Buchenwald death statistics

According to a U.S. Army report dated May 25, 1945, there were a total of 238,980 prisoners sent to Buchenwald during its 8-year history from July 1937 to April 11, 1945, and 34,375 of them died in the camp. This report was based on records confiscated from the camp after it was liberated by the Army.

According to an information booklet, obtained from the Buchenwald Memorial Site, records kept by the camp secretary show the number of deaths each year in Buchenwald, as follows:

Time period Deaths
1937 48
1938 771
1939 1,235
1940 1,772
1941 1,522
1942 2,898
1943 3,516
1944 8,644
January to March 1945 13,056
March to April 11, 1945 913
Total 34,375

“The horrendous death toll during the first three months of 1945 was due to a typhus epidemic in the camp. During the same time period, there were also severe epidemics in all the other major concentration camps in Germany. Typhus is spread by lice and prisoners coming into Germany from the death camps in Poland were the carriers of the lice. The worst epidemic of all was at Bergen-Belsen where 35,000 prisoners died in March and the first two weeks of April 1945. The death statistics from Buchenwald indicate that the typhus epidemic was being brought under control there.”


Webmaster note: The history of Buchenwald exemplifies the real history of German internment camps. Holocaust propagandists have taken the horrible tragedy of the last months of the War and falsly protrayed it as standard German policy toward inmates. The figures from Buchenwald show the real story. No gas chambers, no policy of extermination.