During the Dachau liberation reprisals, German prisoners of war were killed by U.S. soldiers and concentration camp internees. Approximately 32,000 prisoners were liberated; 300 SS guards were quickly neutralized. It is unclear how many SS members were killed in the incident but most estimates place the number killed at around 35–50.
About Dachau liberation reprisals in brief
During the Dachau liberation reprisals, German prisoners of war were killed by U. S. soldiers and concentration camp internees. Approximately 32,000 prisoners were liberated; 300 SS guards were quickly neutralized. It is unclear how many SS members were killed in the incident but most estimates place the number killed at around 35–50. In the days before the camp’s liberation, SS guards at the camp had forced 7,000 inmates on a death march that resulted in the death of many from exposure and shooting. When Allied soldiers liberated Dchau, they were variously shocked, horrified, disturbed, and angered at finding the massed corpses of interneers. The smell of decaying bodies and human excrement, and the sight of naked, emaciated bodies induced vomiting, crying, disbelief, and rage in the advancing troops. On April 29, 1945, soldiers of the 3rd Battalion, 157th Infantry Regiment, 45th Infantry Division, commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Felix L. Sparks, found 39 railway boxcars containing some 2,000 skeletal corpses parked on rail tracks just outside the complex itself. Soldiers reported seeing a row of concrete structures that contained rooms full of hundreds of naked and barely clothed dead bodies piled floor to ceiling, a coal-fired crematorium and a gas chamber. The Americans came on Sunday, a Sunday, but an evacuation was being organized in the camp on Wednesday.
One 4,000 prisoner was able to get away and get away from the infamous concentration camp at D chau. The U.S. Army issued a communiqué regarding the capture of the camp and an evacuation of Dach Kau on April 28, 1945. A description of the surrender appears in Brig. General Henning Linden’s memorandum to Maj. Gen. Harry J. Collins, entitled Report on Surrender of D cha. The camp was surrendered to Brigadier General Linden of the 42nd Infantry Division of the United States Army by Untersturmführer Heinrich Wicker. According to Linden, he proceeded to make his way across the Amper River to the site of the complex approximately one-half kilometre south of the bridge he crossed. He proceeded to take control of theCamp in some tumult; thereafter, he toured the camp with a group of reporters. He then took over from the regular camp personnel for the purpose of surrendering the camp to the advancing Americans. He asked if I were an officer. I replied, “I am Assistant Division Commander of the Rainbow Division and accept the surrender of the concentration camp in the name of General Dwight D. Eisenhower… He had given instructions that there would be no shots fired and it would take about 50 men to relieve the guards, as there were 42,000 half-crazed inmates.
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