Dachau concentration camp

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Dachau was a Nazi German concentration camp located on the grounds of an abandoned munitions factory near the medieval town of Dachau, about 10 miles northwest of Munich in southern Germany. Opened on 22 March 1933, the Dachau concentration camp was the first regular concentration camp established by the National Socialist (Nazi) government. Heinrich Himmler, in his capacity as police president of Munich, officially described the camp as "the first concentration camp for political prisoners."^[1]

Dachau served as a prototype and model for the other Nazi concentration camps that followed. Its basic organization, camp layout as well as the plan for the buildings were developed by Kommandant Theodor Eicke and were applied to all later camps. He had a separate secure camp near the command center, which consisted of living quarters, administration, and army camps. Eicke himself became the chief inspector for all concentration camps, responsible for molding the others according to his model.^[2]

In total, over 200,000 prisoners from more than 30 countries were housed in Dachau of which nearly one-third were Jews.[1] 31,591 prisoners are believed to have died in the camp and its subcamps[2], primarily from disease, malnutrition and suicide. In early 1945, there was a typhus epidemic in the camp followed by an evacuation, in which large numbers of the weaker prisoners died.

Together with the much larger Auschwitz, Dachau has come to symbolize the Nazi concentration camps to many people. KZ Dachau holds a significant place in public memory because it was the second camp to be liberated by British or American forces. Therefore, it was one of the first places in which the West was exposed to the reality of Nazi brutality through firsthand journalist accounts and through newsreels.^[3]

Contents 1 Organization 2 Liberation of the camp 3 Post-liberation Easter at Dachau 4 After liberation 5 The memorial site 6 Notable prisoners of Dachau 6.1 Jews 6.2 Resistance fighters 6.3 Clergymen 6.4 Politicians 6.5 Communists 6.6 Writers 6.7 Others 7 References 8 External links 9 See also

[edit] Organization

The camp was divided into two sections—the camp area and the crematorium. The camp area consisted of 32 barracks, including one for clergy imprisoned for opposing the Nazi regime and one reserved for medical experiments. The courtyard between the prison and the central kitchen was used for the summary execution of prisoners. An electrified barbed-wire fence, a ditch, and a wall with seven guard towers surrounded the camp.^[4]

In early 1937, the SS, using prisoner labor, initiated construction of a large complex of buildings on the grounds of the original camp. Prisoners were forced to do this work, starting with the destruction of the old munitions factory, under terrible conditions. The construction was officially completed in mid-August 1938 and the camp remained essentially unchanged until 1945. Dachau thus remained in operation for the entire period of the Third Reich. The area in Dachau included other SS facilities beside the concentration camp—a leader school of the economic and civil service, the medical school of the SS, etc. The KZ at that time was called a "protective custody camp," and occupied less than half of the area of the entire complex.

Dachau also served as the central camp for Christian religious prisoners. According to records of the Roman Catholic Church, at least 3000 religious, deacons, priests, and bishops were imprisoned there.^[5]

In August 1944 a women's camp opened inside Dachau. Its first shipment of women came from Auschwitz Birkenau. Only nineteen women guards served at Dachau, most of them until liberation.^{[6] [7]}

In the last war months the conditions at Dachau became even worse. As Allied forces advanced toward Germany, the Germans began to move prisoners in concentration camps near the front to camps further inward. They hoped to prevent the liberation of large numbers of prisoners. Transports from the evacuated camps arrived continuously at Dachau. After days of travel, with little or no food or water, the prisoners arrived weak and exhausted, often near death. Typhus epidemics became a serious problem due to overcrowding, poor sanitary conditions, insufficient provisions, and the weakened state of the prisoners.

Due to continual new transportations from the front the camp was constantly overcrowded, the hygienic conditions were beneath human dignity. Starting from the end of 1944 up to the day of liberation 15,000 people died, about half of all victims in KZ Dachau.

On April 27, 1945, Victor Mauer, delegate of the International Committee of the Red Cross, was allowed to enter camps and distribute food. In the evening of the same day a prisoner transport arrived from Buchenwald. Only 800 survivors were brought from originally 4,480 to 4,800 persons in transit. Over 2,300 corpses were let lie in and around the train. The last regular commander of the KZ, Obersturmbannführer Eduard Weiter, had already fled on 26 April. He probably followed Obersturmbannführer Martin Weiss, who had led the camp from September 1942 until November 1943.

On April 28, 1945, the day before the surrender, Camp Commandant Martin Weiss had left the Dachau camp, along with most of the regular guards and administrators in the camp. On that same day, Victor Maurer, a representative of the Red Cross, had tried to persuade 1st Lt. Johannes Otto, the adjutant of Commandant Weiss, not to abandon the camp, but to leave guards posted to keep the prisoners inside until the Americans arrived. Mauer feared that the prisoners would escape en masse and spread the active typhus fever epidemic. Lt. Otto declined to remain and fled.

[edit] Liberation of the camp

On April 29, 1945, the watchtowers of the Dachau camp remained occupied and a white flag was hoisted. Red Cross representative Maurer persuaded SS-Untersturmführer Heinrich Wicker, an officer in the SS-Totenkopfverbände, to accompany him to the main gate of the Dachau complex to formally surrender the concentration camp.

Late in the afternoon of April 29, 1945, KZ Dachau was surrendered to the American Army by SS-Untersturmführer Heinrich Wicker.^[8] A vivid description of the surrender appears in Brig. Gen. Henning Linden's official "Report on Surrender of Dachau Concentration Camp":

As we moved down along the west side of the concentration camp and approached the southwest corner, three people approached down the road under a flag of truce. We met these people about 75 yards north of the southwest entrance to the camp. These three people were a Swiss Red Cross representative and two SS troopers who said they were the camp commander and assistant camp commander and that they had come into the camp on the night of the 28th to take over from the regular camp personnel for the purpose of turning the camp over to the advancing Americans. The Swiss Red Cross representative acted as interpreter and stated that there were about 100 SS guards in the camp who had their arms stacked except for the people in the tower. He said he had given instructions that there would be no shots fired and that it would take about 50 men to relieve the guards, as there were 42,000 half-crazed prisoners of war in the camp, many of them typhus infected. He asked if I were an officer of the American army, to which I replied, "Yes, I am Assistant Division Commander of the 42d Division and will accept the surrender of the camp in the name of the Rainbow Division for the American army."

After the camp was surrendered to Allied forces, the troops were so horrified by conditions at the camp that they summarily shot many of the camp guards in what is called the Dachau massacre. The exact number killed is in dispute; according to some versions, only 35 Nazi guards were executed this way and the other 515 were presumably either arrested, or managed to escape. The Americans found 32,000 prisoners, crammed 1,600 to each of 20 barracks, which had been designed to house 250 people each. The US troops also found 39 railroad cars, each filled with one hundred or more corpses.

According to an investigation report, the slogan "we will take no prisoners here!" went around the USA soldiers. At the end of the railway 4 SS men came to meet the Americans, and surrendered. They were led to the train and shot down by the company commander. Since they were not immediately dead, others fired on the wounded men.

The camp was freed by the 42nd Infantry Division of the U.S. Seventh Army on April 29, 1945 after coming across this camp, not knowing its location nor its existence. These forces were led by Lieutenant Colonel Felix L. Sparks who, under orders to permit no one in or out, refused entry to a brigadier general from another unit. Court-martial charges were drawn up, and Sparks was arrested; the charges were dismissed by General Patton. (Sparks was actually with the 157th Infantry Regiment of the 45th Infantry Division. There is an on-going "disagreement" as to which unit, the 42nd or the 45th, was actually first into Dachau.)

The U.S. troops also forced citizens of the local community to come to the camp, observe the conditions, and help clean the facilities. The local residents were indignant at being treated this way and claimed no knowledge of the activities of the camp.

[edit] Post-liberation Easter at Dachau

A few days after the liberation of the camp was the day of Pascha, Orthodox Easter. In a cell block used by Catholic priests to say daily mass, several Greek, Serbian, and Russian priests and one Serbian deacon, wearing makeshift vestments made from towels of the SS guard, gathered with several hundred Greek, Serbian and Russian prisoners to celebrate the Paschal Matins and Liturgy. A prisoner named Rahr described the scene:

In the entire history of the Orthodox Church there has probably never been an Easter service like the one at Dachau in 1945. Greek and Serbian priests together with a Serbian deacon adorned the make-shift 'vestments' over their blue and gray-striped prisoners' uniforms. Then they began to chant, changing from Greek to Slavonic, and then back again to Greek. The Easter Canon, the Easter Sticheras—everything was recited from memory. The Gospel—'In the beginning was the Word'—also from memory. And finally, the Homily of Saint John—also from memory. A young Greek monk from the Holy Mountain stood up in front of us and recited it with such infectious enthusiasm that we shall never forget him as long as we live. Saint John Chrysostomos himself seemed to speak through him to us and to the rest of the world as well!

There is a Russian Orthodox chapel at the camp today, and it is well known for its exquisite icon of Christ leading the prisoners out of the camp gates.

The U.S. 7th Army's version of the events of the Dachau Liberation are available in Report of Operations of the Seventh United States Army, Vol. 3, page 382.

[edit] After liberation

After liberation, the camp was used by the US Army as an internment camp. In 1948 the Bavarian government established housing for refugees on the site, and this remained for many years.^[9]

[edit] The memorial site

Years later, former prisoners banded together to erect a memorial on the site of the camp, finding it unbelievable that there were still persons (refugees) living in the camp under those conditions.

The display, which was reworked in 2003, takes the visitor through the path of new arrivals to the camp. Special presentations of some of the notable prisoners are also provided. Two of the barracks have been rebuilt and one shows a cross-section of the entire history of the camp, since the original barracks had to be torn down due to their poor condition when the memorial was built. The other 28 barracks are indicated by concrete foundations.

The memorial includes four chapels for the various religions represented among the prisoners.

The local government resisted designating the complete site a memorial. The former SS barracks adjacent to the camp are now occupied by the Bavarian Bereitschaftspolizei (rapid response police unit).^[10]

[edit] Notable prisoners of Dachau

[edit] Jews

• Bruno Bettelheim, imprisoned in 1938, freed in 1939; left Germany
• Hans Litten
• Jakob Ehrlich, Member of Vienna's City Council (Rat der Stadt Wien), died in Dachau May 17, 1938.
• Viktor Frankl, psychotherapist from Vienna, Austria
• Vladek Spiegelman, a survivor whose story was portrayed in the book Maus by Art Spiegelman
• Alfred Gruenebaum, father of the prominent US obstetrician Amos Grunebaum
• David Ludwig Bloch, painter, arrested in November 1938 in connection with Kristallnacht

[edit] Resistance fighters

• Arthur Haulot
• Franc Karo, partisan
• Georg Elser, who tried to assassinate Hitler in 1939, murdered April 9, 1945
• Georges Charpak, who in 1992 received the Nobel Prize in Physics
• Kurt Nehrling
• Noor Inayat Khan, the George's Cross awardee of Indian origin who served as a clandestine radio operator for the WAAF in Paris

[edit] Clergymen

Dachau had a special "priest block." Of the 2720 priests (among them 2579 Catholic) held in Dachau, 1034 did not survive the camp. The majority were Polish (1780), of whom 868 died in Dachau.

• Adam Kozlowiecki, Polish Cardinal.
• Lawrence Wnuk
• Blessed Michał Kozal
• Aloys Scholze, died September 1, 1942.
• Anton Fränznick, in Dachau since 1942, died January 27, 1944.
• Blessed Stefan Grelewski, Catholic priest, prisoner No. 25281, starved to death in Dachau on May 9, 1941.
• Blessed Stefan Wincenty Frelichowski Catholic priest, died February 23, 1945.
• Hermann Scheipers
• Hermanus Knoop, Pastor of the Reformed (Gereformeerd) Church of Rotterdam-Delfshaven, arrested November 19, 1941 for praying for "bringing politics to the pulpit"
• Joseph Kentenich, founder of the Schoenstatt Movement, spent three and a half years in Dachau.
• Karl Leisner, in Dachau since December 14, 1941, freed May 4, 1945, but died on August 12 from the tuberculosis contracted in the camp.
• Martin Niemöller, imprisoned in 1941, freed May 4, 1945.
• Nanne Zwiep, Pastor of the Dutch Reformed Church in Enschede, spoke out from the pulpit against Nazis and their treatment of Dutch Citizens and Jews, arrested April 20, 1942, died in Dachau of exhaustion and malnutrition November 24, 1942.
• Norbert Capek (1870-1942) founder of the Unitarian Church in the Czech Republic.
• Richard Schneider, in Dachau since November 22, 1940, freed March 29, 1945
• Blessed Titus Brandsma, Dutch Carmelite priest and professor of philosophy, died July 26, 1942.
• Father Jean Bernard (1907-1994), Catholic priest from Luxembourg who was imprisoned from May 1941 to August 1942. Father Bernard wrote the compelling book "Pfarrerblock 25487" about his experiences in Dachau. The movie "The Ninth Day" directed by Volker Schlöndorff is based on his diary.
• Nikolai Velimirović (1880-1956), Serbian bishop and an influential theological writer, On December 14, 1944 he was sent to Dachau, together with Serbian Patriarch Gavrilo.

[edit] Politicians

• Alois Hundhammer, arrested June 21, 1933, freed July 6, 1933
• Hjalmar Schacht, arrested 1944, released April, 1945
• Jan Buzek, murdered in November 1940
• Kurt Schumacher, in Dachau since July 1935, sent to Flossenbürg concentration camp in 1939, returned to Dachau in 1940, released due to extreme illness March 16, 1943
• Leopold Figl, arrested 1938, released May 8, 1943
• Stefan Starzyński, the President of Warsaw, probably murdered in Dachau in 1943

[edit] Communists

• Alfred Andersch, held 6 months in 1933
• Emil Carlebach (Jewish), in Dachau since 1937, sent to Buchenwald concentration camp in 1938
• Nikolaos Zachariadis (Greek), from November 1941 to May 1945
• Oskar Müller, in Dachau from 1939, freed 1945
• Nando Gherghetta (Italian-Istrian), from 1943

[edit] Writers

• Fritz Gerlich
• Gustaw Morcinek, Polish Silesian writer
• Heinrich Eduard Jacob, German writer, in Dachau 6 months in 1938, transferred to Buchenwald
• Jura Soyfer, writer, in Dachau 6 months in 1938, transferred to Buchenwald
• Raoul Auernheimer, writer, in Dachau 4 months
• Stanisław Grzesiuk, Polish writer, poet and singer, Varsavianist, in Dachau since April 4, 1940, later transferred to Mauthausen-Gusen complex
• Stefan Kieniewicz, Polish historian
• Stevo Žigon (number: 61185), Serbian actor, theatre director, and writer, in Dachau from December 1943 to May 1945
• Tadeusz Borowski, writer, survived, but committed suicide in 1951
• Franz Roh, German art critic and art historian, for a few months in 1933
• Robert Antelme, French writer

[edit] Others

(the children of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, imprisoned in Dachau 1944-45 following the Anschluss (incorporation of Austria into 'Greater Germany')

• Albrecht, Duke of Bavaria
• Antoinette, Crown Princess of Bavaria
• Franz Halder, former Chief of Army General Staff
• Fritz Thyssen, businessman and early supporter of Hitler, later an opponent
• Maximilian, Duke of Hohenberg
• Prince Ernst von Hohenberg
• Princess Sophie of Hohenberg

[edit] References

1. ^ http://www.mazal.org/archive/DACHPHO/Dach02.htm Translation: The Munich Chief of Police, Himmler, has issued the following press announcement: On Wednesday the first concentration camp is to be opened in Dachau with an accommodation for 5000 persons. All Communists and—where necessary—Reichsbanner and Social Democratic functionaries who endanger state security are to be concentrated here, as in the long run it is not possible to keep individual functionaries in the state prisons without overburdening these prisons, and on the other hand these people cannot be released because attempts have shown that they persist in their efforts to agitate and organise as soon as they are released.
2. ^ United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. "The Holocaust." Holocaust Encyclopedia. http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/article.php?lang=en&ModuleId=10005214
3. ^ Among the most famous inmates of the Dachau concentration camp were Hans Litten, Fred Rabinowitz (a.k.a. Fred Roberts), Stefan Starzynski, the composer Blaž Arnič and Alfred Gruenebaum, the father of a prominent US obstetrician, Amos Grunebaum.
4. ^ United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. "The Holocaust." Holocaust Encyclopedia. http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/article.php?lang=en&ModuleId=10005214
5. ^ Particularly notable among the Christian residents are Karl Leisner (Catholic priest ordained while in the camp, beatified by Pope John Paul II in 1996) and Martin Niemöller (Protestant theologian and Nazi resistance leader).
6. ^ THE CAMP WOMEN, The Female Auxiliaries who Assisted the SS in Running the Nazi Concentration Camp System by Daniel Patrick Brown.
7. ^ Sources show the names of sixteen of the nineteen women guarding the camp; Fanny Baur, Leopoldine Bittermann, Ernestine Brenner, Anna Buck, Rosa Dolaschko, Maria Eder, Rosa Grassmann, Betty Hanneschaleger, Ruth Elfriede Hildner, Josefa Keller, Berta Kimplinger, Lieselotte Klaudat, Theresia Kopp, Rosalie Leimboeck, and Thea Miesl. Women guards were also staffed at the Augsburg Michelwerke, Burgau, Kaufering, Muhldorf, and Munich Agfa Camera Werke subcamps. In mid-April 1945 many female subcamps at Kaufering, Augsburg and Munich closed, and the SS women stationed at Dachau. It is reported that female SS guards gave prisoners guns before liberation to save them from postwar prosecution.
8. ^ http://www.scrapbookpages.com/Dachauscrapbook/DachauLiberation/Wicker.html
9. ^ Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial Site (pedagogical information) (German)
10. ^ Sven Felix Kellerhoff. "Neue Museumskonzepte für die Konzentrationslager", WELT ONLINE, Axel Springer AG, 2002-10-21 23:33. Retrieved on 2007-03-21. (in German) “. . . die SS-Kasernen neben dem KZ Dachau wurden zuerst (bis 1974) von der US-Armee bezogen. Seither nutzt sie die VI. Bayerische Bereitschaftspolizei. (. . . the SS barracks adjacent to the Dachau concentration camp were at first occupied by the US Army (until 1974) . Since then they have been used by the Sixth Rapid Response Unit of the Bavarian Police.)”

• Buechner, Howard A., Dachau—The Hour of the Avenger, Thunderbird Press, ©1986, paperback, 159 pages, ISBN 0-913159-04-2, first published in 1986. LC Control Number: 87181873.
• Kozal, Czesli W. Memoir of Fr. Czesli W. (Chester) Kozal, O.M.I. / translated from the Polish original by Paul Ischler. Private printing, Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate, 2004, 175 pp. LC Control Number: 2004400050
• Marcuse, Harold, Legacies of Dachau: The Uses and Abuses of a Concentration Camp, 1933-2001, 600 pages, Cambridge University Press, 2001. more information
• The Fighting Forty-Fifth: the Combat Report of an Infantry Division, compiled and edited by Lt. Col. Leo V. Bishop, Maj. Frank J. Glasgow, and Maj. George A. Fisher. Copyright 1946 by the 45th Infantry Division, printed by Army & Navy Publishing Co., Baton Rouge, LA. LC Control Number: 49051541.

[edit] External links

• Biography of One Survivor of Dachau (Personal Website)
• "The Souls are All Aflame." An account of the Paschal services in Dachau in 1945
• Communists to be interned in Dachau, The Guardian, March 21, 1933 contemporaneous reporting on the opening of the camp
• Events of the Dachau Camp's liberation on April 29th, 1945
• Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial Site
• Interior and Exterior Images of the Dachau Camp
• Memorial to those who suffered at the eleven Kaufering subcamps of Dachau and the US. 12h Armored Division (Personal Website)

[edit] See also

• Dachau International Military Tribunal
• List of German concentration camps
• List of subcamps of Dachau

Coordinates: 48°16′13″N, 11°28′05″E