Posted on 04/29/2018 7:21:26 PM PDT by Rummyfan
On April 29, 1945, the U.S. Seventh Army’s 45th Infantry Division liberates Dachau, the first concentration camp established by Germany’s Nazi regime. A major Dachau subcamp was liberated the same day by the 42nd Rainbow Division.
Established five weeks after Adolf Hitler took power as German chancellor in 1933, Dachau was situated on the outskirts of the town of Dachau, about 10 miles northwest of Munich. During its first year, the camp held about 5,000 political prisoners, consisting primarily of German communists, Social Democrats, and other political opponents of the Nazi regime. During the next few years, the number of prisoners grew dramatically, and other groups were interned at Dachau, including Jehovah’s Witnesses, Gypsies, homosexuals, and repeat criminals. Beginning in 1938, Jews began to comprise a major portion of camp internees.
Prisoners at Dachau were used as forced laborers, initially in the construction and expansion of the camp and later for German armaments production. The camp served as the training center for SS concentration camp guards and was a model for other Nazi concentration camps. Dachau was also the first Nazi camp to use prisoners as human guinea pigs in medical experiments. At Dachau, Nazi scientists tested the effects of freezing and changes to atmospheric pressure on inmates, infected them with malaria and tuberculosis and treated them with experimental drugs, and forced them to test methods of making seawater potable and of halting excessive bleeding. Hundreds of prisoners died or were crippled as a result of these experiments.
Thousands of inmates died or were executed at Dachau, and thousands more were transferred to a Nazi extermination center near Linz, Austria, when they became too sick or weak to work. In 1944, to increase war production, the main camp was supplemented by dozens of satellite camps established near armaments factories in southern Germany and Austria. These camps were administered by the main camp and collectively called Dachau.
With the advance of Allied forces against Germany in April 1945, the Germans transferred prisoners from concentration camps near the front to Dachau, leading to a general deterioration of conditions and typhus epidemics. On April 27, 1945, approximately 7,000 prisoners, mostly Jews, were forced to begin a death march from Dachau to Tegernsee, far to the south. The next day, many of the SS guards abandoned the camp. On April 29, the Dachau main camp was liberated by units of the 45th Infantry after a brief battle with the camp’s remaining guards.
As they neared the camp, the Americans found more than 30 railroad cars filled with bodies in various states of decomposition. Inside the camp there were more bodies and 30,000 survivors, most severely emaciated. Some of the American troops who liberated Dachau were so appalled by conditions at the camp that they machine-gunned at least two groups of captured German guards. It is officially reported that 30 SS guards were killed in this fashion, but conspiracy theorists have alleged that more than 10 times that number were executed by the American liberators. The German citizens of the town of Dachau were later forced to bury the 9,000 dead inmates found at the camp.
In the course of Dachau’s history, at least 160,000 prisoners passed through the main camp, and 90,000 through the subcamps. Incomplete records indicate that at least 32,000 of the inmates perished at Dachau and its subcamps, but countless more were shipped to extermination camps elsewhere.
Visited Dachau about 30 years ago on a dreary,depressing winter day.I was at a loss for words then...just as I am now.
Never understood the idea of having political prisoners making armaments...
I know a guy who was there, who says it was the other way around. He was with the 42nd, says they liberated Dachau proper and the 45th liberated a subcamp.
Might be surprised what you’d do to stay alive one more day.
I was stationed a few miles north of Dachau. Went to the camp a few times. Always an experience.
As they neared the camp, the Americans found more than 30 railroad cars filled with bodies in various states of decomposition.
This was about Buchenwald, but I always think of the Edward R. Murrow broadcast about it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yTQkrLPJGM8
I also visited about thirty years ago and remain at a loss for words.
And imagine that as bad as Dachau was, Auschwitz was much, much worse.
I’m proud of our guys, they stopped with shooting the guards. It was fitting that the townspeople were made to bury the dead. I always feel as if a knife is stabbing through my heart when I read of these camps and the unbridled evil that caused them.
I’ve visited Dachau several times. Also Madjanek and Auschwitz. Truly chilling. And bewildering I might add. Industrialized murder. Why?
I visited Dachau in ‘71, I believe. When I walked through those gates something spiritual hit me like a wave. I moved to the side and sat down, thinking “how did this happen?” A guard came up to me and asked if I was ok; I nodded that I was. Later I talked to him and he said that happens to a few people every week.
Hatred and politics are a horrible mix. Now we can talk about the WHCD.
Here in 2018, 42nd Rainbow Division would mean something completely different.
Same here - visited Dachau in 1978.....left there feeling depressed and sad.....what was so funny was we were staying in Munich and when we asked how to get there, the Germans played dumb and acted like they didn’t know what we were talking about......quite an experience!
Ironic that both the Nazis and the 45th used the same symbol. Then the 45th changed to something more indicative of Oklahoma’s native American heritage.
The depictions in the movie;
Band of Brothers.
NO words.
And this is exactly what the hard-core proglibs espousing “tolerance and inclusiveness” would absolutely impose on true Christian conservatives given the slightest chance of success.
It is the in-common defect of their nature as humans.
.
And they have the audacity to whine about Dresden.
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