As the allies and the Soviets advanced throughout Nazi occupied territory and lands, they came
across networks of concentration camps. It was inside these complexes that the true crimes
of the Third Reich were carried out, and it was inside of these camps that millions were
exterminated and murdered in horrific fashion. As each camp was liberated, the horrors of
the SS guard’s brutality and evil was told to those soldiers who freed the prisoners.
There were war crimes trials that took place after World War 2, to bring the perpetrators
of the Holocaust to justice, and the most high profile were the Nuremberg Trials. Other
trials took place to bring the guards of the specific camps to face their crimes, for example
the Auschwitz Trials and the Belsen Trials. However upon the liberation of Dachau, a huge
concentration camp where its estimated over 188,000 people passed through the gates, the
American liberators sought to carry out some immediate justice, executing hundreds of the
SS guards in bloody reprisals for the crimes that they committed. Join us today as we look
at ‘The BRUTAL Executions of the Dachau Liberation Reprisals,’ and remember to support
our channel, please make sure to subscribe.
When Dachau opened on the 22nd March 1933, it was the prototype camp. It initially was
planned to hold political prisoners, but as the Second World War and the persecution of
the Jews continued, other prisoners found themselves inside of the infamous camp. It
was opened by Heinrich Himmler, and was the place of much suffering and forced labour.
It grew to a huge size, including almost 100 sub camps serving the Dachau complex. During
the first year the camp had 5000 prisoners, and these were mostly German communists and
political opponents of the Nazi regime. But soon other groups such as Jehovah’s witnesses
and Gypsies found themselves inside the camp.
As the persecution of the Jews increased in 1938 following kristallnacht, around 11000
jewish men were imprisoned in Dachau. Prisoners were forced to work inside of the munitions
factory, and as the camp expanded more forced labour was ordered in brutal conditions. Prisoners
were kept easily guarded, and some guards were even known to have shot at prisoners
indiscriminately. The guards were terrible to the inmates, some stole their caps and
then threw them into a no mans land area near to the fences, knowing that the guards would
then shoot them dead as they tried to get them back. Some prisoners even decided to
end their suffering and lives wandering into the zone before they were shot by guards.
Guards regularly beat the prisoners of dachau, often many of them beat prisoners to death
too. There were many examples of inmates being tortured by the SS guards, for example often
they were strung up to trees by their arms with them held behind them to maximise the
pain. Also they were forced to stand for hours in roll call, but executions were also common
inside of Dachau. There was a crematorium area set up in 1942, but it’s not entirely
sure whether the gas chambers were in use at Dachau, but the SS took action into their
own hands.
They used the firing range heavily to shoot dead prisoners who weren’t fit enough to
work, or who had committed crimes as small as stealing bread as they were starving. They
also used gallows to publicly hang prisoners, especially those of a political nature. Also
at the camp medical experiments took place that were incredibly sadistic. The doctors
killed hundreds of prisoners in the sick medical trials and even euthanised many prisoners
to simply just perform autopsies.
As the Second World War continued, the amount of prisoners at Dachau rose heavily, and in
August 1944 a women’s camp opened. But in the final months of the war, the conditions
at Dachau like in many concentration camps deteriorated rapidly. The allies pushed towards
Germany, and the Germans began to move prisoners from other camps to those closer to the German
heartland, and many were transported to Dachau. With the Soviet’s advancing throughout former
Nazi occupied lands, they Nazis would move prisoners back from camps set up further East
back towards Germany. This meant that camps in Germany such as Dachau swelled heavily
in their numbers.
This caused a huge strain on the resources at the camp, and prisoners arrived at the
camp often having been force marched with no food and water and they arrived close to
death, incredibly weak and tired. There was a severe lack of food at Dachau, and also
disease became a huge problem as it became very overcrowded and typhus epidemics caused
a huge number of deaths in the final days of the camp.
The constant overcrowding left no space for people to sleep, and within the final 6 months
of the camp before liberation over 15,000 people died from disease, starvation and execution
including 500 Soviet POWs who were shot dead.
Prisoners continued to arrive as late as the 19th April 1945, and during that month the
US Army were driving deeper into Bavaria and it was suggested to Himmler that the camp
should be turned over the the Allies. It was said by Himmler that, ‘No prisoner shall
be allowed to fall into the hands of the enemy alive,’ refusing this order. Days before
the Allies arrived at Dachau, the commandant and SS guards sent around 7,000 prisoners
on a death march, and any prisoner who could not keep up was shot. Many died from exhaustion,
and along the route a mass grave housing over 1000 prisoners was found, with the SS shooting
many indiscriminately.
Inside 200 people were dying each day, but on the 29th April 1945 soldiers of the 3rd
battallion 157th Infantry Regiment, and the 45th Infantry Division commanded by Leftenant
Colonel Felix Sparks approached Dachau. They found 39 railway boxcars with over 2000 corpses
inside on the railway tracks outside of the camp. They found murdered bodies, and they
saw hell on earth. They were greeted by decaying bodies, the sight of emaciated bodies and
desperation everywhere. As the soldiers advanced, some SS soldiers continued to fire at the
Americans, despite being told to surrender. As the soldiers moved deep into the complex,
they found more bodies. Many had been dead for days before the capture of the camp, and
there were houses with just bodies piled inside of, from floor to ceiling. It was said that
‘The stench of death was overpowering.’
The Camps commandant Martin Weiss had already fled the camp with many SS men, and SS untersturmfuhrer
Heinrich Wicket was left in charge of the camp with over 500 SS personnel. Dachau was
surrendered on the 29th April to the Allies. It was said when the camp was turned over.
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.... 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... 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…’
Supreme Allied Commander Dwight D Eisenhower issued a press release of the liberation,
saying that ‘Our forces liberated and mopped up the infamous concentration camp at Dachau.
Approximately 32,000 prisoners were liberated, 300 SS camp guards were quickly neutralised.
Now what Eisenhower referred to as camp guards being neutralised was a huge massacre of SS
guards who were based at Dachau, and the American soldiers disgusted by what they had witnessed
tried to enact instant revenge on the SS guards. The evidence we have on the reprisal executions
comes from the men who were there who liberated the camp. Leftenant Colonel Sparks who helped
to liberate the camp stated how he witnessed about 50 German Prisoners captured by the
soldiers and that they were captured and surrounded in an area used for storing coal. The area
was enclosed by a masonry wall, and the Germanan POWs were guarded by a machine gun team. As
Sparks left the area, he heard a soldier screaming ‘They’re trying to get away,’ and then
he heard machine gun fire coming from the area.
As he went back, he kicked a 19 year old soldier who was armed with the machine gun, who had
shot dead 12 of the SS prisoner guards, and wounded several more. The gunner was crying
and claimed they tried to escape, but Sparks doubted the story. He went on to say, 'It
was the foregoing incident which has given rise to wild claims in various publications
that most or all of the German prisoners captured at Dachau were executed. Nothing could be
further from the truth. The total number of German guards killed at Dachau during that
day most certainly did not exceed fifty, with thirty probably being a more accurate figure.
The regimental records for that date indicate that over a thousand German prisoners were
brought to the regimental collecting point. Since my task force was leading the regimental
attack, almost all the prisoners were taken by the task force, including several hundred
from Dachau.’
More accounts of reprisal killings at Dachau emerged, for example it was claimed in one
book that US forces killed 520 German soldiers on the orders of a leftenant in a mass execution
in the courtyard hours after the initial incident with the machine gun. He also supported what
Sparks said about seeing 15 or 16 dead SS officers lying along the wall having been
mowed down by machine gun fire.
This testimony also stated that it was not known if medical care was sought for those
who were not instantly killed by the shooting. Another account states how, ‘Some of the
Nazis were rounded up and executed along with the guard dogs.’ According to a German historian,
it was claimed that ’16 SS me were shot in the collard, 17 were shot dead in Tower
B, and a few more were killed by the US soldiers in the reprisal shootings.
Anywhere from a 25 to 50 were also killed by inmates.’ Many of the SS guards were
grabbed as they tried to flee the Americans who were advancing and engaged in a shootout
as the camp was liberated. It was said that ‘prisoners caught the SS men, the first
SS man elbowed one or two prisoners out the way, but the courage of the prisoner mounted,,
they knocked them down and nobody could see whether they were stomped or what, but they
were killed.’ Also in Dachau SS men, Kapos and other collaborators were beaten with shovels,
sticks and anything the prisoners could find. US soldiers were said on one account to have
turned a blind eye to the beating, who saw prisoners beating a German guard to death
with a shovel. IT was said there wasn’t much left of this specific guard after.
An official investigation as ordered by the US Army to investigate the executions and
killings following the liberation of Dachau. It was reported that close to the back entrance
of the camp, the commander of I company, Leftenant William P Walsh shot four germans who had
surrendered inside of a box car, and then a private climbed into the box car and delivered
a coup de grace to the wounded German men. When he entered the camp, he organised the
separation of the prisoners into those who were Wehrmacht army soldiers, and those who
were SS men. It was said that the SS were then marched into a different enclosure, and
were then shot by members of I company who were armed with many different weapons.
So when Dachau was liberated, it’s clear that a number of SS guards were shot by the
Americans in reprisals. After discovering the truly barbaric and disgusting scenes that
the SS had caused with the mass killings of prisoners, and the cruelty that they inflicted,
it’s easy to see how the American soldiers sought to inflict some quick justice of their
own. It’s clear that the allied liberators were disturbed and greatly angered by finding
the mass corpses and the starving and dying masses, and sought to take revenge. Many of
the SS guards who were at the camp did open up fire on the Americans as they approached
the camp, which in a sense could have been used to justify actions against them, but
once the executions and shootings took place, these SS guards were ultimately considered
Prisoners of War.
At Dachau its estimated that over 40,000 prisoners were killed by the terrible conditions and
by executions inside of the camp during its time operating. The incident involving the
reprisals upon liberation its estimated took the lives of up to 50 soldiers. It’s likely
that the emotion upon discovering the camp took over the US soldiers, and its possible
that executions were ordered of the SS officers and guards.
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