Dachau concentration camp

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Image:DachauMemorialJM.jpg Dachau is the name of a Nazi concentration camp, constructed in a disused gunpowder factory and completed on March 21, 1933. Although Dachau was not the first Nazi prisoner camp, it was the first concentration-style camp after which all subsequent concentration camps were modelled. Together with the much larger Auschwitz, Dachau has come to symbolize the Nazi concentration camps to many people. The camp lies near the medieval town of Dachau, outside Munich.

1 1933-1945
2 Liberation of the camp, 1945
3 The memorial site
4 Notable prisoners of Dachau
5 References
6 External links
7 See also

[edit] 1933-1945

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Dachau was the first Nazi concentration camp and served as a prototype and model for the others that followed. Its basic organization, camp layout as well as the plan for the buildings were developed by Kommandant Theodor Eicke and were applied to all later camps. He had a separate secure camp near the command center, which consisted of living quarters, administration, and army camps. Eicke himself became the chief inspector for all concentration camps, responsible for molding the others according to his model.

In total, over 200,000 prisoners from more than 30 countries were housed in Dachau. Camp records list 130,000 persons killed in the camp, with thousands more who died due to the conditions in the camp. In early 1945, there was a typhus epidemic in the camp followed by an evacuation, in which large numbers of the weaker prisoners died.

Among the most famous inmates of the Dachau concentration camp were Hans Litten, Fred Rabinowitz (aka Fred Roberts), Stefan Starzynski, the composer Blaž Arnič and Alfred Gruenebaum, the father of a prominent US obstetrician, Amos Grunebaum.

Dachau also served as the central camp for Christian religious prisoners. According to records of the Roman Catholic Church, at least 3000 religious, deacons, priests, and bishops were imprisoned there. Particularly notable among the Christian residents are Karl Leisner (Catholic priest ordained while in the camp, beatified by Pope John Paul II in 1996) and Martin Niemöller (Protestant theologian and Nazi resistance leader).

In August 1944 a women's camp opened inside Dachau. Its first shipment of women came from Auschwitz Birkenau. Only nineteen women guards served at Dachau, most of them until liberation, and only sixty-three served in the Dachau complex. Sources show the names of sixteen of the nineteen women guarding the camp; Fanny Baur, Leopoldine Bittermann, Ernestine Brenner, Anna Buck, Rosa Dolaschko, Maria Eder, Rosa Grassmann, Betty Hanneschaleger, Ruth Elfriede Hildner, Josefa Keller, Berta Kimplinger, Lieselotte Klaudat, Theresia Kopp, Rosalie Leimboeck, and Thea Miesl. Women guards were also staffed at the Augsburg Michelwerke, Burgau, Kaufering, Muhldorf, and Munich Agfa Camera Werke subcamps. In mid-April 1945 many female subcamps at Kaufering, Augsburg and Munich closed, and the SS women stationed at Dachau. It is reported that female SS guards gave prisoners guns before liberation to save them from postwar prosecution. ^{[citation needed]}

In the last war months the conditions were catastrophic in the camp. Due to continual new transportations from the front the camp was constantly overcrowded, the hygenic conditions were beneath human dignity. Starting from the end of 1944 up to the day of liberation 15000 people died, about half of all victims in KZ Dachau. On 27 April Victor Mauer, delegates of the International Committee of the Red Cross, was allowed to enter camps and distribute food. In the evening of the same day a prisoner transport arrived from Buchenwald. Only 800 survivors were brought from originally 4,480 to 4,800 persons in transit. Over 2,300 corpses were let lie in and around the train. The last regular commander of the KZ, Obersturmbannführer Eduard Weiter, had already set off on 26 April. He probably followed Obersturmbannführer Martin Weiss, which had led the camp from September 1942 until November 1943. 23-year-old Untersturmführer Heinrich Wicker too mover, and fled on 28 or 29 April. Already on 28 April SS-Standartenführer Kurt Becher had probably discussed with Weiss the delivery of the camp to the Americans.

On 29 April also the last part of the SS garrison wanted to set off with Heinrich Wicker, but was persuaded Victor Mauer to remain. Mauer feared that the prisoners would escape en masse and sperad the typhoid fever epidemic which was spreading among them. The watchtowers of the camp remained occupied; a white flag was hoisted.

The area in Dachau included other SS facilities beside the concentration camp - a leader school of the economic and civil service, the medical school of the SS, etct. The KZ, at that time called "protective custody camp", occupied less than half of the area of the entire complex.

[edit] Liberation of the camp, 1945

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The camp was freed by the 42nd Infantry Division of the U.S. Seventh Army on April 29, 1945 after coming across this camp, not knowing its location nor its existence. These forces were led by Lieutenant Colonel Felix L. Sparks who, under orders to permit no one in or out, refused entry to a brigadier general from another unit. Court-martial charges were drawn up, and Sparks was arrested; the charges were dismissed by General Patton. Dachau was used for many years thereafter as a residence for refugees.

It holds a significant place in public memory because it was the second camp to be liberated by British or American forces, and therefore it was one of the first places in which the West was exposed to the reality of Nazi brutality through firsthand journalist accounts and through newsreels. After the camp was surrendered to Allied forces, the troops were so horrified by conditions at the camp that they summarily shot many of the camp guards, in what is called the Dachau massacre. However, according to other versions, only 35 Nazi guards were thus executed. The other 515 presumably were either arrested, or managed to escape. The Americans found 32,000 prisoners, crammed 1,600 to each of 20 barracks, which had been designed to house 250 people each. The US troops also found 39 railroad cars, each filled with one hundred or more corpses.

According to an investigation report, the slogan "we will take no prisoners here!" went round the USA soldiers. At the end of the railway 4 SS men came to meet the Americans, and surrendered. They were led to the train and shot down by the company commander. Since they were not immediately dead, others fired on the wounded men.

A few days after the liberation of the camp was the day of Pascha, Orthodox Easter. 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 Matins and Liturgy. 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 1945. 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 Slavonic, 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 know for its exquisite icon of Christ leading the prisoners out of the camp gates.

The U.S. 7th Army's version of the events of the Dachau Liberation are available in Report of Operations of the Seventh United States Army, Vol. 3. page 382.

The U.S. troops also forced citizens of the local community to come to the camp, observe the conditions, and help clean the facilities. The local residents were indignant at being treated this way and claimed no knowledge of the activities of the camp.

[edit] The memorial site

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Years later, former prisoners banded together to erect a memorial on the site of the camp, finding it unbelievable that there were still persons (refugees) living in the camp under those conditions.

The display, which was reworked in 2003, takes the visitor through the path of new arrivals to the camp. Special presentations of some of the notable prisoners are also provided. One of the barracks has been rebuilt to show 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.

The local government resisted designating the complete site a memorial. The former SS guard barracks are now home for the Munich police special task force.

[edit] Notable prisoners of Dachau

[edit] Jews

Bruno Bettelheim, imprisoned in 1938, freed in 1939; left Germany
Viktor Frankl, psychotherapist from Vienna, Austria
David Ludwig Bloch, painter, arrested in November 1938 in connection with Kristallnacht
Hans Litten
Alfred Gruenebaum, father of the prominent US obstetrician Amos Grunebaum

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[edit] Resistance fighters

Georg Elser, who tried to assassinate Hitler in 1939, murdered April 9, 1945
Arthur Haulot
Georges Charpak, who in 1992 received the Nobel Prize in Physics
Kurt Nehrling

[edit] Clergymen

Dachau had a special "priest block". Of the 2720 priests (among them 2579 Catholic) held in Dachau, 1034 did not survive the camp. The majority were Polish (1780), of whom 868 died in Dachau.

Nikolai Velimirović (1880-1956), Serbian bishop and an influential theological writer, On December 14, 1944 he was sent to Dachau, together with Serbian Patriarch Gavrilo.
Father Jean Bernard (1907-1994), Catholic priest from Luxembourg who was imprisoned from May 1941 to August 1942. Father Bernard wrote the compelling book "Pfarrerblock 25487" about his experiences in Dachau. The movie "The Ninth Day" directed by Volker Schlöndorff is based on his diary.
Blessed Titus Brandsma, Dutch Carmelite priest and professor of philosophy, died July 26, 1942.
Anton Fränznick, in Dachau since 1942, died January 27, 1944.
Blessed Stefan Wincenty Frelichowski Catholic priest, died February 23, 1945.
Blessed Stefan Grelewski, Catholic priest, prisoner No. 25281, starved to death in Dachau on May 9, 1941.
Adam Kozlowiecki, Polish Cardinal.
Karl Leisner, in Dachau since December 14, 1941, freed May 4, 1945, but died on August 12 from the tuberculosis contracted in the camp.
Martin Niemöller, imprisoned in 1941, freed May 4, 1945.
Hermann Scheipers
Richard Schneider, in Dachau since November 22, 1940, freed March 29, 1945
Aloys Scholze, died September 1, 1942.
Joseph Kentenich, founder of the Schoenstatt Movement, spent three and a half years in Dachau.
Nanne Zwiep, Pastor of the Dutch Reformed Church in Enschede, spoke out from the pulpit against Nazis and their treatment of Dutch Citizens and Jews, arrested April 20, 1942, died in Dachau of exhaustion and malnutrition November 24, 1942.
Hermanus Knoop, Pastor of the Reformed (Gereformeerd) Church of Rotterdam-Delfshaven, arrested November 19, 1941 for praying for "bringing politics to the pulpit"

[edit] Politicians

Leopold Figl, arrested 1938, released May 8, 1943
Alois Hundhammer, arrested June 21, 1933, freed July 6, 1933
Kurt Schumacher, in Dachau since July 1935, sent to Flossenbürg concentration camp in 1939, returned to Dachau in 1940, released due to extreme illness March 16, 1943
Stefan Starzyński, the President of Warsaw, probably murdered in Dachau in 1943

[edit] Communists

Alfred Andersch, held 6 months in 1933
Emil Carlebach (Jewish), in Dachau since 1937, sent to Buchenwald concentration camp in 1938
Nikolaos Zachariadis (Greek), from November 1941 to May 1945
Oskar Müller, in Dachau from 1939, freed 1945
Nando Gherghetta (Italian-Istrian), from 1943

[edit] Writers

Raoul Auernheimer, writer, in Dachau 4 months
Tadeusz Borowski, writer, survived, but committed suicide in 1951
Stanisław Grzesiuk, Polish writer, poet and singer, Varsavianist, in Dachau since April 4, 1940, later transferred to Mauthausen-Gusen complex
Heinrich Eduard Jacob, German writer, in Dachau 6 months in 1938, transferred to Buchenwald
Stefan Kieniewicz, Polish historian
Gustaw Morcinek, Polish Silesian writer
Jura Soyfer, writer, in Dachau 6 months in 1938, transferred to Buchenwald
Fritz Gerlich
Stevo Žigon (number: 61185), Serbian actor, theatre director, and writer, in Dachau from December 1943 to May 1945
Robert Antelme, French writer
Franz Roh, German art critic and art historian, for a few months in 1933

[edit] Others

Fritz Thyssen, businessman and early supporter of Hitler, later an opponent
Princess Sophie of Hohenberg
Franz Halder, former Chief of Army General Staff
Maximilian, Duke of Hohenberg
Prince Ernst von Hohenberg

(the children of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, imprisoned in Dachau 1938-45 following the Anschluss (incorporation of Austria into 'Greater Germany')

Antoinette, Crown Princess of Bavaria

[edit] References

All the information on the female overseers was found in the book "THE CAMP WOMEN, The Female Auxiliaries who Assisted the SS in Running the Nazi Concentration Camp System" by Daniel Patrick Brown.
Marcuse, Harold, Legacies of Dachau: The Uses and Abuses of a Concentration Camp, 1933-2001, 600 pages, Cambridge University Press, 2001. more information
The Fighting Forty-Fifth: the Combat Report of an Infantry Division, compiled and edited by Lt. Col. Leo V. Bishop, Maj. Frank J. Glasgow, and Maj. George A. Fisher. Copyright 1946 by the 45th Infantry Division, printed by Army & Navy Publishing Co., Baton Rouge, LA. LC Control Number: 49051541.
Buechner, Howard A., Dachau - The Hour of the Avenger, Thunderbird Press, ©1986, paperback, 159 pages, ISBN 0-913159-04-2, first published in 1986. LC Control Number: 87181873.
Kozal, Czesli W. Memoir of Fr. Czesli W. (Chester) Kozal, O.M.I. / translated from the Polish original by Paul Ischler. Private printing, Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate, 2004, 175 pp. LC Control Number: 2004400050