Christian Rothe
Buchenwald
In the Thicket of the Ettersberg

Between 2017 and 2024, the Leipzig-based photographer Christian Rothe (*1986) explored the vast area of the former concentration camp Buchenwald on the Ettersberg near Weimar, using his analog large-format camera. Ruins, barely discernible foundations, stairs, fences and paths appear as topographical scars and signs in the impenetrable thicket. What began as a careful and tentative exploration gradually evolved into an intensive search for traces of history obscured by nature. The black and white photographs enter into a dialog with the poem (Der gefesselte Wald) by José Fosty and literary passages from internationally renowned novels by former concentration camp inmates: Bruno Apitz’s “Naked Among Wolves”, Imre Kertész’s “Fatelessness” and Jorge Semprún’s “What a Beautiful Sunday”. Essays by curator Andrea Karle, chairman of the World Council of Churches, Heinrich Bedford-Strohm and editor Günter Jeschonnek on Christian Rothe’s visual language, the significance of contemporary remembrance culture and commemoration complement the examination of the rupture of civilization and the terror of National Socialism in the immediate vicinity of the town of classicism and great German poets and thinkers.

The book will be released on the occasion of the eightieth anniversary of the liberation of the Buchenwald concentration camp by the remaining prisoners and the US Army and was presented  for the first time at a matinee on Sunday, April 13, 2025 at the Museum of Forced Labor under National Socialism, Weimar.

Further book releases
June 1, 2025, in der Gedenkstätte KZ-Sachsenburg
November 15, 2025, Goethe-Institut, Paris
Januar 27, 2026, Landesvertretung Baden-Württemberg, Berlin
Februar 7, 2026, Augustinum in Erfurt