History
The word "Buchenwald" (German for "beech forest") was chosen because the  authorities were not willing to name it after the Ettersburg (the keep) or Ettersberg (the mountain) because of the close ties of the location to Goethe, who was being idealized as "the embodiment of the German Spirit" ("Verkorperung des Deutschen Geistes"). Similarly, the camp could not be named for another town nearby (Hottelstedt) because of administrative considerations (it would have resulted in a lower paygrade for the SS troops stationed at the camp).
Between July 1937 and April 1945, approximately 250,000 people were incarcerated in Buchenwald by the  regime, including 168 American, Australian, British and Canadian POWs. The number of deaths is estimated at 56,000.
Many inmates died during human experimentations, or fell victim to arbitrary acts perpetrated by the SS guards. At one point, the ashes of prisoners would be returned to families in a sheet metal box, but postage was due by the family. This was stopped as more and more prisoners died.
Although not technically an extermination camp, summary executions of Soviet prisoners of war took place at Buchenwald. At least 1,000 Soviet POWs were selected in 1941-1942 by a task force of three police officers of the Dresden Gestapo and sent to Buchenwald. Immediately after their arrival they were killed by a gunshot in the back of the head.
The camp was also the site of large-scale testing of vaccines for epidemic typhus in 1942 and 1943, all in all testing 729 inmates, around 280 of whom died. Because of their long association in cramped quarters in Block 46, the bacterium killed more and infection lasted longer than typhus in healthy adults.
The first commandant was Karl Otto Koch, who ran the camp from 1937 to 1941. His second wife, Ilse Koch, became notorious as Die Hexe von Buchenwald ("The Witch of Buchenwald"), for her cruelty and brutality. Koch had a zoo built by the prisoners in the camp for the amusement of his children.
Koch was imprisoned at Buchenwald by  authorities for corruption, embezzlement, black market dealings and his exploitation of camp workers. He was tried and executed by the  authorities at Buchenwald in April 1945, whilst Ilse was sentenced to 4 years after the war. Her sentence was reduced to two years and she was set free. Later, she was arrested again and was sentenced to life imprisonment by the post-war German authorities. She committed suicide in a Bavarian prison cell in September, 1967.
The camp was also the main imprisonment for a number of Norwegian university students from 1943 until the end of the war. The students, being Norwegian, got better treatment than most, but had to resist  schooling for months. They became remembered for resisting forced labour in a minefield, as the s wished to use them as cannon fodder. The incident connected to this was remembered as the Strike at Burkheim. The Norwegian students in Buchenwald lived in a warmer house of stones and had their own clothes. ^[1]
During an American bombing attack on 24 August 1944 that was directed at a nearby armament factory, several bombs, including incendiaries, also fell on the camp, resulting in heavy casualties amongst the inmates.
In autumn 1944 the 1,960 Danish policemen, who were arrested and deported to Germany on 19 September 1944, came to Buchenwald.^[2] Due to the negotiations between the Danish civil service and the German occupation forces, the Danish policemen received packs from the Danish Red Cross. The deported Danish policemen sometimes used the Red Cross packs to "organize" things. I.e. when other prisoners had pinched things from the kitchen, which was used to prepare things for the SS guards, the Danish police could swap these things.^[3]. Because of the negotiations between the Danish Civil Service and the German occupation forces the deported Danish policemen got status as prisoners of war. On 16 December 1944 1,604 of the Danish policemen left Buchenwald to go to Muhlberg, a camp for prisoners of war. During the stay in Buchenwald 62 of the Danish policemen died*.
*source: wikipedia.org