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It seems that I can see before me the striking contrast of a beast and a god. Only that the Boche is the one who looks divine. A number of GIs had already surrounded the guard post and others were standing by the major. Among them was the corporal, recently promoted to sergeant, Jeremiah McKenneth. A few minutes went by, my comrades had not yet dared to come out of their barracks, for at that distance they could not tell the outcome of the negotiations between the American officer and the SS men. Now the prisoners have understood, they jump on the Americans, embrace them, kiss their feet, their hands; the celebration is on.
The 20th Armored Division was supporting both the 45th Division and the 42nd Division, but most accounts of the liberation of Dachau do not mention any tanks being at the Arbeit Macht Frei gate at the time that the men of the 45th and 42nd divisions arrived. It was very cold at Dachau on the day of liberation, so cold that it snowed on May 1st, two days later, but maybe it was hot inside the tank and that's why the American major was sweating.
Israel, author of the book "The Day the Thunderbird Cried," did not mention Skodzensky in his description of the liberation of Dachau, which is based on the recollections of soldiers in the 45th Thunderbird Division. According to Israel, there was no formal surrender of the camp to any of the officers of the 45th Thunderbird Division. The Dachau Memorial Site has no record of Lt.
Heinrich Skodzensky in its archives and there is no record of him in the Berlin Bundesarchiv. Gun wrote the following about Heinrich Skodzensky: Unterleutenant Heinrich Skodzensky, who volunteered at seventeen, was then making his first trip to the front, in the vanguard of Ewald von Kleist's First Panzerarmee, which was still holding its ground in front of Mount Tabruz, the highest in the Caucasus and trying in vain to avoid giving up the oil-rich territories around Maikop.
After Rostov, the Donetz Basin, the Leningrad front, a sorry interlude in the Carpathians and the Rumanian catastrophe, Skodzensky was to spend two months in a hospital near Berchtesgaden. Thereafter, he was automatically assigned to the SS Leibstandarte Division and, no longer fit for active service, was sent in the late spring of as a "convalescent" to serve at the Dachau concentration camp, where his Iron Cross was due to mire itself in infamy.
Skodzensky's resume, as written by Nerin E. Gun, sounds very similiar to that of Heinrich Wicker , who is officially credited with surrendering the Dachau camp to the 42nd Divison. On the day that Dachau was liberated, there was at least one American, Lt. There were also 5 other American civilians who were prisoners in the camp, according to Marcus J. Smith in his book, "The Harrowing of Hell. Gun wrote that there were 11 Americans imprisoned at Dachau at various times in its history. He was with a group of American Prisoners of War who got lost while marching through the German countryside in late April ; the lost POWs were picked up by a patrol and dropped off at the Dachau "death camp" for three or four days.
Davis was assigned to work in the crematorium where he saw the bodies of children that were being burned in "gas ovens. Stevens had spent the last month of his 11 months as a POW at Dachau. Another American at Dachau on the day the camp was liberated was Keith Fiscus, who was a Captain in American intelligence, operating behind enemy lines. According to a news article by Mike Pound, published in the Joplin Globe on April 29, , Ficus was captured on April 29, in Austria and held at Dachau for 9 months after first being interrogated by the Gestapo.
The most famous American at Dachau was Rene Guiraud. After being given intensive specialized training, Lt. Guiraud was parachuted into Nazi-occupied France, along with a radio operator. His mission was to collect intelligence, harass German military units and occupation forces, sabotage critical war material facilities, and carry on other resistance activities.
Guiraud organized guerrilla fighters and developed intelligence networks. During all this, Guiraud posed as a French citizen, wearing civilian clothing. He was captured and interrogated for two months by the Gestapo, but revealed nothing about his mission.
After that, he was sent to Dachau where he participated in the camp resistance movement along with the captured British spies. Two weeks after the liberation of the camp, he "escaped" from the quarantined camp and went to Paris where he arrived in time to celebrate V-E day. The photo below shows well-dressed political prisoners at Dachau. William Cowling wrote the following in a letter to his parents on April 30, Linden attempted to get the thing organized and an American Major who had been held in the Camp since September came out and we set him up as head of the prisoners.
He soon picked me to quiet the prisoners down and explain to them that they must stay in the Camp until we could get them deloused, and proper food and medical care. Several newspaper people arrived about that time and wanted to go through the Camp so we took them through with a guide furnished by the prisoners. The first thing we came to were piles and piles of clothing, shoes, pants, shirts, coats, etc. Then we went into a room with a table with flowers on it and some soap and towels.
Another door with the word showers lead off of this and upon going through this room it appeared to be a shower room but instead of water, gas came out and in two minutes the people were dead. Next we went next door to four large ovens where they cremated the dead. Then we were taken to piles of dead. There were from two to fifty people in a pile all naked, starved and dead. There must have been about 1, dead in all. There was no running water in the camp because of a broken water main caused by a bomb that hit the camp on April 9, On the day that the camp was liberated, it was not possible to determine if it was water or gas that came out of the shower heads and there was no reason to doubt the word of the prisoners.
After liberating thousands of starving and sick prisoners, the soldiers in the 45th Division now knew what the war was all about. Russell Weiskircher, another soldier in the th Infantry Regiment of the 45th Thunderbird Division, was also there on liberation day. In April , Weiskircher spoke to students at a Catholic school in Georgia about what he saw at Dachau on April 29, In his speech to the students, he painted a picture of what it was like on the day Dachau was liberated.
The following is a quote from an article published on April 21, on the web site www. And, all she knew was she used to have a mommy and her name was mommy," he told the students. She didn't know her name. The fact that this child survivor had a number on her arm indicates that she had been previously registered at the Auschwitz death camp; only Jews at Auschwitz were tattooed.
When the Auschwitz camp was abandoned on January 18, , the survivors, including women and children, were marched 37 miles through two feet of snow to the German border and then sent by train to Bergen-Belsen and other camps. Visitors may now walk through the buildings and view the ovens used to cremate bodies, which hid the evidence of many deaths. It is claimed that in , more than 3, prisoners in weakened condition were transported to Hartheim Castle near Linz , and were executed by poison gas because they were deemed unfit.
Together with the much larger Auschwitz concentration camp , Dachau has come to symbolize the Nazi concentration camps. Konzentrationslager KZ Dachau lives in public memory as the second camp to be liberated by British or American Allied forces. It was one of the first places that firsthand journalist accounts and newsreels revealed to the rest of the world.
Dachau was opened in March Between the years and , more than 3. Many of these Germans had served in government, the military, or in civil positions, which were considered to enable them to engage in subversion and conspiracy against the Nazis. The camp was divided into two sections: The camp area consisted of 32 barracks, including one for clergy imprisoned for opposing the Nazi regime and one reserved for medical experiments.
The courtyard between the prison and the central kitchen was used for the summary execution of prisoners. The camp was surrounded by an electrified barbed-wire gate, a ditch, and a wall with seven guard towers. In early , the SS , using prisoner labor, initiated construction of a large complex of buildings on the grounds of the original camp. The construction was officially completed in mid-August and the camp remained essentially unchanged and in operation until A crematorium that was next to, but not directly accessible from within the camp, was erected in KZ Dachau was therefore the longest running concentration camp of the Third Reich.
The Dachau complex included other SS facilities beside the concentration camp—a leader school of the economic and civil service, the medical school of the SS, etc. The camp at that time was called a "protective custody camp," and occupied less than half of the area of the entire complex. The camp was originally designed for holding German and Austrian political prisoners and Jews, but in it began to be used also for ordinary criminals. Inside the camp there was a sharp division between the two groups of prisoners; those who were there for political reasons and therefore wore a red tag, and the criminals, who wore a green tag.
Dachau was used as the chief camp for Christian mainly Catholic clergy who were imprisoned for not conforming with the Nazi Party line. During the war, other nationals were transferred to it, including French; in Poles; in people from the Balkans, Czechs, Yugoslavs; and in , Russians. The average number of Germans in the camp during the war was 3, Just before the liberation many German prisoners were evacuated, but 2, of these Germans died during the evacuation transport.
In August a women's camp opened inside Dachau. In the last months of the war, the conditions at Dachau deteriorated. As Allied forces advanced toward Germany, the Germans began to move prisoners from concentration camps near the front to more centrally located camps.
They hoped to prevent the liberation of large numbers of prisoners. Transports from the evacuated camps arrived continuously at Dachau. After days of travel with little or no food or water, the prisoners arrived weak and exhausted, often near death. Typhus epidemics became a serious problem as a result of overcrowding, poor sanitary conditions, insufficient provisions, and the weakened state of the prisoners. Owing to repeated transports from the front, the camp was constantly overcrowded and the hygiene conditions were beneath human dignity.
Starting from the end of up to the day of liberation, 15, people died, about half of all the prisoners held at KZ Dachau. Five hundred Soviet POWs were executed by firing squad. The first shipment of women came from Auschwitz-Birkenau. Though at the time of liberation the death rate had peaked at per day, after the liberation by U. In addition to the direct abuse of the SS and the harsh conditions, people died from typhus epidemics and starvation.
The number of inmates had peaked in with transports from evacuated camps in the east such as Auschwitz , and the resulting overcrowding led to an increase in the death rate. In effort to counter the strength and influence of spiritual resistance, Nazi security services monitored clergy very closely.
Sparks, Secretary 15 June Virtually every German officer and every German soldier who was present on that fateful day paid for his sins against his fellow man. In effort to counter the strength and influence of spiritual resistance, Nazi security services monitored clergy very closely. The Nazis introduced a racial hierarchy—keeping Poles in harsh conditions, while favouring German priests. On the day that Dachau was liberated, there was at least one American, Lt. Dachau was also the first Nazi camp to use prisoners as human guinea pigs in medical experiments.
Priests Barracks at Dachau were established in Blocks 26, 28 and 30, though only temporarily. Of a total of 2, clergy recorded as imprisoned at Dachau, the overwhelming majority, some 2, or The Nazis introduced a racial hierarchy—keeping Poles in harsh conditions, while favouring German priests. Inadequately clothed for the bitter cold, of this group only 82 survived. A large number of Polish priests were chosen for Nazi medical experiments. In November , 20 were given phlegmons. Several Poles met their deaths with the "invalid trains" sent out from the camp, others were liquidated in the camp and given bogus death certificates.
Some died of cruel punishment for misdemeanors—beaten to death or run to exhaustion. The camp staff consisted mostly of SS males, although 19 female guards served at Dachau as well, most of them until liberation. Several Norwegians worked as guards at the Dachau camp. In the major Dachau war crimes case United States of America v.
Martin Gottfried Weiss et. He testified about hangings, shootings and lethal injections, but did not admit to direct responsibility for any individual deaths. Satellite camps under the authority of Dachau were established in the summer and autumn of near armaments factories throughout southern Germany to increase war production. Dachau alone had more than 30 large subcamps in which over 30, prisoners worked almost exclusively on armaments. Overall, the Dachau concentration camp system included sub-camps and Kommandos which were set up in when factories were built near the main camp to make use of forced labor of the Dachau prisoners.
Out of the sub-camps, eleven of them were called Kaufering, distinguished by a number at the end of each. All Kaufering sub-camps were set up to specifically build three underground factories Allied bombing raids made it necessary for them to be underground for a project called Ringeltaube wood pigeon , which planned to be the location in which the German jet fighter plane, Messerschmitt Me , was to be built. In the last days of war, in April , the Kaufering camps were evacuated and around 15, prisoners were sent up to the main Dachau camp.
Typhus alone was estimated to have caused 15, deaths between December and April In spite of this one hundred prisoners died each day during the first month from typhus, dysentery or general weakness". Army troops neared the Dachau sub-camp at Landsberg on 27 April , the SS officer in charge ordered that 4, prisoners be murdered.
Windows and doors of their huts were nailed shut. The buildings were then doused with gasoline and set afire. Prisoners who were naked or nearly so were burned to death, while some managed to crawl out of the buildings before dying. Earlier that day, as Wehrmacht troops withdrew from Landsberg am Lech, towns people hung white sheets from their windows.
Infuriated SS troops dragged German civilians from their homes and hanged them from trees. As the opposition began to advance on Nazi Germany, the SS began to evacuate the first concentration camps in summer At the end of , the overcrowding of camps began to take its toll on the prisoners. The unhygienic conditions and the supplies of food rations became disastrous. In November a typhus fever epidemic broke out that took thousands of lives.
In the second phase of the evacuation, in April , Himmler gave direct evacuation routes for remaining camps. Prisoners that were from the northern part of Germany were to be directed to the Baltic and North Sea coasts to be drowned. The prisoners from the southern part were to be gathered in the Alps, which was the location in which the SS wanted to resist the Allies p. On 28 April , an armed revolt took place in the town of Dachau. Both former and escaped concentration camp prisoners, and a renegade Volkssturm civilian militia company took part.
The advanced forces of the SS gruesomely suppressed the revolt within a few hours. Being fully aware that Germany was about to be defeated in World War II, the SS invested its time in removing evidence of the crimes they committed in the concentration camps. However, these plans never ended up being carried out. In mid-April, plans to evacuate the camp started by sending prisoners toward Tyrol.
On 26 April, over 10, prisoners were forced to leave the Dachau concentration camp on foot, in trains, or in trucks. The largest group of some 7, prisoners was driven southward on a foot-march lasting several days. More than 1, prisoners did not survive this march. The evacuation transports cost many thousands of prisoners their lives. On 26 April prisoner Karl Riemer fled the Dachau concentration camp to get help from American troops and on 28 April Victor Maurer, a representative of the International Red Cross, negotiated an agreement to surrender the camp to U.
That night a secretly formed International Prisoners Committee took over the control of the camp. Sparks , were ordered to secure the camp. On April 29 Sparks led part of his battalion as they entered the camp over a side wall. Linden was traveling with Marguerite Higgins and other reporters, and as a result Linden's detachment generated international headlines by accepting the surrender of the camp. More than 30, Jews and political prisoners were freed, and since adherents of the 42nd and 45th Division versions of events have argued over which unit was the first to liberate Dachau.
American soldiers then went into Landsberg and rounded up all the male civilians they could find and marched them out to the camp. The former commandant was forced to lie amidst a pile of corpses. The male population of Landsberg was then ordered to walk by, and ordered to spit on the commandant as they passed. The commandant was then turned over to a group of liberated camp survivors". Due to the number of sub-camps over a large area that comprised the Dachau concentration camp complex, many Allied units have been officially recognized by the United States Army Center of Military History and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum as liberating units of Dachau, including: American troops killed some of the camp guards after they had surrendered.
The number is disputed as some were killed in combat, some while attempting to surrender, and others after their surrender was accepted. In Brigadier General Felix L. Sparks, the Colonel in command of a battalion that was present, stated:. An Inspector General report resulting from a US Army investigation conducted between 3 and 8 May and titled, "American Army Investigation of Alleged Mistreatment of German Guards at Dachau," found that 21 plus "a number" of presumed SS men were killed with others being wounded after their surrender had been accepted.
According to Sparks, court-martial charges were drawn up against him and several other men under his command but General George S. Patton the then recently appointed military governor of Bavaria chose to dismiss the charges. Decker, an acting deputy judge advocate, concluded in late that, while war crimes had been committed at Dachau by Germany, "Certainly, there was no such systematic criminality among United States forces as pervaded the Nazi groups in Germany. American troops also forced local citizens to the camp to see for themselves the conditions there and to help bury the dead.
In a cell block used by Catholic priests to say daily Mass, several Greek, Serbian and Russian priests and one Serbian deacon, wearing makeshift vestments made from towels of the SS guard, gathered with several hundred Greek, Serbian and Russian prisoners to celebrate the Paschal Vigil. A prisoner named Rahr described the scene: There is a Russian Orthodox chapel at the camp today, and it is well known for its icon of Christ leading the prisoners out of the camp gates.
The infamous Nazi concentration camp at Dachau was liberated on Sunday, April . "Dachau Liberated, The Official Report by the U.S. Seventh Army," the 42nd. The Dachau concentration camp, located in the state of Bavaria, On April 29, , Dachau was liberated by the U.S seventh Army's 45th Infantry Division. There's a reporting of two liberated prisoners beating a German.
Authorities worked night and day to alleviate conditions at the camp immediately following the liberation as an epidemic of black typhus swept through the prisoner population. Two thousand cases had already been reported by that May 3. Army troops neared the Dachau sub-camp at Landsberg on 27 April , the SS officer in charge ordered that 4, prisoners be murdered.
Windows and doors of their huts were nailed shut. The buildings were then doused with gasoline and set afire. Prisoners who were naked or nearly so were burned to death, while some managed to crawl out of the buildings before dying. Earlier that day, as Wehrmacht troops withdrew from Landsberg am Lech, towns people hung white sheets from their windows. Infuriated SS troops dragged German civilians from their homes and hanged them from trees. As the Allies began to advance on Nazi Germany, the SS began to evacuate the first concentration camps in summer At the end of , the overcrowding of camps began to take its toll on the prisoners.
The unhygienic conditions and the supplies of food rations became disastrous. In November a typhus fever epidemic broke out that took thousands of lives. In the second phase of the evacuation, in April , Himmler gave direct evacuation routes for remaining camps. Prisoners who were from the northern part of Germany were to be directed to the Baltic and North Sea coasts to be drowned. The prisoners from the southern part were to be gathered in the Alps, which was the location in which the SS wanted to resist the Allies p.
On 28 April , an armed revolt took place in the town of Dachau. Both former and escaped concentration camp prisoners, and a renegade Volkssturm civilian militia company took part. The advanced forces of the SS gruesomely suppressed the revolt within a few hours. Being fully aware that Germany was about to be defeated in World War II, the SS invested its time in removing evidence of the crimes it committed in the concentration camps.
In mid-April, plans to evacuate the camp started by sending prisoners toward Tyrol. On 26 April, over 10, prisoners were forced to leave the Dachau concentration camp on foot, in trains, or in trucks. The largest group of some 7, prisoners was driven southward on a foot-march lasting several days. More than 1, prisoners did not survive this march. The evacuation transports cost many thousands of prisoners their lives. On 26 April prisoner Karl Riemer fled the Dachau concentration camp to get help from American troops and on 28 April Victor Maurer, a representative of the International Red Cross, negotiated an agreement to surrender the camp to U.
That night a secretly formed International Prisoners Committee took over the control of the camp. Sparks , were ordered to secure the camp. On 29 April Sparks led part of his battalion as they entered the camp over a side wall. Linden was traveling with Marguerite Higgins and other reporters, and as a result, Linden's detachment generated international headlines by accepting the surrender of the camp. More than 30, Jews and political prisoners were freed, and since adherents of the 42nd and 45th Division versions of events have argued over which unit was the first to liberate Dachau.
During the liberation of the sub-camps surrounding Dachau, advance scouts of the U. Army's nd Field Artillery Battalion , a segregated battalion consisting of Nisei , 2nd generation Japanese-Americans, liberated the 3, prisoners of the "Kaufering IV Hurlach " [81] slave labor camp. American soldiers then went into Landsberg and rounded up all the male civilians they could find and marched them out to the camp.
The former commandant was forced to lie amidst a pile of corpses. The male population of Landsberg was then ordered to walk by, and ordered to spit on the commandant as they passed. The commandant was then turned over to a group of liberated camp survivors". Due to the number of sub-camps over a large area that comprised the Dachau concentration camp complex, many Allied units have been officially recognized by the United States Army Center of Military History and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum as liberating units of Dachau, including: American troops killed some of the camp guards after they had surrendered.
The number is disputed as some were killed in combat, some while attempting to surrender, and others after their surrender was accepted. In Brigadier General Felix L. Sparks, the Colonel in command of a battalion that was present, stated:. The total number of German guards killed at Dachau during that day most certainly does not exceed fifty, with thirty probably being a more accurate figure.
The regimental records of the th Field Artillery Regiment 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. An Inspector General report resulting from a US Army investigation conducted between 3 and 8 May and titled, "American Army Investigation of Alleged Mistreatment of German Guards at Dachau," found that 21 plus "a number" of presumed SS men were killed with others being wounded after their surrender had been accepted.
According to Sparks, court-martial charges were drawn up against him and several other men under his command but General George S. Patton , who had recently been appointed military governor of Bavaria, chose to dismiss the charges. Decker, an acting deputy judge advocate, concluded in late that, while war crimes had been committed at Dachau by Germany, "Certainly, there was no such systematic criminality among United States forces as pervaded the Nazi groups in Germany.
American troops also forced local citizens to the camp to see for themselves the conditions there and to help bury the dead. In a cell block used by Catholic priests to say daily Mass, several Greek, Serbian and Russian priests and one Serbian deacon, wearing makeshift vestments made from towels of the SS guard, gathered with several hundred Greek, Serbian and Russian prisoners to celebrate the Paschal Vigil. A prisoner named Rahr described the scene: In the entire history of the Orthodox Church there has probably never been an Easter service like the one at Dachau in Greek and Serbian priests together with a Serbian deacon adorned the make-shift 'vestments' over their blue and gray-striped prisoners' uniforms.
Then they began to chant, changing from Greek to Slavic, and then back again to Greek. The Easter Canon, the Easter Sticheras—everything was recited from memory. The Gospel— In the beginning was the Word —also from memory. And finally, the Homily of Saint John—also from memory. A young Greek monk from the Holy Mountain stood up in front of us and recited it with such infectious enthusiasm that we shall never forget him as long as we live.
Saint John Chrysostomos himself seemed to speak through him to us and to the rest of the world as well! There is a Russian Orthodox chapel at the camp today, and it is well known for its icon of Christ leading the prisoners out of the camp gates. Authorities worked night and day to alleviate conditions at the camp immediately following the liberation as an epidemic of black typhus swept through the prisoner population. Two thousand cases had already been reported by that 3 May. By October of the same year the camp was being used by the U. Army as a place of confinement for war criminals, the SS and important witnesses.
In the Bavarian government established housing for refugees on the site, and this remained for many years.
By January , 18, members of the SS were being confined at the camp along with an additional 12, persons, including deserters from the Russian army. The occupants of one barracks rioted as of the Russian deserters were to be loaded onto trains that would return them to Russian-controlled lands, as agreed at the Yalta Conference. Ten of the soldiers, who had been captured in German Army uniforms, committed suicide during the riot. Twenty-one others attempted suicide, apparently with razor blades. Many had "cracked heads" inflicted by American and Polish guards, in the attempt to bring the situation under control.
Inmates barricaded themselves inside and set fire to the building, tore off their clothing, and linked arms to resist being removed from the building. Some begged American soldiers to shoot them. Tear gas was used by the soldiers before rushing the building. There were cases of suicide or attempted suicide, whether by hanging, smashing window panes and cutting their throats on the shards of glass, or throwing themselves into the flames of their burning barracks.
The Kaserne quarters and other buildings used by the guards and trainee guards were converted and served as the Eastman Barracks, an American military post, for many years. It had its own elementary school: Dachau American Elementary School, a part of the U. Department of Defense dependent school system. After the closure of the Eastman Barracks, these areas are now occupied by the Bavarian Bereitschaftspolizei rapid response police unit. Between and when the camp was handed over to the Bavarian authorities, many accused war criminals and members of the SS were imprisoned at the camp.
Owing to the severe refugee crisis mainly caused by the expulsions of ethnic Germans , the camp was from late used to house Germans from Czechoslovakia mainly from the Sudetenland. This settlement was called Dachau-East, and remained until the mids. The display, which was reworked in , takes the visitor through the path of new arrivals to the camp. Special presentations of some of the notable prisoners are also provided. Two of the barracks have been rebuilt and one shows a cross-section of the entire history of the camp, since the original barracks had to be torn down due to their poor condition when the memorial was built.
The other 32 barracks are indicated by concrete foundations. The memorial includes four chapels for the various religions represented among the prisoners. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.