Locomotive Eagle

On April 11, 1945, the US 4th Armored Division and the 80th Infantry Division liberated more than 21,000 prisoners at Buchenwald, a concentration camp in Germany. Staff Sergeant Arthur M. Ferguson of Butler, PA arrived at the camp soon after Liberation with the 1282nd Engineer Combat Battalion. He removed this eagle from a locomotive outside of the camp on April 27, 1945, and inscribed his initials and the date on the back.

A stylized eagle combined with the Nazi swastika was made the national emblem of Nazi Germany by order of Adolf Hitler in 1935. 

Sergeant Ferguson’s removal of this emblem symbolized the dismantling of the Nazi-regime.