What was dachau concentration camp used for

From January on, some of the prisoners, known as the invalids , were taken to the castle of Hartheim near Linz, where they were murdered using gas. A gas chamber was also built in Dachau next to the large crematorium, but it was never used for mass murder. Killing at the camp took place by means of execution, until it was liberated. On the 5th of October , Himmler issued orders for the transportation of all Jewish prisoners from concentration camps on German territory.

All the Jewish prisoners in Dachau were deported to Auschwitz. In the winter of , SS doctors in the camp started to perform painful medical experiments on the prisoners, which often ended in death. In , a network of auxiliary camps was created at Dachau, their prisoners being used above all for slave labour in the German weapons industry. Up to 37 people were imprisoned in Dachau. Underground factories were created at the largest complex of auxiliary camps at Landsberg am Lech, with mostly Jewish prisoners being deported from the camps in the east to help build them.

In late and early , some 30 prisoners worked there under deadly conditions. Prisoners liberated in Dachau. In the main camp too, conditions at the end of the war were horrendous. Dachau was unbearably overcrowded as a result of the influx of prisoners evacuated from the camps that were being closed ahead of the Allied advance. Approximately 32, prisoners were found alive, most requiring medical care.

The hygienic conditions in Dachau were catastrophic. Many prisoners were infected with typhoid and had scabies. Their striped concentration camp clothing, which would later become a symbol for the misery in Nazi camps, often hung on them in rags. Many prisoners did not have shoes. The prisoner pictured, Jean Voste from Belgian Congo, is shown wearing his uniform during liberation.

On April 14, , Nazi leader Heinrich Himmler pictured here during an inspection during the camp's construction ordered the immediate "complete evacuation" of the concentration camp. The SS camp administration forced about 7, inmates to embark on a so-called death march towards the south. Most did not survive. The gate of the main entrance to the Dachau concentration camp bore the inscription "Arbeit macht frei," or "work sets you free.

When the rumor spread throughout the concentration camp that the US soldiers were right in front of the Bavarian town of Dachau, some prisoners joined together to form a resistance committee. They used the chaos in the overcrowded camp to deliberately sabotage the orders of the last remaining SS guards to join the death marches.

After the US army took over the administration of the liberated concentration camp in April , army photographers staged pictures of cheering concentration camp prisoners and used them as a propaganda tool to depict US success. The photos depicted seemingly healthy children and young people, who were a minority at the camp. Most of the survivors could hardly stand on their feet. Years after the Second World War, former US soldiers who were present during the liberation of the concentration camp in met with former prisoners.

The German Wehrmacht had long since withdrawn, and most of the SS guards were on the run. Without exchanging fire, the US soldiers entered the camp, and were shocked by what they saw: hundreds of corpses in barracks and freight cars, half-starved traumatized prisoners, many with typhoid. Only a few of them could stand on their own.

There was, however, a group of somewhat stronger concentration camp prisoners as well, who, earlier that month, in the chaos of the overcrowded barracks, had conspiratorially formed an underground resistance organization. They have no age and faces; they all look alike A few days later, in the early days of May , she entered the liberated concentration camp and described her shock in her writing: "We crossed the wide, dusty compound between the prison barracks and went to the hospital.

In January , Kozal perished from a lethal injection. Pope John Paul II beatified him in Over the years of its operation, from to , thousands of Dachau prisoners died of disease, malnutrition and overwork.

Thousands more were executed for infractions of camp rules. Starting in , thousands of Soviet prisoners of war were sent to Dachau then shot to death at a nearby rifle range. In , construction began at Dachau on Barrack X, a crematorium that eventually consisted of four sizeable ovens used to incinerate corpses.

The Nazis also used Dachau prisoners as subjects in brutal medical experiments. For example, inmates were obligated to be guinea pigs in a series of tests to determine the feasibility of reviving individuals immersed in freezing water. For hours at a time, prisoners were forcibly submerged in tanks filled with ice water. Some prisoners died during the process. In April , just prior to the liberation of Dachau by the Allied forces, the SS ordered approximately 7, prisoners to embark on a six-day-long death march to Tegernsee, located to the south.

Those unable to maintain a steady marching pace were shot by SS guards. Other marchers died from starvation or physical exhaustion. On April 29, , the United States military entered Dachau, where they found thousands of mostly emaciated prisoners.

The U. Meanwhile, those who survived the Tegernsee death march were freed by American troops on May 2. During the entire time in which Dachau served as a concentration camp and death camp, over , prisoners were cataloged as having passed through its gates.

In the summer and fall of , to increase war production, satellite camps under the administration of Dachau were established near armaments factories throughout southern Germany. Dachau alone had some subcamps, mainly in southern Bavaria where prisoners worked almost exclusively in armaments works. Thousands of prisoners were worked to death. Liberation of Dachau. As Allied forces advanced toward Germany, the Germans began to move prisoners from concentration camps near the front to prevent the capture of intact camps and their prisoners.

Transports from the evacuated camps in the east arrived continuously at Dachau, resulting in a dramatic deterioration of conditions. 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 due to overcrowding, poor sanitary conditions, insufficient provisions, and the weakened state of the prisoners. On April 26, , as American forces approached, there were 67, registered prisoners in Dachau and its subcamps. More than half of this number were in the main camp. Of these, 43, were categorized as political prisoners, while 22, were Jews, with the remainder falling into various other categories.

As Allied units approached, at least 25, prisoners from the Dachau camp system were force marched south or transported away from the camps in freight trains.

During these so-called death marches, the Germans shot anyone who could no longer continue; many also died of starvation, hypothermia, or exhaustion. On April 29, , American forces liberated Dachau. As they neared the camp, they found more than 30 railroad cars filled with bodies brought to Dachau, all in an advanced state of decomposition.

In early May , American forces liberated the prisoners who had been sent on the death march. The number of prisoners who died in the camp and the subcamps between January and May was at least 28, This number does not include those who perished there between and the end of , as well as an unknown number of unregistered prisoners.

It is unlikely that the total number of victims who died in Dachau will ever be known. International Dachau Committee. Marcuse, Harold. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, Neurath, Paul.

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