When the American soldiers liberated dachau at the end of the Second World War in Europe,
they came across a concentration camp where death lurked around every corner.
Dachau was a site where the SS guards established a true reign of terror, and prisoners feared
every day that they would never be freed.
They lived in constant fear, and there were torture chambers such as Standing Cells in
which prisoners were forced into tiny cells like a medieval oubliette dungeon.
Dachau was the first concentration camp opened and built by the Nazis, and over 188,000 prisoners
passed through the gates, but over 41,000 would never make it out being killed by the
conditions and executions there.
Around 10,000 of the 30,000 prisoners who were found when Dachau was liberated were
sick and ill, and more passed away following liberation.
The American soldiers did kill a number of the camps guards in a form or reprisal with
them being executed by gunshot, but there was one element of Dachau which isn’t the
most well known.
Inside of the camp were a number of Priests and members of the church who were held as
prisoners, and they were treated terribly.
Join us today as we look at the horrific torture and execution of the priests of dachau, remember
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At Dachau many thousands of prisoners from different walks of life were imprisoned there,
after they were rounded up by the Gestapo and the Nazi authorities.
It was initially a political camp, and the prisoners at times were used as guinea pigs
in medical experiments.
Sick people were sent to Hartheim Castle to be executed in the Action T4 programme, but
amongst the political prisoners were a number of priests who had been arrested and were
considered political prisoners.
When Hitler seized control as the dictator of Germany, he promised the German parliament
that he would not meddle with the rights of the churches in Germany.
But as he established his power across the land, he broke this promise and took action
against religion.
He split the Lutheran Church and persecuted Jehovahs’ witnesses.
He also allowed a persecution of the Catholic Church in Germany, and what he wanted to do
in the long run was destabilise christian religion in the country.
But Hitler’s Nazi government had then overtly came into conflict with the churches in Germany,
and he continued the conflict with the Catholics and Protestants.
But following the Nazi takeover, the Catholic persecution was rather brutal, and many people
were being rounded up and arrested.
Also the regime released a sterilisation law which was deemed to have been offensive in
the eyes of Catholics, but Hitler then sought to break up different Catholic youth groups.
Many members of the clergy, nuns and also lay preachers were targeted and were arrested,
with many being brought to prisons and were then tortured.
Many priests found themselves under arrest and was then sent to concentration camps.
Hitler also employed his friends as high ranking members of the church, and many religious
figures saw these men as heretics.
But against Hitler’s ideas on the church, the Confessing Church a religious resistance
movement emerged.
This was later banned on the 1st July 1937, and the leader Pastor Martin Niemoller was
arrested by the Gestapo and sent to concentration camps, and in particular he was held at Dachau
until the Nazis fell from power.
Another leading priest Dietrich Bonhoeffer was arrested, and he was later executed for
being involved in the July Plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler.
But the Nazis kept a close eye on the bishops and Gestapo agents operated in different parishes,
and any bishop who was seen siding with the Vatican too closely was liable for arrest.
The clergy had been denounced a number of times also, it was said of one member, ‘One
priest was imprisoned in Dachau for having stated that there were good folk in England
too, another suffered the same fate for warning a girl who wanted to marry an S.S.
man after abjuring the Catholic faith; yet another because he conducted a service for
a deceased communist".
Other were arrested simply on the basis of being "suspected of activities hostile to
the State" or that there was reason to "suppose that his dealings might harm society"
But as mentioned many priests were imprisoned at Dachau, and the first member of the church
came in 1935.
But in 1940, Dachau became the main place where religious prisoners of the Nazi regime
were sent to.
Before this, the SS allowed a local priest to celebrate mass on Sundays, but discouraged
prisoners to attend.
The priest who came was humiliated at times and was spied on.
Wilhelm Braun was the first churchman imprisoned at Dachau, and it was said that, ‘The commandant
at the time, Loritz, persecuted them with ferocious hatred, and unfortunately he found
some prisoners to help the guards in their sinister work" Until 1940, the religious prisoners
were initially housed in the punishment blocks of 15 and 17 when they arrived, and they were
held there for a number of months before transferred to other areas.
But over the years thousands of priests came to Dachau, and many were transferred from
Buchenwald, Mauthausen and other camps.
Many bishops did try to make things better, and asked for permission to build a chapel
and to allow the priests in Dachau to live together and to have specific time for religious
contemplation and learning.
Priests were taken from the punishment blocks and were then held temporarily inside blocks
26, 28 and 30.
A chapel was made in Block 26, and two tables were put together to make an altar and a priest
used a single vestment and accessories obtained by a Polish priest from Sachsenhausen.
The building had improvements made, but the altar was kept.
Some items were securely made and prisoners contributed to the construction of the chapel.
It was said that, ‘The patient work by clergy and lay people alike had in the end achieved
a miracle.
The chapel was 20 metres long and 9 wide and could hold about 800 people, but often more
than a thousand crowded in.
The walls were painted with light green crosses alternating with lilies.
Special care was taken over the decoration of the east end behind the altar.
The windows... had been made to look like stained glass... but in September 1941, when
German clergy were separated from the others, the windows looking out on Block 28 were covered
in a thick coat of white paint.’
Non religious prisoners were not allowed in the chapel, and barbed wire was even set up.
The SS did harass the priests, and tried to intimidate them, but religious activity outside
the chapel was banned.
The Nazis inside of Dachau did bring in a racial hierarchy, and if a priest was German
they got better treatment.
The worst treatment was of Polish priests, and many died.
Almost 700 arrived in December 1941 and only 82 survived in the following year.
They wer kept in terrible clothes not fit for the winter of the cold, and many of the
Polish priests were chosen for medical experimentation.
In November 1942, a number were given deliberate infections of diseases, and 120 were subject
to malaria experiments which killed many.
A number of the priests were then sent on trains out of the camp, and many were killed
and were given false death certificates where they were just executed.
Some were beaten to death, or died from exhaustion.
Other’s were tortured to death by the camps guards.
In particular 1942 was a brutal year for the prisoners of dachau and the priests.
The excruciating hard labour and starvation coupled with heavy snow led to large amounts
of death.
The clergy members there suffered, and were sent to work in the camps industries.
Some prisoners believed that religious prisoners were treated better than others, but on Easter
one year, the guards marked Good Friday by torturing 60 priests.
They took them into the torture blocks, and tied their hands behind their backs, and chained
their wrists.
They then hoisted them in the air by chains, and their joints ripped and many parts of
their bodies dislocated.
Many priests were killed in this, and further threat of torture occurred.
One SS guard even forced one priest to wrap barbed wire on his head as a crown of thorns,
and then carry planks like Jesus carried the cross, and he then ordered Jewish prisoners
to spit on him.
The torture continued as priests were mocked and treated terribly.
It’s recorded that 2720 members of the clergy were imprisoned at dachau, and around 95%
were Catholic.
There were other religions held, and the largest nationality of clergy held were from Poland.
However 868 of the 1780 held were killed.
Around a quarter of the German priests held were killed and died there, and even 2 British
priests were held there.
Of the 2720 clergy members who were held, 1034 were killed at the camp.
Some members were held in private cells, and high profile prisoners were held separately
from others as it was a worry to the guards if they would spread their ideas.’
The priests of Dachau are a forgotten part of the concentration camp system, and hundreds
never made it out of the camp alive as they were executed, tortured or treated terribly
by the guards.
Many were also starved and succumbed to the hard labour that they were forced to do.
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