War changes people, but the men who were unlucky enough to liberate Nazi Germany’s
“final solution” camps were changed more than most. In this video, we shed light on the
liberation of the Second World War’s most feared death camps: Dachau and Auschwitz.
Like the civilians in *Band of Brothers*,
many Germans claimed they did not know about the Holocaust when confronted by the Allies.
This isn’t true. Seventy-five years of historical research has demolished the idea
that average German civilians *didn’t* know what was happening. They knew.
When the camps began appearing in the earlier stages of the Nazi regime,
news of their construction was reported in the media. Even camp executions were
sometimes reported, and the media often blamed prisoners for their own deaths. In the final
stages of the war, slave labourers were working in Germany’s public spaces, in the factories,
and on the streets. It was impossible for a German civilian to be unaware of what was going on,
but their views on the atrocities were founded on more than a decade of aggressive Nazi propaganda.
For those who weren’t willing to go along with the state’s crimes, publicly questioning the
regime was dangerous and could have you sent to a concentration camp yourself. This created an
environment in Germany where the Nazi crimes were at least tolerated, if not generally accepted.
When the Allied armies began advancing into the German heartland, they steadily
uncovered more evidence of Nazi crimes against humanity. Soldiers expected to find POW camps,
and many were aware that camps for Jews and communists were operational too.
However, nothing prepared them for what they found.
On April 28th 1945, just two days before Hitler double-dropped MDMA caps that turned out to be
cyanide in the Fuhrerbunker, US soldiers advanced on Dachau. Many units were involved, and due
to the size of the facility and the number of sub-camps, it’s unclear which unit was the first
liberator. As the highest-ranked officer present, Brigadier General Henning Linden of the 222nd
Infantry regiment accepted the full surrender of the camp from SS Obersturmführer Heinrich Wicker.
Fighting in the region wasn’t over though, and in some cases,
rogue SS units held out in isolated pockets for weeks.
In the weeks and months before the US forces arrived, Dachau had been a hive of activity.
The SS camp guards knew the end of the war was on the horizon, and that the Allies would hold them
responsible for their crimes. Papers were burnt, and soldiers sometimes deserted during the night,
afraid of what might happen to them if they were found near the site of such atrocities.
There was an attempt to liquidate the camp — to murder all the prisoners still alive — so no one
would be left to accuse the perpetrators. But the desperate German supply situation meant there was
not enough ammunition. Officers refused to waste what few bullets they had on emaciated prisoners
while there was still a war to fight. In the end, the SS left a skeleton crew to run the camp while
the bulk of the force retreated towards the Alps, where they planned to make their final stand.
Private Harold Porter, a medic with the US 116th Evacuation Hospital,
was sent to Dachau to support the camp’s liberation. In a letter to his family at home,
Porter wrote: “... as we came to the center of the city, we met a train with a wrecked
engine - about fifty cars long. Every car was loaded with bodies. There must have been
thousands of them - all obviously starved to death.” The train in Dachau’s town centre became
known as the “Death Train” and was often the first real evidence US soldiers saw of the Holocaust.
Inside the camp, it was far worse. Porter describes being taken to the crematorium and
seeing “... a room twenty feet square crammed to the ceiling with more bodies - one big stinking
rotten mess. Their faces purple, their eyes popping, and with a hideous grin on each one.
They were nothing but bones & skins.” He and all his comrades in the US force that occupied Dachau
were profoundly affected by what they saw and experienced in the camps. Most soldiers struggled
to take it all in, their brains unable to process the magnitude of the suffering laid out before
them. Some men broke down while others worked through the experience with grim determination.
Some soldiers were so furious that they dealt out their own justice. Elements of the US 45th
Infantry Division were outraged when they saw the death train. When four SS officers surrendered to
the 45th soon after their arrival, the enraged Lieutenant William Walsh took matters into his
own hands. Ordering them into the death train, he drew his pistol and executed the SS officers
on the spot. After what they had seen, the rest of his platoon chose not to intercede.
These executions didn’t calm him down. When Walsh entered the camp and saw prisoners’ bodies
“stacked like cordwood,” he went for more revenge. After marching roughly 30 surrendered SS soldiers,
camp guards, and German doctors into a coal yard, Walsh drew his pistol and ordered his
men to open fire. Seventeen POWs were cut down before a superior officer interceded.
It’s estimated that between 50 and 125 German POWs were executed by US forces bent on revenge.
We will likely never know for sure, as some soldiers gave weapons to
prisoners and gave their permission for them to kill whomever they liked.
Some medics also refused to treat wounded SS soldiers or camp guards,
deliberately letting them die from wounds sometimes inflicted by the liberators themselves.
When General Patton became military governor of Bavaria later in 1945,
he blocked all investigations into war crimes by US forces around Dachau.
Those who executed German POWs out of revenge were never held accountable.
Just like at Dachau, the SS and camp guards at Auschwitz tried to get rid of as much evidence
as possible before the Allies arrived. Documents were burned en masse and the
prisoners who were still fit enough to work were force-marched deeper into German territory
The Soviet 322nd Rifle Division arrived at Auschwitz on January 27th 1945. SS holdouts
were still active in the area surrounding the immense camp complex, and over 200 Soviet soldiers
died during the advance towards the camp. When they saw the Red Army arrive, the roughly 7,000
prisoners abandoned in the camp wept with joy. The Soviets had no idea what they had just found,
and the first question they asked the desperate prisoners was, “What are you doing here?”
It wasn’t long before the advancing Soviets uncovered the true scale of
the Nazi crimes at Auschwitz. Even the most battle-hardened men, veterans of
Stalingrad who had seen the atrocities of the Einsatzgruppen in their own country,
were in complete shock. Colonel Vasily Petrenko, Commander of the 107th Infantry Division,
arrived with his men to assist with the camp’s liberation. He later said: “I[,] who saw people
dying every day[,] was shocked by the Nazis' indescribable hatred toward the inmates[,]
who had turned into living skeletons. I read about the Nazis' treatment of Jews in various leaflets,
but there was nothing about the Nazis' treatment of women, children, and old men.”
No records detailing Soviet soldiers taking revenge on camp guards exist,
but that doesn’t mean it never happened. War crimes were committed by the advancing
Soviets in German territory in retribution for German war crimes committed in the Soviet
Union. These were often hushed up by the NKVD or dealt with quietly by the Soviet leadership.
Even when it had been liberated, Auschwitz remained a prison. Designated a “transit camp” by
the Soviets, Auschwitz was kept in working order to house thousands of Wehrmacht POWs as well as
Polish civilians who had signed the “Volksliste” — a document declaring German ethnicity.
Due to a centralised labour source, Auschwitz had been a centre for manufacturing military
equipment. Once designated a transit camp, the new prisoners were used as forced labour
to dismantle this heavy machinery so it could be sent to the Soviet Union. Some Germans and Poles
were still labouring in Auschwitz months after the war ended, without the threat of execution, but in
similar conditions to those of the persecuted minorities who were initially interred there.
THAT was the messed up story of the liberation of Dachau and Auschwitz concentration camps.
But what do YOU think? How should the US soldiers who killed camp guards be dealt with?
Can revenge in this situation be justified? Did you know the Soviets
kept using Auschwitz to house POWs well after the war ended? Let us know in the comments!