Ohrdruf

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This article is about the German town. For the Nazi camp, see Ohrdruf forced labor camp.

Ohrdruf is a small town in the German federal state of Thuringia. It lies some 30 km southwest of Erfurt. It was founded in 724–726 by Saint Boniface, who founded here the first monastery in Thuringia, dedicated to Saint Michael. It was the first of several religious foundations in the town, the latest of which is the Carmelite monastery Karmel St. Elija (founded 1991).

In 1695 the orphaned Johann Sebastian Bach came to live and work at the Michaeliskirche (St Michael's church) here, under the care of his older brother Johann Christoph Bach (1671-1721). He lived in Ohrdruf from the ages of 10 to 15. In the 1800s the town became a centre of toy manufacturing.

The Ohrdruf death camp located here was the first Nazi concentration camp to be liberated by the American Army, on 4 April 1945. According to a book written by the German historian Rainer Karlsch and published in 2005, Ohrdruf may have been one of two locations where the Nazis tested their nuclear energy project, in the process killing prisoners of war under the supervision of the SS. This claim is not universally accepted, however, and a recent official examination comes to the conclusion that no nuclear bomb has exploded in Ohrdruf.

Also near Ohrduf the Nazis constructed at the end of the Second World War, with the help of slave labour, the S III Führer Headquarters, a massive underground complex of long tunnels. This was reputedly to have been a centre for a final stand against the Allies, after a retreat from Berlin. This plan obviously did not come to fruition.

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Last updated on Wednesday March 12, 2008 at 07:35:14 PDT (GMT -0700)
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