Dachau Concentration Camp | World War II Database Unlike at Ohrdruf, the American GIs were going to make sure some of the surviving Nazi SS camp guards paid a price for what they did there. The Monument to the Departed stands at the site. Miss. Commandant Weiter made efforts to follow Himmlers evacuation order. I do not found it in the Lexikon zum Dritten Reich nore in Zmenk book about Dachau. 2nd Lt. Heinrich Wicker is the tall German soldier on the left. When the GIs hauled open one of the wagon doors they were dumbfounded by what they discovered. Walshs men took Colonel Sparks to see the SS dog kennels where the Germans kept Alsatian guard dogs. German newspapers reported "the removal of the enemies of the Reich to concentration camps.". 11 of them were named Kaufering, distinguished by a number at the end of each; all Kaufering sub camps were established for the construction of underground armament factories (Project Ringeltaube). Martin Gottfried Weiss stepped down as the commandant of Dachau Concentration Camp in Germany. The entrance gate was adorned with the motto "Arbeit macht frei" ("work makes you free"), which indicated the camp's stated purpose as a forced labor camp. SS-Standartenfhrer Hilmar Wckerle was named the first commandant. Well though Sparks did not know it, Wicker and many Germans had gathered unarmed at the camps main gate awaiting the arrival of the Americans. The stench of rotting cadavers. The Americans gave guns to the prisoners and allowed them to shoot the German guards. All comment submissions will become the property of WW2DB. Gen. Henning Linden took 2nd Lt. Wicker and the Red Cross representative, Victor Maurer, to pose beside the death train, which was parked outside the concentration camp. On the train were the dead bodies of prisoners who had been evacuated from the Buchenwald camp; the train had been strafed by American planes and the prisoners riding in open railroad cars had been killed. All Rights Reserved. Heinrich, Wicker, Padilla Introduce Bipa | Senator Martin Heinrich There were over 1,000 dead bodies in the barracks within the enclosure.. Perhaps, he managed to escape and was never caught. But nothing could have prepared me for what was to unfold in that small dorf north and west of Munich in Bavarian Germany," Westbrook said. When Lt. Otto declined to remain in the camp, SS-Untersturmfhrer Wicker was then recruited by Maurer to accompany him to the main gate of the Dachau complex to formally surrender the Dachau concentration camp. And then you cannot believe it, but you can't help yourself going and looking a little further, because it's so hard to believe. Since the Commandant Weiter, the officers and most of the guards had absconded on the 26th of April, escorting a large party of prisoners south. The closer the Rainbow Soldiers advanced toward Dachau, the more indicators they saw that something was wrong and that death surrounded this German town. Natzweiler-Struthof was considered the better place for gassing the selected victims (better than at Auschwitz), as they would die one by one, with no damage to the corpses, and Natzweiler-Struthof was at Hirt's disposal. The novel was later translated into numerous other European languages. During the six-day march, thousands were executed or died of exhaustion, hunger, and exposure. According to the American Cancer Society, it's expected to cause roughly 52,550 deaths in 2023. History Channel by TH Albright Thu Jul 17, 2003 9:04 am, Post Sgt. Gen. Henning Linden. This was done mainly at the numerous annex camps, some of which were located in mines or tunnels in order to avoid damage from Allied air raids. Roger Boulanger writes of the four British SOE women executed under the supervision of Dr. Plaza and Dr. Rhode, in his section on Capital Punishment (Les excutions capitales), as to the intent of the RSHA of Berlin, Reichssicherheitshauptamt, to have them disappear with no trace, as their names were not recorded as being at this camp. Dachau was the very first concentration camp, that opened shortly after Hitler came to power in 1933. The camp was located in a heavily-forested and isolated area at an elevation of 800 metres (2,600ft). Those who were still fighting were manning the guard towers. They found General Linden and his soldiers in a very dark frame of mind. Soldiers of the 1st Battalion, 157th Infantry Regiment, fought their way into the SS barracks, while the 42nd Divisions 2nd Battalion, 222nd Infantry, approached the main Dachau gate. The Jewish skull collection was an attempt by the Nazis to create an anthropological display to showcase the alleged racial inferiority of the "Jewish race" and to emphasize the status of Jews as Untermenschen ("sub-humans"), in contrast to the Germanic bermenschen ("super-humans") Aryan race which the Nazis considered to be the "Herrenvolk" (master race). Natzweiler-Struthof was a Nazi concentration camp located in the Vosges Mountains close to the villages of Natzweiler and Struthof in the Gau Baden-Alsace of Germany, on territory annexed from France on a de facto basis in 1940. Rechts davon General Henning Linden (mit Netzhelm) und andere Soldaten der US-Armee. Comment by Dame Belette May 18, 2013 @ 3:08 pm. However, he was tried a second time by the British for hanging a POW who was a member of the Royal Air Force. Soon there will be none of us left to give eyewitness accounts of what they saw. These units include 4th Infantry Division, 36th Infantry Division, 42nd Infantry Division, 45th Infantry Division, 63rd Infantry Division, 99th Infantry Division, 103rd Infantry Division, 10th Armored Division, 12th Armored Division, 14th Armored Division, 20th Armored Division, and 101st Airborne Division. Sparks left some of the Nazi POWs under the watchful eyes of a machine gun team and began to make his way toward the fighting. WASHINGTON U.S. The present museum was restored in 1980 after damage by neo-Nazis in 1976. A documentary movie was made about the 86 named men and women who were killed there for that project. As the 42nd Division Soldiers arrived at Dachau, infantrymen from the 45th Division arrived at Dachau at the same time, but from a different direction.