SHARE
COPY LINK

BUCHENWALD

Plan for sausage museum in former concentration camp scrapped after outcry

A German sausage museum has scrapped controversial plans to move to an annex of the former Nazi concentration camp Buchenwald in a decision welcomed by the Jewish community Tuesday.

Plan for sausage museum in former concentration camp scrapped after outcry
A memorial at the former Buchenwald concentration camp in 2016. Photo: DPA

The Friends of the Thuringian Bratwurst association sparked an outcry last
week when it announced plans to move the Bratwurst Museum to the site in the town of Mühlhausen and to also build a hotel there.

“I welcome the fact that it has been decided to look for a new location for
the museum,” the head of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, Josef
Schuster, told Berlin's Tagesspiegel daily.

SEE ALSO: Sausage museum plan at former concentration camp sparks outrage in Germany

Rikola-Gunnar Lüttgenau of the Buchenwald memorial foundation had said the redevelopment plan showed a “lack of sensitivity” and of “historical
awareness”.

The museum apologized on its website for the earlier announcement to build a tourist attraction on a site linked to “this dark chapter of German history”.

“We apologize to all those who saw our actions as trivializing or
relativising the crimes of National Socialism and whose ideological and
religious feelings were hurt,” it said in a statement.

Some 50,000 people a year now visit the “Bratwurstmuseum”, currently
located at nearby Holzhausen, where it is marked by a giant wooden sculpture of a sausage in a bun, and another of a sausage in a cannon.

The Mühlhausen site in Thuringia state was once part of the Buchenwald
camp, where the Nazis imprisoned almost a quarter of a million people between 1937 and 1945.

Around 700 Jewish women were held in the outlying location to work in a
weapons factory nearby.

An estimated 56,000 people died at Buchenwald. They were either killed by
the Nazis or perished through illness, cold or starvation.

Thousands of Jews were among the dead, but also Roma and political
opponents of the Nazis, gays and Soviet prisoners of war.

Member comments

Log in here to leave a comment.
Become a Member to leave a comment.

NAZIS

Germany’s Buchenwald camp calls out ‘disrespectful’ sleddding at site

The German memorial at former Nazi concentration camp Buchenwald Thursday demanded an end to visitors playing winter sports at the site, after some were even spotted sledging at its mass graves.

Germany's Buchenwald camp calls out 'disrespectful' sleddding at site
The former Buchenwald concentration camp pictured in July 2020. Photo: DPA

Criticising “disrespectful” behaviour, the foundation asked guests to refrain from leisure pastimes at Buchenwald and the former subcamp Mittelbau-Dora in eastern Germany.

“Sporting activities are a violation of visitor rules and disturb the peace of the dead,” it said in a statement, warning that its security staff would be stepping up patrols and trespassers would be reported to the police.

The director of the foundation, Jens-Christian Wagner, told news website Der Spiegel that “masses” of daytrippers had gathered at the site over the weekend and most seemed to have come for fun in the snow.

“Some of the sledge tracks ended at the mass graves,” he said.

Wagner said he could understand that many families with children wanted to spend time outside, particularly during a nationwide lockdown due to the coronavirus, but that the memorial expected appropriate behaviour from its visitors.

“As time passes, historical sensitivity is fading,” he said.

More than 76,000 men, women and children died at Buchenwald and Mittelbau-Dora during World War II. They were either killed by the Nazis or perished through illness, cold or starvation.

Thousands of Jews were among the dead, but also Roma, gypsies and political opponents of the Nazis, gays and Soviet prisoners of war.

Last January the then head of the Buchenwald foundation, Volkhard Knigge, warned that unwanted visits from neo-Nazis were becoming an increasing problem ahead of the 75th anniversary of the camp's liberation.

“We increasingly find messages in the guest book claiming that Nazism and the concentration camps were sensible and good for the Germans,” he told German media.

SHOW COMMENTS