One of the most brutal concentration camps of the Second World War was Dachau. It was
the camp which was opened first by the Nazis and during the time in which it was opened,
it’s believed that around 41,500 people died within the barbed wire fences. Dachau
became the prototype for the concentration camps that were opened and that became so
destructive, but when the camp was liberated by the Americans, there were a series of executions
and killings of the guards who worked there. The SS guards of Dachau were known for their
brutality and evil, but the Dachau Liberation Reprisals as it was known saw an American
soldier fire at the former SS guards, and there was a huge investigation around this.
Around the whole of Dachau, there were many other guards who had been killed in the camp,
but what the true story was became rather muddled. Join us today as we look at the ruthless
executions of the guards of dachau, as always to support our channel please make sure to
subscribe.
Dachau was opened on the 22nd March 1933 and to begin with it held 200 prisoners sent from
Stadelheim Prison and Landsberg, and it was the first camp to hold inmates who were regarded
as political prisoners. As time went on and the Nazi’s stranglehold over Germany increased,
thousands more people were sent there, including those who were considered undesirable by the
Nazis. As soon as the camp opened, there were deaths that occurred there and prisoners were
being killed. The prisoners were forced to conduct hard labour, and it became a place
where many SS guards were trained before they were dispatched to other camps to work. The
prisoner entrance was marked by the infamous phrase ‘arbeit macht Frei,’ and the camp
then became very overcrowded. It was a site which was synonymous with executions, as around
4000 soviet Prisoners of war were executed there by the commandant’s guard at the SS
shooting range near to the camp, and executions of prisoners continued.
Guards were known for their brutality, and they would beat and brutalise the inmates
if they caught them not being productive enough, and they would execute and slaughter with
their bare hands. Executions also took place at roll call on gallows in front of the camps
inmates and they would strike terror into the hearts of the prisoners. There was also
a women’s camp that opened in August 1944, but as the Second World War turned against
the Germans, the conditions at dachau went downhill badly. The Germans started to move
prisoners from concentration camps nearer the front lines to more centrally found camps
nearer to the German heartlands, and with this thousands of prisoners were sent to Dachau.
Because of this, there were many typhus epidemics and other disease outbreaks which caused problems,
and there were poor sanitary conditions coupled with a lack of food and water. This led to
many prisoners dying, and it’s believed that around 15,000 people died in the final
6 months of the war at dachau, and each day hundreds were succumbing to the conditions,
as well as those who were still being brought to the firing range to be executed.
But in the final days of the camp, prisoners were still arriving and the SS would confiscate
food which were given to prisoners on death marches, and on the marches hundreds were
dying. The SS would dump the bodies in a ravine and force locals to bury them, but on the
24th April 1945, days before liberation, the commandant of Dachau ordered 7,000 prisoners
on a death march from the camp. Those who could not keep up on the 6 day march were
shot. But at the time of liberation, 200 people a day were dying. Himmler would initially
order no prisoners to fall into the hands of the enemy, and those from the northern
part of German were ordered to be drowned in the North Sea or the Baltic, but at Dachau
the SS began to erase any information regarding what was happening at the camp. But on the
29th April 1945, soldiers from the 3rd Battalion, 157th Infantry Regiment, 45th Infantry Division
who were led by Leftenant Colonel Felix Sparks began to approach the huge Dachau complex
and the nearby sub camps. On their approach they came across 29 different train boxcars
which had 2,000 people’s remains, and it was clear that there had been brutality exhibited
by the SS. The smell of the rotting bodies and the sight of the emaciated dead caused
a huge amount of discomfort, upset and horror with the minds and emotions of the American
soldiers. This may have had an impact on the events that came later. But as the Americans
approached, they ordered the SS guards to surrender, but they fired upon the Americans.
As they pushed forward, into the prisoner areas, the Americans found more bodies many
who had been dead for some time, and they had just been left in the open with no dignity.
But the soldiers then came across the prisoners who were alive, and were dying. But then the
decision to surrender the camp was made, and the majority of the SS hierarchy and the guards
had fled the camp. One senior guard Heinrich Wicker was slaughtered by the prisoners after
the surrender, and he was left in charge with 560 guards at his disposal.
But on the 29th April the camp was surrendered, and the job then came to try and save the
lives of those who were starving. One liberator would state off the scenes, ‘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…’
But regarding the capture of dachau, Dwight Eisenhower the Supreme Allied Commander would
issue a statement that said, ‘Our forces liberated and mopped up the infamous concentration
camp at Dachau, Approximately 32,000 prisoners were liberated, and 300 SS camp guards were
quickly neutralised.’ But the circumstances around how the SS guards were killed have
been debated, and some historians have argued that a war crime was committed by the American
soldiers. One historian stated of what happened that, ‘The Americans came on April 29, a
Sunday. Work had stopped in the camp on Wednesday, and an evacuation was being organized. One
transport of 4,000 prisoners was able to get away, but the 42nd and 45th Infantry Divisions
covered the 40 miles from the Danube faster than the Germans expected. At noon on Sunday
the camp was quiet, and the SS guards were at their posts in the towers when the cry
"Americans!" went up. A prisoner rushed toward the gate, and a guard shot him. Outside, a
single American soldier stood looking casually at the towers while the guards eyed him and
others who were two or three hundred yards away. When the Americans opened fire, the
guards in the gate tower came down, hands in the air. One held a pistol behind his back,
and the first American shot him. In the next few minutes a jeep drove up; in it were a
blonde female war correspondent and a chaplain. The chaplain asked the prisoners, now crowding
to the gate, to join him in the Lord's Prayer. ...Troops of the 42nd and 45th Divisions who
liberated Dachau in the afternoon on 29 April were fighting in Munich the next morning
and by nightfall had, along with XV Corps' other three divisions, captured the city that
was the capital of Bavaria and the birthplace of Nazism.’
But what actually happened with the executions of the Dachau Liberation Reprisals is best
told by those men who were there and who witness. Leftantn Colonel Sparks stated that he saw
around 50 German prisoners who had been captured, former guards and that they were then taken
to an area which had been used for storing coal. This area was enclosed in an L shape
by a wall which was around 8ft high, and it was found next to the camp infirmary. The
Prisoners of war were watched over by American soldiers, and a machine gun team who had their
weapon primed as a threat for them not to move. Sparks then left these soldiers, and
as he walked away he heard a soldier shout ‘They’re trying to get away,’ and then
machine gun fire was heart. Sparks returned and he came across a 19 year old soldier named
Birdie who was manning the machine gun, and he had shot 12 of the prisoners and wounded
many more. The gunner was crying and was beside himself, and Sparks later said of the incident,
‘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.’
But there was some debate as to whether the soldier had been told to fire, or how many
German soldiers and guards were killed. One witness’ testimony said that around 4pm
in the afternoon, he arrived in the yard where the Germans had been shot and that 15 or 16
were killed and the wounded were lying against the wall. Some of the wounded were moving,
and the surgeon and doctor did not know if any medical assistance had been called for,
meaning that they were happy to let the wounded suffer and succumbed to their deaths and fates.
But other accounts would go further saying the Nazis were rounded up and were executed
along with the guard dogs but the American forces in the coal yard.
There were further executions that took place and the prisoners would get their revenge
on the guards following the liberation. One prisoner stated that ‘prisoners swarmed
over the wire and grabbed the Americans and lifted them onto their shoulders, other prisoners
caught the SS men, the first SS man elbowed one or two prisoners out of the way, but the
courage of the prisoners mounted, they knocked them down and nobody could see whether they
were stomped or what, but they were killed.’ The prisoner functionaries such as the Kapos
were also beaten and were killed being attacked with fists, and other weapons. One German
guard was beaten to death with a shovel, and there were further incidents in which American
soldiers turned a blind eye to inmates beating the former guards to death. One witness said
that after an attack there wasn’t much left of the SS guard’s face, noting the hate
that the prisoners held in their hearts.
But there was an investigation into the killings of the guards of Dachau, and witnesses came
forward about what had happened. Further information came to light regarding more deaths, with
four German soldiers being shot in a boxcar, and these men had surrendered and then a coup
de grace was given to the wounded. Also further accounts about SS men being shot by Americans
in a different enclosure were spoken about, and the investigation resulted in possible
court martial, but charges were dismissed. It was considered a violation of international
law, but no-one ever answered charges for it.
The Dachau Liberation Reprisals as they were known were a series of executions and killings
of those SS men who were responsible for the huge suffering and evil that occurred inside
of Dachau. They were people who were responsible for the thousands of dead at the camp, and
they did little to help the suffering. But the executions that were carried out around
the camp were a sign of the anger and horror that the Americans held these men in. It’s
likely that they were affected by the mass bodies and horror that they encountered at
Dachau, and this is why some of them turned a blind eye to the reprisals. But inside of
the liberated camp, between 35 and 50 SS guards were executed.
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