This morning I stumbled upon this on Wikipedia, apparently today it's exactly 74 years ago that the construction of concentration camp Dachau was completed (21-3-1933) it drew my attention because I didn't know that these camps were all ready under construction before 1933. I began reading the article regarding the camp itself and (like every Nazi concentration camp) it discussed me jet again.
But the story of Dachau doesn't end at the disturbing truth of Nazi concentration camps. The discovery of the camp and the following events did turn my stomach upside down once again.
A brief summary (full article linked):
By the time (27-4-1945, liberated on the 29th) the camp was discovered over 32.000 people were imprisoned in the camp. It was the second camp to be discovered by the Allies, the news about the other camp didn't reach the troops before first contact therefor they didn't what it was and what was happening. Somewhat like in Band of Brothers. The only difference is that Dachau was still guarded by SS troops while in Band of Brothers the camp was abandoned.
The first to enter the camp were Red Cross representatives on the 27th to distribute food and water, that evening a transport from an evacuated camp arrived with +/- 4500 people on board, yet only 800 had survived the transit, over 2300 corpses were let lie in and around the train.
On the 29th the SS officially surrendered while U.S. troops were still not fully aware of what was going on inside. Upon entering the camp (particularly the train mentioned earlier) the GI's formed the slogan "we will not take prisoners here". What followed was an onsite execution of +/- 35 SS troops. When the news of the execution reached the Allied commanding officer he ran in to stop the massacre. By this time at least 12 SS were machine-gunned down, the wounded were given razor blades to "finish themselves off".
When the U.S. soldiers left the location the left numerous handguns behind for the inmates in order to finish the executions, 40 more SS soldiers were tortured and killed by inmates.
In total 200.000 people were imprisoned, 31.591 deaths have been recorded.
Annom edit: Relevant documentary torrents:
BBC - Auschwitz: The Nazis and the Final Solution
PBS- Memory of the Camps (Very graphic images made by the American Army)
On the 29th the SS officially surrendered while U.S. troops were still not fully aware of what was going on inside. Upon entering the camp (particularly the train mentioned earlier) the GI's formed the slogan "we will not take prisoners here". What followed was an onsite execution of +/- 35 SS troops. When the news of the execution reached the Allied commanding officer he ran in to stop the massacre. By this time at least 12 SS were machine-gunned down, the wounded were given razor blades to "finish themselves off".
When the U.S. soldiers left the location the left numerous handguns behind for the inmates in order to finish the executions, 40 more SS soldiers were tortured and killed by inmates.
In total 200.000 people were imprisoned, 31.591 deaths have been recorded.
Annom edit: Relevant documentary torrents:
BBC - Auschwitz: The Nazis and the Final Solution
PBS- Memory of the Camps (Very graphic images made by the American Army)
Wow, that is an old camp. I added some torrents.
ReplyDeleteI'm speechless....
speechless indeed.
ReplyDeletethe summary missed something:
Those 100 SS guards who could have fled, but guarded the typhus infected prisoners preventing a typhus fever epedemic. By doing so they fully accepted the consequences.
thnx for the correction Pimp, missed that one.
ReplyDeleteThe SS-troops indeed stayed in order to contain the prisoners. But 2 of the highest ranking officers did flee the day before the surrender of the camp.
Very horrifying, especially that documentary that Annom posted.
ReplyDeleteI can understand why the SS troops were killed (and tortured), but I think they should have been jailed. They probably would have gotten the death penalty anyway.
btw, I don't think we need tags for everything. I doubt there will be many more posts about Dachau. I think we should have a couple of main tags that group relevant posts. But maybe you don't. Discuss...
ReplyDeleteI agree about the tags...
ReplyDeletefirst time I used tags, but you have a good point.
ReplyDeleteThe Dachau camp wasn't "built;" it was already there. The concentration camp was set up in the buildings of an abandoned gun powder factory. In 1937, some of the factory buildings were torn down, and new barracks were built.
ReplyDeleteThe camp that was discovered by the Band of Brothers was Kaufering IV, one of the sub-camps of Dachau. Kaufering IV was a sick camp where prisoners were sent when they were too sick to work in the factories. In the weeks before the Dachau camp was liberated, the prisoners were brought from the sub-camps to the main camp. That's why there were 32,000 prisoners there; half of them had arrived in the last couple of weeks. The prisoners in the Kaufering IV camp were left behind because they were too sick to march to the main camp.
The transport train had taken 20 days to travel 220 miles from Buchenald because American trains had bombed the tracks and the train had to take a detour through Czechoslovakia. There were dead prisoners in the open train cars because American planes had strafed the train.
There was a prison for SS guards at Dachau. This is where SS men were incarcerated if they violated the rules by abusing the prisoners. There were 128 SS men in the Dachau prison; they were from many different concentration camps. They were set free and given the task of guarding the camp while the regular guards escaped the night before the camp was liberated. There were a few other SS soliers who had been sent to Dachau specifically to surrender the camp. The German and Hungarian soldiers that were killed when Dachau was liberated were not the regular guards. They were Waffen-SS soldiers that had been brought from the battlefront. There were also two Military hospitals at Dachau and the wounded soldiers were dragged out and shot with their hands in the air. No one knows for sure how many were killed because the U.S. Army kept this a secret for 40 years. The bodies of the SS men who were killed were buried on the grounds of the Army garrison next to the camp, after their dog tags had been removed. The American Army occupied the garrison for the next 28 years and the Germans have never been allowed to search for the bodies.