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Blood Road

The so-called Blood Road (Blutstraße) was the 5-km-long access road to the Buchenwald concentration camp, which was built by inmates. Beginning in mid 1938, prisoners were forced to turn an old wooded road into a broad, concrete street.

Members of the SS Kraftfahr-Ausbildungs und-Ersatz-Abteilung drive trucks and buses along the Blutstraße to the swearing-in ceremony in Weimar. In between, a few motorcycles. Next to the road runs a power line. — 1/2

Members of the SS motor vehicle training and replacement department drive in trucks and buses on the blood road to Weimar to be sworn in, 1943. Photo: SS photography.

©Buchenwald Memorial

A street section of a concrete road. On the right side there is a gray stele with the inscription "Blutstraße". Below it is a historical photo of the same street section. — 2/2

A section of the Blood Road has been restored and the original is preserved, 2022. Photo: Lukas Severin Damm.

©Buchenwald Memorial

Hundreds, many of them Jews, worked from dawn to dusk. Hungry, thirsty, and driven by blows from the SS, they carried construction materials on their shoulders from the quarry to the construction site. Work had to be carried out without proper tools and largely by hand. During the year-long construction period, inmates gave the new street is nickname as the "Blood Road."

Beginning in April 1939, a regular bus line drove this Weimar-Buchenwald route and was accessible to the general public. Just in front of today’s memorial site portions of the cement street are visible and have been preserved in their original condition.