Konzentrationslager Dachua - the Dachau Concentration Camp - was the first concentration camp that the Nazis opened in Germany. It began in 1933 as a camp for political prisoners, but over time Dachau imprisoned Jews, homosexuals, criminals, people from countries that the Nazis occupied, captured enemies and others. Forced labor, torture, human "medical" experimentation and killings were common. with more than 31,000 documented deaths, and an unknown number of undocumented deaths. More than 4,000 Soviet POWs were killed at a nearby shooting range. Conditions were crowded. The camp was designed to house up to 5,000 prisoners at a time, but routinely held more than double that as World War II progressed.
American soldiers liberated Dachau on April 29, 1945. After the war, KZ Dachau was used as a prison for SS officials who were waiting for their trials. It later served as temporary resettlement housing for Germans expelled from other countries after the war.
KZ Dachau and its facilities served as a prototype for other Nazi concentration camps as well as a training facility for SS guards. Adjacent to the camp was a crematorium and gas chamber. Thousands were cremated at the site, their ashes buried nearby. There is no evidence that the gas chamber at Dachau was used to kill anyone; rather the SS shot or hanged prisoners or sent them to a euthanasia center at Hartheim in Austria.
Today the site is home to the Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial Site, serving both to educate visitors about this ugly chapter of World War II history and to honor the memories of the victims of the Nazi atrocities committed there. A number of memorials and chapels are also at the site.
KZ Dachau and the town of Dachau can be visited as a day trip out of nearby Munich.
The Photos (in order)
G07A2500 - "Arbeit Macht Frei" - Work Makes You Free - on the Jourhaus gate at the prisoners entrance to the concentration camp
G07A2508 - The Maintenance Building today houses a museum with extensive photos, artifacts and displays
G07A2569 - The Bunker served as the camp's prison; conditions inside here were especially harsh, with features such as standing rooms - punishment rooms too small for a person to lie down
G07A2585 - One of the barracks used to house prisoners has been reconstructed to give some sense of what prisoner living conditions were like
G07A2601 - The security perimeter; a prisoner could get shot just for getting too close to it
G07A2642 - The gas chamber inside Barrack X
G07A2648 - Barrack X housed the crematorium, which included four furnaces
G07A2628 - Tribute to the Dead, on the grounds of the crematorium
