One of the most brutal concentration camps
of the Second World War was Dachau.
It was the camp which was opened first by the Nazis
and during the time in which it was opened, it’s believed that around 41,500 people
died within the barbed wire fences.
Dachau became the prototype for the concentration
camps that were opened and that became so destructive, but when the camp was liberated
by the Americans, there were a series of executions and killings of the guards who worked there.
The SS guards of Dachau were known for their brutality and evil, but the Dachau Liberation
Reprisals as it was known saw an American soldier fire at the former SS guards, and
there was a huge investigation around this.
Around the whole of Dachau, there were many
other guards who had been killed in the camp, but what the true story was became rather
muddled.
Join us today as we look at the ruthless executions of the guards of dachau, as always
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Dachau was opened on the 22nd March 1933 and
to begin with it held 200 prisoners sent from Stadelheim Prison and Landsberg, and it was
the first camp to hold inmates who were regarded as political prisoners.
As time went on and
the Nazi’s stranglehold over Germany increased, thousands more people were sent there, including
those who were considered undesirable by the Nazis.
As soon as the camp opened, there were
deaths that occurred there and prisoners were being killed.
The prisoners were forced to
conduct hard labour, and it became a place where many SS guards were trained before they
were dispatched to other camps to work.
The prisoner entrance was marked by the infamous
phrase ‘arbeit macht Frei,’ and the camp then became very overcrowded.
It was a site
which was synonymous with executions, as around 4000 soviet Prisoners of war were executed
there by the commandant’s guard at the SS shooting range near to the camp, and executions
of prisoners continued.
Guards were known for their brutality, and
they would beat and brutalise the inmates if they caught them not being productive enough,
and they would execute and slaughter with their bare hands.
Executions also took place
at roll call on gallows in front of the camps inmates and they would strike terror into
the hearts of the prisoners.
There was also a women’s camp that opened in August 1944,
but as the Second World War turned against the Germans, the conditions at dachau went
downhill badly.
The Germans started to move prisoners from concentration camps nearer
the front lines to more centrally found camps nearer to the German heartlands, and with
this thousands of prisoners were sent to Dachau.
Because of this, there were many typhus epidemics
and other disease outbreaks which caused problems, and there were poor sanitary conditions coupled
with a lack of food and water.
This led to many prisoners dying, and it’s believed
that around 15,000 people died in the final 6 months of the war at dachau, and each day
hundreds were succumbing to the conditions, as well as those who were still being brought
to the firing range to be executed.
But in the final days of the camp, prisoners
were still arriving and the SS would confiscate food which were given to prisoners on death
marches, and on the marches hundreds were dying.
The SS would dump the bodies in a ravine
and force locals to bury them, but on the 24th April 1945, days before liberation, the
commandant of Dachau ordered 7,000 prisoners on a death march from the camp.
Those who
could not keep up on the 6 day march were shot.
But at the time of liberation, 200 people
a day were dying.
Himmler would initially order no prisoners to fall into the hands
of the enemy, and those from the northern part of German were ordered to be drowned
in the North Sea or the Baltic, but at Dachau the SS began to erase any information regarding
what was happening at the camp.
But on the 29th April 1945, soldiers from the 3rd Battalion,
157th Infantry Regiment, 45th Infantry Division who were led by Leftenant Colonel Felix Sparks
began to approach the huge Dachau complex and the nearby sub camps.
On their approach
they came across 29 different train boxcars which had 2,000 people’s remains, and it
was clear that there had been brutality exhibited by the SS.
The smell of the rotting bodies
and the sight of the emaciated dead caused a huge amount of discomfort, upset and horror
with the minds and emotions of the American soldiers.
This may have had an impact on the
events that came later.
But as the Americans approached, they ordered the SS guards to
surrender, but they fired upon the Americans.
As they pushed forward, into the prisoner
areas, the Americans found more bodies many who had been dead for some time, and they
had just been left in the open with no dignity.
But the soldiers then came across the prisoners
who were alive, and were dying.
But then the decision to surrender the camp was made, and
the majority of the SS hierarchy and the guards had fled the camp.
One senior guard Heinrich
Wicker was slaughtered by the prisoners after the surrender, and he was left in charge with
560 guards at his disposal.
But on the 29th April the camp was surrendered,
and the job then came to try and save the lives of those who were starving.
One liberator
would state off the scenes, ‘As we approached the southwest corner, three people came forward
with a flag of truce.
We met them about 75 yards north of the southwest corner.
These
three people were a Swiss Red Cross representative, Victor Maurer, and two SS troopers who said
they were the camp commander and his assistant.
They had come here on the night of the 28th
to take over from the regular camp personnel for the purpose of surrendering the camp to
the advancing Americans.
The Swiss Red Cross representative said there were about 100 SS
guards in the camp who had their arms stacked except for the people in the tower.
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He
had given instructions that there would be no shots fired and it would take about 50
men to relieve the guards, as there were 42,000 “half-crazed” inmates, many of them typhus infected.
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He asked if I were an officer.
I replied, “I am Assistant Division Commander of the
42nd Infantry Division and will accept the surrender of the camp in the name of the Rainbow
Division for the United States Army…’ But regarding the capture of dachau, Dwight
Eisenhower the Supreme Allied Commander would issue a statement that said, ‘Our forces
liberated and mopped up the infamous concentration camp at Dachau, Approximately 32,000 prisoners
were liberated, and 300 SS camp guards were quickly neutralised.
’ But the circumstances
around how the SS guards were killed have been debated, and some historians have argued
that a war crime was committed by the American soldiers.
One historian stated of what happened
that, ‘The Americans came on April 29, a Sunday.
Work had stopped in the camp on Wednesday,
and an evacuation was being organized.
One transport of 4,000 prisoners was able to get
away, but the 42nd and 45th Infantry Divisions covered the 40 miles from the Danube faster
than the Germans expected.
At noon on Sunday the camp was quiet, and the SS guards were
at their posts in the towers when the cry “Americans!” went up.
A prisoner rushed toward
the gate, and a guard shot him.
Outside, a single American soldier stood looking casually
at the towers while the guards eyed him and others who were two or three hundred yards
away.
When the Americans opened fire, the guards in the gate tower came down, hands
in the air.
One held a pistol behind his back, and the first American shot him.
In the next
few minutes a jeep drove up; in it were a blonde female war correspondent and a chaplain.
The chaplain asked the prisoners, now crowding to the gate, to join him in the Lord’s Prayer.
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