Dachau Concentration Camp |
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Dachau was the first of the Nazi concentration camps opened in Germany, 16 kilometers north west of Munich and was to hold political prisoners. The camp is located on the site of an abandoned munitions factory north east of the medieval town of Dachau.
Dachau Concentration Camp was opened by Heinrich Himmler in 1933, and was enlarged to include forced labor initially, but later the imprisonment of Jews and other "undesirables". At its peak there were almost 100 sub-camps, mostly work camps, which were located throughout southern Germany and Austria. The camps were liberated by American forces on 29th April 1945. Prisoners lived in constant fear of brutal treatment and terror detention which would typically include floggings, standing in cells, standing at attention for extremely long periods and tree or pole hanging. There were 32,000 documented deaths at the camp, but many thousands more that are undocumented. When the camp was liberated there were about 30,000 prisoners that survived though some 10,000 of them very sick. Dachau was used to hold SS soldiers awaiting trial in the postwar years. In later years it held ethnic Germans who had been expelled from eastern Europe awaiting resettlement. The United States military used the base during the occupation and the camp was closed in 1960. There are a number of religious memorials within the Memorial Site which is open to the public See Dachau Concentration Camp Tours. Dachau served as a model for the other Nazi concentration camps were to follow. Almost every community in Germany had members taken away and confined in such camps. Report in newspapers announced "the removal of the enemies of the Reich to concentration camps."
The layout and building plans for the camp were developed by Kommandant Theodor Eicke and were applied to all later camps. There was a separate secure camp near the command center, consisting of administration, living quarters and army camps. Kommandant Eicke became the chief inspector for all concentration camps and was responsible for organizing the others according to his Dachau model. The Dachau complex included and area of nearly 5 acres for the prisoners camp, and the much larger covering an area of some 20 acres area for a SS training school which included factories, barracks and other facilities. The entrance gate used by prisoners, which can still be seen today, carries the phrase "Arbeit macht frei" - This can be translated in two ways
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