When the American soldiers entered Dachau concentration camp in April 1945, they found
a camp where the prisoners were suffering and starving. Inside of Dachau, there was
a reign of terror set up by the SS guards, and there was a huge amount of fear within
the inmates. Executions were common, as was torture and what the liberators found stuck
with them for the rest of their lives. Dachau was considered the prototype camp set up by
the Nazis, and also in operation from March 1933 right after Hitler seized control, up
until the end of the Second World War. Over 188,000 people passed through the gates and
were held against their will, and over 41,000 were killed because of the conditions, violence
and executions conducted at the camp. But why were prisoners so fearful, and what did
the guards do that caused a huge degree of terror? Join us today as we look at the Brutal
Torture of the Prisoners of Dachau, remember to support our channel please make sure to
subscribe.
Dachau acted as the prototype camp of the Third Reich, and many other concentration
camps were based on it. Following the takeover of Bavaria on the 8th March 1933, Heinrich
Himmler began to speak to authorities about using a disused gunpowder and munition factory
to set up a camp for prisoners in protective custody. But the concentration camp at Dachau
was created and opened on the 22nd March 1933 and the first prisoners around 200 came from
Stadelheim Prison and Landsberg Prison. The camp initially could hold 5000 prisoners and
it was considered the first concentration camp for political prisoners. Many people
who were hated by the Germans were imprisoned there, and it was used to imprison the victims
of the Nazi race laws. The construction was finished in mid August 1938 and over 11,000
German and Austrian Jews were sent there following the Anschluss of Austria and the Sudetenland
into the Nazi Empire. The Red Cross inspected Dachau twice and on both occasions noted the
harsh treatment of prisoners. But following the camp opening, reports of deaths of prisoners
were coming out at the hands of the SS. There was clear evidence of murder compiled against
the SS commandant of Dachau and also the camp doctor and the chief administrator.
But the point of the prisoners there was that they were forced to work incredibly hard,
and would be exterminated through labour. They were forced to work in munition factories
and other industries, and Dachau was also used as a training camp for SS guards. The
Guards were schooled in hatred, and one speech given to the SS guards said, ‘Comrades of
the SS! You all know what the Fuehrer has called us to do. We have not come here for
human encounters with those pigs in there. We do not consider them human beings, as we
are, but as second-class people.
For years they have been able to continue their criminal existence. But now we are in
power. If those pigs had come to power, they would have cut off all our heads. Therefore
we have no room for sentimentalism. If anyone here cannot bear to see the blood of comrades,
he does not belong and had better leave. The more of these pig dogs we strike down, the
fewer we need to feed.’ With this it was clear what the intention was towards the prisoners
and victims.
The camp was split into two areas, the main complex and also the crematorium. Inside the
complex was 32 barracks. One of these was reserved for those who opposed the Nazis and
another was for prisoners who were used in medical experiments. All around the camp was
an electrified barbed wire fences where a number of prisoners took their lives on as
they could not live with the constant fear of death any longer. Executions were very
common in the camp, and many were conducted in the courtyard between the prison and the
central kitchen. Here a gallows stood and prisoners were regularly hanged and left for
days dead to serve as a warning to the other prisoners for breaking the camps rules. These
executions were conducted at roll call where the whole of the inmates would be forced to
watch. This was terrifying to see and many witness their friends hanging.
Also there was another part of the camp which was used for executions. Following Operation
Barbarossa over 4000 Soviet POWs were murdered by the guards of Dachau at an SS shooting
range located 2 kilometres from Dachau’s gates at Herbertshausen. These killings were
a violation of the Geneva Convention as Prisoners of war should have been given some standard
of care. But the SS gave these POWs special treatment as they referred to it, and they
were shot dead at the shooting range and the first killings took place on the 25th November
1941. Many other people were executed on the range here, and thousands lost their lives
there.
One other element of death at Dachau as that guards were known for throwing the caps of
prisoners into the 3 metre wide no mans land and then when the prisoners entered this area,
they were shot dead by the guards inside the guard towers when they tried to retrieve their
caps. Psychological torture was common at Dachau also, as were other methods that were
used by the guards. One terrifying part of the punishment block was the Stehbunker of
the Standing Cells. These were tiny cells that were created so that a prisoner could
do nothing but stand. They were so small that people could not sit down or crouch, and for
days on end 24 hours a day they were forced into one position. Some standing cells often
held one prisoner but some held up to four people and there was only just a small opening
for oxygen to come in and out. As the number of prisoners increased at Dachau in the final
days of the war, the camp was overcrowded and the SS created standing cells. These were
similar to chimneys and measured 75 cms by 80 cms and there was a small hatch on top
for air and a narrow door with an iron bar which was bolted to the cell.
This drove prisoners to agony, and one former prisoner held inside the standing cells said,
‘It was a terrible state, as I thought that it was over for me, everything was so callous
and distant for me. I couldn't lie down, couldn't crouch, the best was to stand, stand, six
days and six nights long. [...] You touch the walls on both sides with your elbows,
your back touches the wall behind you, your knees the wall in front of you. [...] This
is no punishment or pre-trial detention, it is torture straight forward, Middle Ages
torture. I had bloodshot eyes, numb from bad air, I was just waiting for the end.’ Another
prisoner said how he was given just one single piece of bread in three days, and on the fourth
they were allowed to be taken from the cell and were given a meal and allowed to sleep
in a wooden cot, before the following day the confinement in the standing cell began
again. The SS sometimes did not interrupt on the third day, and one many spent 8 days
inside the cells. Prisoners were sometimes not allowed a break, and some had severe burns
on them from their urine.
Also regular floggings and whippings took place. In these in a public place, a stake
was made and prisoners were tied to it and then whipped for infringing the rules of the
camp. If a prisoner miscounted the whips they were given the whole process began again and
their screams could be heard all over Dachau. Another form of punishment and torture ws
pole hanging. This was where a prisoner was handcuffed behind their backs and then they
were hung from a hook or a tree or pole for a number of hours. This was common at Dachau
and there was a room that had a number of hooks on the walls for this purpose, and pole
hanging was used in public also to show other prisoners not to break the rules. Prisoners
were often also forced to stand at roll call for hours on end and were subject to group
punishments if a member of the barrack had committed a crime. Several hundred prisoners
were also tortured during ice water experiments, and many were left to die in freezing water.
Some were pulled out and then doctors experimented with how to revive them. One experiment using
water said, ‘There was one experiment that we probably remember most vividly.
It is so brutally cruel and we could do nothing to help. Two Russian officers were condemned
to death, we don’t know the reason … all objections were useless. Rascher did not permit
the use of an anaesthetic. The two were placed naked in cold water with a temperature of
3. In such cases the anaesthetic effects of cold are usually felt after two hours. These
two, naturally tough individuals were in the water for four hours and had a temperature
of 30. […] We approached [Dr] Rascher once more to persuade him to permit an anaesthetic.
The two men in the water evidently noted that we were speaking up for them, for one said
to the other: “Comrade, ask the officer to free us with a bullet”. The other replied:
“Don’t hope for any mercy from that fascist dog”. They then shook hands and calmly said
to one other: “Farewell comrade, we’re not going to get out of this”.
As the final days of the Second World War were played out, in April 1945 prisoners were
still being sent to Dachau. SS soldiers and police would confiscate food that the locals
tried to give to the prisoners, and hundreds were dying on the transports to the camp.
In one incident, around 300 bodies were taken from a train and were dumped in a ravine near
to the tracks, and then the over 500 prisoners who were forced to carry the dead were then
shot by the guards. Around 7000 inmates were sent south from Dachau on a death march as
the US Army approached, and any prisoner who could not keep up with the 6 day march was
shot. Many died from hunger and exposure, and a mass grave of over 1000 prisoners was
found on the route. At the time of liberation, 200 people of the camp were dying each day,
and many were dying from typhus epidemics and also starvation, and the overcrowding
did not help. Another thing to consider was the evil and violence inflicted by the guards.
Following the Second World War, many former members of staff at Dachau were executed for
their evil, and many were accused of murdering the prisoners who did not complete enough
work.
At the time off liberation around 10,000 of the 30,000 prisoners were sick and a number
did die from their illness. As mentioned over 40,000 people died at the camp from a number
of different causes. Following liberation a number of guards of Dachau were shot dead
and executed in reprisals by the US Army forces, and a number were sentenced to death following
trials that took place.
Dachau was the concentration camp which was used the longest by the Nazis. It grew to
include a network of around 100 sub camps, and many of these served Dachau and different
business utilised the slave labour. It was a place where death was around every corner,
and where the prisoners feared for their lives every day. They would wake up wondering if
this day was their last, and many who passed through the barbed wire fences would never
make it out alive.
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