April 4, 1944:
- "The U.S. 4th Armored Division liberates the concentration camp at Ohrdruf, Germany, the site of more than 4,000 deaths during the previous three months.
Victims were Jews, Poles, and Soviet POWs.
Hundreds shot just before liberation had been working to build an enormous underground radio and telephone communications center.
Very few inmates remain alive at liberation."
"The Allied High Command was interested in what had occurred in the camps, and officers regularly toured them to gain information regarding Nazi crimes.
Here, Generals George Patton, Omar Bradley, and Dwight Eisenhower (left to right) visit the Ohrdruf, Germany, camp--the first camp liberated by the Americans--on April 4, 1945.
A former prisoner demonstrates SS torture techniques for them."
"The SS shot these Polish inmates in a mass execution at Ohrdruf, Germany.
As so often happened, the Germans killed their prisoners rather than see them fall into the hands of the Allies.
American General Omar Bradley said of the atrocities at Ohrdruf: 'The smell of death overwhelmed us even before we passed through the stockade.
More than 3,200 naked, emaciated bodies had been flung into shallow graves.
Others lay in the streets where they had fallen.
Lice crawled over the yellowed skin of their sharp, bony frames.' " 
"The labor camp Ohrdruf, near Gotha, Germany, occupies a distinct place in history.
The first camp liberated by the Western Allies, Ohrdruf provided American troops with proof of Nazi barbarity.
"At Ohrdruf, thousands of slave laborers had worked frantically under brutal conditions to prepare an underground communications center for the German Army.
On April 4, 1945, American soldiers entering Ohrdruf (pictured) found mass graves containing thousands of corpses.
Some prisoners had been executed and hastily buried only four days before the Americans entered the camp.
The troops also encountered a few living witnesses, men who had escaped from the camp shortly before the Nazis began shooting the remaining prisoners.
"Eight days after the camp was liberated, U.S. Generals Dwight Eisenhower, Omar Bradley, and George Patton, men deeply familiar with the mayhem of war, visited the camp.
An angered Eisenhower encouraged the press to tour the camp and inform the world of the atrocities committed there."
http://www.jewishgen.org/ForgottenCamps/Witnesses/NickolsEng.html
April 4, 1945
REPORT ON SURRENDER OF THE GERMAN CONCENTRATION CAMP AT OHRDRUF:
The date was April 4, 1945 and I was on a patrol as a member of the I & R platoon attached to the Headquarters company of 354th Infantry Regiment, of the 89th Infantry Division, 3rd Army U.S.A.
As I recall it was a beautiful spring morning marred by the fact that we were under mortar attack. I remember very well my surprise when I observed Brigadier General Robertson strolling upright down the road. He was an elderly avunular gentleman who thought nonchalance under fire characterized the general officer’s role model.
I was impressed but remained prone in the drainage ditch until the atttack ceased. Shortly thereafter, an acquaintance let it be known that a camp had been liberated further up the hill.
Fifty years have passed since this day but I recall my first impression of the camp called Ohrdruf which I found later was associated administratively with the camp called Buchenwald. Ohrdruf was named after the town of the same name, apparently locally famous for its history of being the place where Johann Sebastian Bach composed some of his works.
From the outside, the camp was unremarkable. It was surrounded by a high barbed wire fence and had a wooden sign which read, “Arbeit Macht Frei.” The swinging gate was open, and a young soldier, probably an SS guard, lay dead diagonally across the entrance. The camp was located in the forest and was surrounded by a thick grove of pine and other conifers. The inside of the camp was composed of a large 100 yards square central area which was surrounded by one story barracks painted green which appeared to house 60-100 inmates.
As we stepped into the compound one was greeted by an overpowering odor of quick-lime, dirty clothing, feces, and urine. Laying in the center of the square were 60-70 dead prisoners clad in striped clothing and in disarray. They had reportedly been machine gunned the day before because they were too weak to march to another camp. The idea was for the SS and the prisoners to avoid the approaching U.S. Army and the Russians.
Adjacent to the “parade ground” was a small shed which was open on one side. Inside, were bodies stacked in alternate directions as one would stack cord wood, and each layer was covered with a sprinkling of quick-lime. I did not see him, but someone told me that there had been a body of a dead American aviator in the shed. This place reportedly had been used for punishment, and the inmates were beaten on their back and heads with a shovel. My understanding is that all died following this abuse.
I visited some of the surrounding barracks and found live inmates who had hidden during the massacre. They were astounded and appeared to be struggling to understand what was happening. Some were in their 5 tier bunks and some were wandering about.
This was the first camp to be “liberated” by the Allied armies in Germany. Orhdruf was visited by Generals Eisenhower, Patton and Bradley and there are photographs of them observing the bodies of the machine gunned inmates. According to Eisenhower, Patton had refused to visit the punishment shed as he feared he would become ill. He did vomit at a later time.
Further into the camp was evidence of an attempt to exhume and burn large numbers of bodies. There was a gallows, although I really cannot remember whether I saw it or not. I don’t remember leaving the camp. I recall being numb after seeing the camp. I had just turned 20 years old and I had read the biographical “Out of the Night.” It was a pale and inadequate picture of a German concentration camp by a refugee German author.
I recall becoming very upset when we got back to our quarters, but the whole experience was far beyond my understanding. I wrote a letter to my parents describing the experience which was read at a local gathering of business men. It was widely disbelieved.
Bruce Nickols