Dachau concentration camp
Dachau concentration camp (German: [Konzentrationslager (KZ) Dachau] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help), IPA: [ˈdaxaʊ]) was the first concentration camp the Nazis opened during World War II. It was built in 1933 by Heinrich Himmler and was open longer than any other Nazi concentration camp.[1]
The camp was located on the grounds of an old munitions factory. It was southeast of the medieval town of Dachau, about 16 km (10 mi) northwest of Munich in the state of Bavaria, in southern Germany.[2]
The Dachau camp system grew to include nearly 100 sub-camps. These were mostly work camps (Arbeitskommandos), and were located throughout southern Germany and Austria.[3]
Between 1933 and 1945, the Nazis imprisoned over 200,000 people at Dachau and killed at least 40,000.[1]
History
Dachau's original purpose was to hold political prisoners. Then the Nazis began using it for forced labor and to imprison German and Austrian criminals.
Nazi Germany invaded and occupied many countries during World War II. Eventually, the Nazis deported people from these countries to Dachau. It became a death camp for Jews.[4] Tens of thousands of Jews were executed there or died of starvation, disease, or overwork.[4] Nazi doctors also used Jews and other prisoners for high-altitude medical experiments, which were often fatal.[5]
The camps were liberated (freed) by the United States Army in the spring of 1945.
Deaths
It is not clear how many people died at Dachau, because complete records do not exist.[6] The Nazis removed or burned their important records three weeks before the United States Army reached the camp.[7] Estimates of the number of people who died here vary widely.[8]
A few days before the Americans arrived, Germans began evacuating prisoners. But the Germans were badly organized and did not remove all of the prisoners.[7] Just before the camp was liberated 7,000 prisoners had arrived at Dachau on trains from Buchenwald concentration camp. When the liberators found the last train 2,000 of the 4,000 prisoners on it were dead.[9]
In its official report in 1945, the United States Seventh Army said that 229,000 people were imprisoned at Dachau between 1933 and 1945.[8] In 2000, Michael Perry proposed a similar number: 228,930.[10] This includes the 7,000 prisoners who arrived from Buchenwald just before the camp was liberated.[10]
Dachau Concentration Camp Media
- Concentration camp dachau aerial view.jpg
Aerial photo of the Dachau complex with the actual concentration camp on the left
- Bundesarchiv Bild 183-R96361, Dachau, Konzentrationslager.jpg
The camp commander gives a speech to prisoners about to be released as part of a pardoning action near Christmas 1933.
- Dachau (43964434752).jpg
The Dachau concentration camp was the first large-scale concentration camp of the SS in Nazi Germany. It was located east of the southern German city of Dachau, about 20 km northwest of Munich.
- Gaskammer Dachau.jpg
The unused gas chamber in 2011
- Dachau 002.jpg
The wall of a prison cell at Dachau Concentration Camp
- Bundesarchiv Bild 152-11-12, Dachau, Konzentrationslager, Besuch Himmlers.jpg
Heinrich Himmler (front right, beside prisoner) inspecting Dachau Concentration Camp on 8 May 1936
- 1941 German camps in Polish White Book, German Occupation of Poland.png
German concentration camps: Auschwitz, Oranienburg, Mauthausen and Dachau in "The Polish White Book", New York (1941).
- Arbeit Macht Frei Dachau 8235.jpg
The gate at the Jourhaus building through which the prisoners' camp was entered contains the slogan, Arbeit macht frei, or 'Work Sets You Free.'
- Dachau 006.jpg
"Grave of many thousand unknown."
- SFP 186 - Dachau.webm
Footage from after liberation
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Utilities at line 38: bad argument #1 to 'ipairs' (table expected, got nil).
- ↑ Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Utilities at line 38: bad argument #1 to 'ipairs' (table expected, got nil).
- ↑ Concentration Camp Dachau Entry Registers (Zugangsbuecher) 1933-1945. https://www.archives.gov/research/captured-german-records/microfilm/m1938.pdf retrieved 13 November 2014
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Utilities at line 38: bad argument #1 to 'ipairs' (table expected, got nil).
- ↑ Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Utilities at line 38: bad argument #1 to 'ipairs' (table expected, got nil).
- ↑ Robert L. Wise, The Bitter Road to Dachau (Nashville, TN: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 2005), p. ix
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 Dachau Liberated, ed. Michael W. Perry (Seattle, WA: Inkling Books, 2000), p. 44
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Utilities at line 38: bad argument #1 to 'ipairs' (table expected, got nil).
- ↑ The End of the Holocaust, ed. Michael Robert Marrus (Westport: Meckler, 1989), p. 505
- ↑ 10.0 10.1 Dachau Liberated, ed. Michael W. Perry (Seattle, WA: Inkling Books, 2000), p. 103
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