Third Reich would have had a zoo in one of its more feared institutions: the concentration camp system?
How they get around this problem is by making the zoo an institution which was purely for the SS, the civilian workers at the DAW works in the camp and their families. They then claim – rather absurdly – that the SS were doing all this to ‘torment’ the inmates at Buchenwald using the zoo, which is rather absurd and basically an unevidenced throwaway claim meant to try and make it all seem like it was part of the ‘system of terror’.
When in truth this is clearly cobblers.
We can see this even within the Buchenwald Memorial’s commentary on who worked at the zoo when they write:
‘The inmates not only worked in construction, but they also served as craftsmen, cooks, animal keepers, and servants in all parts of the complex.’ (6)
This then basically admits that inmates at Buchenwald did work – and have access to - the zoo, while trying to imply elsewhere that they didn’t.
We can see that the zoo wasn’t just for the staff, the civilian employees and their families from its location within the camp:
We can see from the plan of the camp above that contrary to the Buchenwald Memorial’s weasel words that imply that that zoo wasn’t anywhere near the inmates; it was in fact right next to the inmate’s area and is not only next to the sleeping blocks for the inmates but is also right next to the camp facilities for the inmates.
Now the interesting thing about is that it means that the zoo was actually in near enough full view of the inmates and could be seen from the camp facilities as well as from some of the sleeping blocks for the inmates.
However, at this point you might well ask: how do we know the inmate’s line of sight wasn’t blocked?
Well, we know this because we actually have photos from the Buchenwald Memorial of the side of the deer enclosure at the zoo, which also shows the fencing between the zoo and the sleeping blocks/camp facilities of the inmates.
The photo concerned is this: (7)
This photo clearly shows normal fencing around the zoo enclosure plus the additional wooden fence and the barbed wire fence – so we are looking at three fence lines; one of which is the zoo enclosure fence – which dual fence line is only seen in the plan of Buchenwald around the inmate area of the camp as it relates to the zoo.
Thus we therefore know that inmates could easy and happily view the zoo from the inmate area as well as the DAW works area, which means that even if an inmate was not one of the zoo keepers – which as pointed out above we know the zoo keepers were largely inmates of Buchenwald - then they would have been able to watch, enjoy and to a limited extent interact with the zoo animals in Buchenwald.
Thus we can see that while inmates wouldn’t have tended to be wandering around the zoo proper – although one can well imagine that it might have been used as a reward for good behaviour from them – but also that the Buchenwald Memorial deliberately misleads readers (and presumably also visitors) into believing that the zoo also wasn’t for – and wasn’t enjoyed by – inmates of the camp.
Thus, we can see that the Buchenwald camp zoo was for the SS, the civilian employees of DAW plus their families but also for the edification and rehabilitation of the inmates of the camp.
References
(1) See my article: https://karlradl14.substack.com/p/remarkable-holocaust-nonsense-58
(2) Idem.
(3) On this see Helmut Krausnick, Martin Broszat, 1982, [1970], ‘Anatomy of the SS State’, 1st Edition, Granada: London, pp. 165-172
(4) For example, see: Carlo Mattogno, 2016, ‘Healthcare in Auschwitz: Medical Care and Special Treatment of Registered Inmates’, 1st Edition, Castle Hill: Uckfield, pp. 17; 47
(5) https://www.buchenwald.de/en/geschichte/historischer-ort/konzentrationslager/zoologischer-garten
(6) https://www.buchenwald.de/en/geschichte/historischer-ort/konzentrationslager/ss-kasernen
(7) https://www.buchenwald.de/en/geschichte/historischer-ort/konzentrationslager/zoologischer-garten