Truppenübungsplatz Ohrdruf, Military training ground in Gotha and Ilm-Kreis, Germany.
The Truppenübungsplatz Ohrdruf spans several hundred hectares of diverse terrain across the districts of Gotha and Ilm-Kreis in Thuringia, featuring elevations up to 500 meters above sea level including the Kalahari-Berg and Musketierberg hills.
Established in 1871, this military facility served as a prisoner-of-war camp during World War I housing thousands of French, Belgian, Polish, Russian, Romanian, and Portuguese soldiers, and later became a concentration camp subcamp operated by the SS in 1944.
The site now hosts multiple memorial sites including a soldiers' cemetery from World War I and commemorative stones dedicated to Nazi crime victims, with regular ceremonies and educational programs promoting historical awareness and tolerance.
Access to the training ground is restricted to military personnel and authorized visitors, with occasional guided tours available for educational groups by prior arrangement through official military channels.
During World War II, prisoners were forced to excavate secret underground tunnels in the nearby Jonastal area using primitive tools, part of a classified Nazi project that remains largely undocumented to this day.
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