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Dachau KZ

  • 24-03-2013 11:35am
    #1
    aloyisious
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 12,351 ✭✭✭✭


    A day of infamy: to quote FD Roosevelt. The 60th anniversary of Dachau Concentration Camp.

    The entrance gate to this concentration camp carries the phrase "Arbeit macht frei" (English translation: "Work makes free").

    Dachau concentration camp (German: Konzentrationslager (KZ) Dachau, IPA: [ˈdaxaʊ]) was the first of the Nazi concentration camps opened in Germany. It is located on the grounds of an abandoned munitions factory near the medieval town of Dachau, about 16 km (9.9 mi) northwest of Munich in the state of Bavaria, in southern Germany. Opened 22 March 1933 (51 days after Hitler took power),[1] it was the first regular concentration camp established by the coalition government of the National Socialist Party (Nazi Party) and the German Nationalist People's Party (dissolved on 6 July 1933). Heinrich Himmler, then Chief of Police of Munich, officially described the camp as "the first concentration camp for political prisoners."[1]

    Dachau served as a prototype and model for the other Nazi concentration camps that followed. Almost every community in Germany had members taken away to these camps. Newspapers continually reported on "the removal of the enemies of the Reich to concentration camps", and as early as 1935 there were jingles warning: "Dear God, make me dumb, that I may not to Dachau come" ("Lieber Gott, mach mich dumm, damit ich nicht nach Dachau kumm").

    The camp's layout and building plans were developed by Kommandant Theodor Eicke and were applied to all later camps. He had a separate secure camp near the command center, which consisted of living quarters, administration, and army camps. Eicke himself became the chief inspector for all concentration camps, responsible for molding the others according to his model

    The camp was in use from 1933 to 1960, the first twelve years as an internment center of the Third Reich. From 1933 to 1938, the prisoners were mainly German nationals detained for political reasons. Subsequently, the camp was used for prisoners of all sorts, from every nation occupied by the forces of the Third Reich.[4] From 1945 through 1948, the camp was used as a prison for SS officers awaiting trial. After 1948, the German population expelled from Czechoslovakia were housed there and it was also a base of the United States. It was closed in 1960 and thereafter, at the insistence of ex-prisoners, various memorials began to be constructed there.

    US Army soldiers at Camp gates 1945


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