©Neue Stadtbaukunst Weimar, 1928.
From 1937 to 1940, the SS had around 2,000 dead cremated in the Weimar crematorium. The regular transports from Buchenwald to Weimar were the talk of the town. As the incinerator was not designed for such a large number of corpses, technical difficulties arose as early as 1938. The employees of the municipal cemetery office willingly cooperated with the SS by dispensing with the legally required declaration of consent from relatives for cremation. Instead, the camp commandant signed the appropriate place on the form. Apart from a few exceptional cases, the relatives were not allowed to see the deceased again so that the alleged causes of death could not be verified. The cemetery office sent the urns to the home communities of the deceased for a fee. In mid-1940, Buchenwald concentration camp put its own crematorium into operation.