81: Dachau

 

(The Gas Chamber at Dachau which I took when I visited the Camp.)

81 years ago today (April 29, 1945) the U.S. Seventh Army’s 45th Infantry Division liberated Dachau, the first Concentration Camp established by Germany’s Nazi Regime.

Established five weeks after Adolf Hitler took power as German Chancellor in 1933, Dachau was situated on the outskirts of the town of Dachau, 10 miles northwest of Munich.

During its first year, the Camp held about 5,000 Political Prisoners, consisting primarily of German Communists, Social Democrats, and other Political Opponents of the Nazi Regime.

During the next few years, the number of Prisoners grew dramatically, and other groups were interned at Dachau, including Jehovah’s Witnesses, Roma and Sinti, Homosexuals, and Repeat Criminals.

Beginning in 1938, Jews began to comprise a major portion of Camp Internees.

Prisoners at Dachau were used as Forced Laborers, initially in the construction and expansion of the Camp and later for German armaments production.

The Camp served as the training center for SS Concentration Camp Guards and was a model for other Nazi Concentration Camps.

Dachau was also the first Nazi Camp to use Prisoners as Human Guinea Pigs in Medical Experiments. At Dachau, Nazi scientists tested the effects of freezing and changes to atmospheric pressure on Inmates, infected them with Malaria and Tuberculosis and treated them with experimental drugs, and forced them to test methods of making seawater potable and of halting excessive bleeding.

Hundreds of Prisoners died or were crippled as a result of these experiments.

41,500 Inmates died or were executed at Dachau, and thousands more were transferred to a Nazi Extermination Center near Linz, Austria, when they became too sick or weak to work.

With the advance of Allied forces against Germany in April 1945, the Germans transferred Prisoners from Concentration Camps near the front to Dachau, leading to a general deterioration of conditions and typhus epidemics.

On April 27, 1945, approximately 7,000 Prisoners, mostly Jews, were forced to begin a Death March from Dachau to Tegernsee, far to the south. The next day, many of the SS Guards abandoned the Camp.

On April 29th, Dachau was liberated by units of the 45th Infantry after a brief battle with the Camp’s remaining Guards.

As they neared Dachau the Americans found more than 30 railroad cars filled with bodies in various states of decomposition.

Inside the Camp there were more bodies and 30,000 Survivors, most severely emaciated.

Some of the American Troops who liberated Dachau were so appalled by conditions at the Camp that they machine-gunned at least two groups of captured German Guards.

The German Citizens of the town of Dachau were later forced to bury the 9,000 dead Inmates found at the Camp.

In the course of Dachau’s history, at least 160,000 Prisoners passed through the Camp, and 90,000 through the subcamps.