Franz Ehrlich
Biography
A locksmith who studied at the Bauhaus, a communist the Gestapo sent to Buchenwald, and the prisoner ordered to draw the letters on the camp gate — which he drew in the typefaces of his Bauhaus teachers.
Bauhaus, then the resistance, 1927–1937
The locksmith Franz Ehrlich studied at the Bauhaus in Dessau from 1927 to 1930 and then worked as a designer and typographer in Berlin and Leipzig.[1] Arrested as an active communist in the resistance, he was committed by the Gestapo to the Buchenwald concentration camp in 1937, after a term in a penitentiary.
His skills put him in the SS building office, 1937–1938
In the camp those skills took him into the SS building office, where he had to design furniture, buildings — and the iron camp gate. In January 1938 prisoners began the ironwork for it, and the order to draw the letters went to Ehrlich and to the draughtsman Ernst Karthoff.[2]
The letters, 1938
The inscription on that gate reads JEDEM DAS SEINE, to each his own — a phrase out of Roman law which the SS turned into a sentence about who deserved what. Unrecognised by the SS, he modelled the lettering on the typefaces of his Bauhaus teachers, named as Herbert Bayer and Joost Schmidt.[2] Modernism the regime had declared degenerate was drawn into the motto of a concentration camp, by a prisoner, in letters the guards walked under every day.
Afterwards
Released in 1939, he had to go on working for the SS building administration; in 1943 he was conscripted into penal battalion 999 and ended the war in captivity.[1] After his return he worked as an architect and designer. His name is not on the gate.
Questions visitors ask
- What is Franz Ehrlich's connection to Buchenwald?
- A Bauhaus-trained designer and communist, he was committed to Buchenwald as a prisoner in 1937.[1] In the camp's SS building office he was ordered, in January 1938, to design the lettering for the camp gate's inscription.[2]
- Why does the Buchenwald gate look the way it does?
- The inscription "Jedem das Seine" was lettered by Ehrlich in the typefaces of his Bauhaus teachers, Herbert Bayer and Joost Schmidt[2] — modernism the regime had declared degenerate, drawn into a concentration camp's motto by a prisoner, unrecognised by the SS.
- What happened to Franz Ehrlich after Buchenwald?
- Released in 1939, he was forced to keep working for the SS building administration, then conscripted into penal battalion 999 in 1943 and ended the war in captivity.[1] After his return he worked as an architect and designer.
- Can I see the gate he designed?
- Yes, at the Buchenwald Memorial, which preserves the camp and the gate he lettered.
Sources
- Franz Ehrlich — Gedenkstätte Buchenwald, retrieved 30 August 2026
- Jedem das Seine — Gedenkstätte Buchenwald, retrieved 30 August 2026
Connected Places in Weimar
Buchenwald, 99427 Weimar
He designed the letters of the camp gate's inscription while a prisoner there.
Historical Context
He studied at the Bauhaus in Dessau from 1927 to 1930, and it is Bauhaus typography that ended up on the Buchenwald gate.
The Bauhaus was founded in Weimar in 1919 and voted out by 1925 — time enough to change what a design school is, and not enough for the town that made it to keep it.
Read more about this period →Quick Facts
German