1938: More than 13,000 Jews from Germany and Austria and hundreds of Sinti Gypsies are among the new prisoners.
1941: The SS transported almost 600 prisoners from Buchenwald to the killing establishments in Sonnenstein and Bernburg in July 1941.
* The number of prisoners in Buchenwald concentration camp and its external sites increased from 11,275 at the end of January 1943 to 37,319 at the end of the year and 84,505 at the end of September 1944. *
1944: Allied air raids on the armaments factory and the SS barracks destroyed many buildings in the camp on August 24, 1944. At this time the big camps in the East were already in a state of dissolution.
1945: About 48,000 people were at Buchenwald as the Allied front approached the camp at the beginning of April 1945. The SS forced more than half of the prisoners to leave on evacuation marches, ending in death for the majority.
April 11, 1945: More than 21,000 people were in the camp when the first tanks of the 3rd US Army arrived and liberated the camp.
Please see Contemporary Debate for the post WWII history of Buchenwald