Bruno Apitz
Biography
A communist who was first arrested at seventeen and reached Buchenwald in 1937, carved a sculpture there from a piece of the Goethe oak, and wrote the novel that would stand in for the camp's history.
Arrested at seventeen, and again, and again, 1914–1937
Born in Leipzig on 28 April 1900, Apitz joined the socialist youth movement in 1914 and was arrested at an anti-war demonstration in August 1917. He took part in the November Revolution, joined the communist youth association and the KPD in 1927. In May 1933 he was in the camps at Colditz and Sachsenburg; arrested again in October 1934, he went to Waldheim prison in May 1935, and in November 1937 came to Buchenwald as a "Politischer".[1]
Sculpture, pathology, and the prisoners' variety show
In the camp he worked in the sculpture workshop and in pathology — two assignments that say as much about Buchenwald as any statistic — and he wrote satirical texts and poems for the prisoners' variety evenings. The camp had a variety show, and a man who wrote for it also worked in the room where the dead were examined.
The Goethe oak, 1944
In 1944 he carved a work called "Das letzte Gesicht" — The Last Face — out of a piece of what was called the Goethe oak.[1] The tree stood on the Ettersberg, inside the camp, and carried the tradition that Goethe had sat beneath it. A prisoner cutting a face from that particular wood is the single object in which this town's two histories are the same object.
The novel, and after, 1946–1979
From 1954 he lived in Berlin as a freelance writer. "Nackt unter Wölfen" appeared in 1958, was translated into more than thirty languages and filmed in 1963. He joined the SED in 1946, became a member of the Academy in 1961, received the Patriotic Order of Merit in gold in 1965, and published a last novel, "Der Regenbogen", in 1976. He died in Berlin on 7 April 1979.
Questions visitors ask
- What is Bruno Apitz's connection to Buchenwald?
- He was arrested as a political prisoner in November 1937[1] and held at Buchenwald, where he worked in the sculpture workshop and in pathology and wrote satirical texts and poems for the prisoners' variety evenings.
- What did Bruno Apitz write?
- The novel "Nackt unter Wölfen" (1958), translated into more than thirty languages and filmed in 1963. He published a last novel, "Der Regenbogen", in 1976.
- What is the Goethe oak he carved from?
- In 1944 he carved a work called "Das letzte Gesicht" from a piece of the so-called Goethe oak,[1] a tree that stood on the Ettersberg inside the camp and carried the tradition that Goethe had once sat beneath it.
- When and where did Bruno Apitz die?
- He died in Berlin on 7 April 1979, having lived there as a freelance writer from 1954.
Sources
- Bruno Apitz — Gedenkstätte Buchenwald, retrieved 30 August 2026
Connected Places in Weimar
Buchenwald, 99427 Weimar
A prisoner of the camp from November 1937, where he carved "Das letzte Gesicht" from a piece of the Goethe oak in 1944.
Historical Context
He came to Buchenwald as a political prisoner in November 1937, months after the camp was built.
The regime wanted Weimar for what its name meant, and it built a concentration camp on the hill above the town. Both facts belong to the same twelve years.
Read more about this period →SED member from 1946, Academy member from 1961, and the GDR's most widely read author on Buchenwald.
For forty-five years Weimar was a provincial town that the state could not afford to neglect, because the classics it kept were the pedigree East Germany wanted for itself.
Read more about this period →Quick Facts
1900
1979
German
In Weimar's history
In Weimar's history
From July 1937 the SS had prisoners build a camp on the Ettersberg, the wooded hill above the town. 277,800 people from more than fifty countries were held there; 56,000 did not survive.
One of the camp's early prisoners, arriving in its first year.
Bruno Apitz's novel appeared in 1958 and a DEFA film followed in 1963. For a decade afterwards it was easier to tell Buchenwald's story through a novel than to research it.
He wrote the novel; what the GDR then made of it is a separate history with its own record.