The RUTHLESS Executions Of The Guards Of Dachau Shot By The Americans Liberators

one of the most brutal concentration camps of the second world war was Dachau it was a camp which was first opened by the Nazis and during the time in which it was opened it's believed that around 41.5 000 people died within the barbed wire fences Dakar became the prototype for the concentration camps that were opened and it became so destructive but when the camp was liberated by the Americans there were a series of executions and killings of the guards who worked there the SS guards of Dachau were known for their brutality and evil but the

Dachau Liberation reprisals as it was known saw an American Soldier fire at the former SS guards and there was a huge investigation around this around the whole of that cow there were many other guards who had been killed in the camp but what was the true story has become rather muddled join us today to look at the ruthless executions of the guards of Dachau and as always to support our Channel please make sure to subscribe Dakar was opened on the 22nd of March 1933 and to begin with it held 200 prisoners sent from stadelheim prison

and Landsberg and it was the first Camp to hold inmates who were regarded as political prisoners as time went on and the Nazis Stranglehold over Germany increased thousands more people were sent there including those who were considered undesirable by the Nazis as soon as the camp opened there were many deaths that occurred there and prisoners were being killed the prisoners were forced to conduct hard labor and it became a site by many as the scars were trained before they were dispatched over camps to work The Prisoner entrance was marked by the infamous phrase arbite mcfry

and the camp then became very overcrowded it was a site which was synonymous with execution as around 4 000 Soviet prisons of War were executed there by the commandant's guards at the SS shooting range near to the camp and executions of prisoners continued guards were known for their brutality and they would beat and brutalize inmates if they caught them not being productive enough and they would execute and Slaughter with their bare hands executions also took place at roll call on The Gallows in front of the Camp's inmates and they would strike Terror into the hearts

of the prisoners there was also a women's camp that opened in August 1944 but as a second world war turned against the Germans the conditions that Dakar went downhill badly the Germans started to move prisoners from concentration camps nearing the front lines to more centrally found camps nearer to the German Heartland and with this thousands of prisons were sent to Dachau because of this there were many typhus epidemics and other disease outbreaks which cause problems and there were poor sanitary conditions coupled with a lack of food and water this led to many prisoners dying and

it's believed that around fifteen thousand people died in the final six months of the war at Dachau in each day hundreds were succumbing to the conditions as well as those who were being brought to the firing range to be executed within the final days of the camp prisoners were still arriving and the SS would confiscate food which was given to the prisoners on death marches and on the marches hundreds were dying the SS would dump the bodies in a Ravine and would force locals to bury them but on the 24th of April 1945 days before

Liberation the commandant of Dachau ordered 7 000 prisons on a death march from the camp those who would not keep up on the sixth day March were shot but at the time of Liberation 200 people a day were dying Himmler would initially order no prisoners to fall into the hands of the enemy and those from the northern part of Germany were ordered to be drowned in the North Sea of the Baltic was at Dachau the SS began to erase any information regarding what was actually happening at the camp but on the 29th of April 1945

soldiers from the 3rd Battalion 157th Infantry Regiment 45th Infantry Division who were led by Lieutenant Colonel Felix Sparks began to approach the huge Dachau complex in the nearby subcamps on their approach I came across 29 different train box cars which had 2 000 people's remains inside and it was clear they had been brutally exhibited and executed by the SS the smell of the rotting bodies in the sight of the emaciated dead caused a huge amount of discomfort upset and horror with the minds and emotions of the American soldiers this may have had an impact on

the events that came later but as the Americans approached they ordered the asses scars to surrender but some fired upon the Americans as they push forward into prisoner areas the Americans far more bodies had been dead for some time they had just been left in the open with no dignity for the soldiers and came across the prisoners who were alive and were dying but then the decision to surrender the camp was made and the majority of the SS hierarchy and the guards who had fled the camp had gone missing one senior guard Heinrich vikkar was

slaughtered by the prisoners after the surrender and he was left in charge with 560 guards at his disposal was on the 29th of April the camp was surrendered and the job then came to try and save the lives of those who were starving one liberated with state of the scenes as we approached the southwest corner three people came forward with a flag of truce we met them about 75 yards north of the southwest corner these three people were Swiss Red Cross Representatives Victor Martin two SS troops who said they were the Camp commander and his

assistants they'd come here on the night of the 28th to take over from the regular Camp Personnel for the purpose of surrendering the camp to the advancing Americans the Swiss Red Cross representative said they're around 100 SS scars in the camp who had their arms stacked except for the people in the tower he had given instructions so there would be no shots fired and it would take 50 men to relieve the guards as there were 42 000 half-crazed inmates many of them typhus infected he asked if I was an officer I replied I am assistant

division commander of the 42nd Infantry Division and will accept the surrender of the camp in the name of the Rainbow division for the United States Army but regarding the capture of Dachau Dwight Eisenhower the Supreme Allied Commander will issue a statement that said our forces liberated and mocked up the infamous concentration camp at Dachau approximately 32 000 prisons were liberated and 300 SS Camp guards were quickly neutralized but the circumstances around how the SS scars were killed has been debated and some historians have argued that the war crime was committed by the American soldiers one

historian stated of what happened that the Americans came on April 29th for Sunday work had stopped in the camp on Wednesday and an evacuation was being organized one transported four thousand prisoners was able to get away but the 42nd and 45th Infantry divisions covered the 40 miles from the Danube faster than the Germans expected at noon on Sunday the camp was quiet and the SS scars were in their post at the towers when the cry Americans went up a prisoner rushed towards a gate and agar shot him outside a single American Soldier stood looking casually

at the towers while the guards eyed him and the others who were two or three hundred yards away when the Americans opened fire the guards in the gate Tower came down hands in the air one held a pistol behind its back and the first American shot him in the next few minutes a Jeep drove up in it a blonde female War correspondence and a chaplain the chaplain asked the prisoners now cramming the gate to join him in the Lord's Prayer troops of the 42nd and 45th division so liberated Dachau in the afternoon on the 29th

of April were fighting in Munich the next morning and by Nightfall had along with the 15 core of the three divisions captured the city there was a capital Bavaria and the birthplace of Nazism but what actually happened with the executions of the Dakar Liberation reprisals is best told by The Men Who were there and who witnessed it Lieutenant Colonel Sparks stated that he saw around 50 German prisoners who had been captured former guards and that they were then taken to an area which had been used for storing coal the area was enclosed in an l-shape

by a wall which was around eight feet high and it was found next to the Campion family the prisoners of War were watched over by American soldiers and a machine gun team who had their weapons primed as a threat for them not to move Sparks and Lefty's soldiers and as he walked away he heard a soldier shout they're trying to get away and their machine gun fire was heard Sparks quickly returned and he came across a 19 year old Soldier nicknamed birdie who was Manning the machine gun and he had shot 12 of the prisoners

and wounded many more the Gunner was crying was beside himself and Sparks later said if the incident it was a foregoing incident which could have given rise to Wild claims in various Publications than most or all of the German prisoners captured the Dachau were executed nothing could be further from the truth the total number of German guards killed a Dachau during that day most certainly did not exceed 50 with 30 probably being a more accurate figure the regimental records for that date indicates that over a thousand German prisoners were brought to the regimental collecting points

since my task force was leaving the regimental attack almost all the prisoners were taken by task force including several hundred from Dachau but there was some debate as to whether the soldier had been told to fire or how many German soldiers or guards were actually killed one witness testimony said that around 4pm in the afternoon he arrived in the yard where the Germans had been shot and that around 15 or 16 were killed and the wounded were lying up against the wall some of the Wounded were moving and the surgeon and doctor did not know

if any medical assistants had been called for meaning that the Americans were happy to let the wounded suffer and succumb to their deaths and Fates whatever accounts would go further saying that their Nazis were rounded up and were executed along with their guard dogs by the American forces in the coal yard there were further executions that took place and the prisoners would get their revenge on the guards following the liberation one prisoner stated that the prisoners swarmed over the wire and grabbed the Americans and lifted them onto their shoulders other prisoners caught the SS Madden

the first SS man elbowed one or two prisons out the way with the courage of the prisoners mounted they knocked them down and nobody could see whether they were stomped or what but they were killed The Prisoner feng shui such as a car pose are also beaten and were killed being attacked with fists and other weapons one German guard was beaten to death with a shovel and there were favor incidents in which the American soldiers turned a blind eye to inmates beating the former guards to death one witness said that after an attack there was

not much left of the saskar's face noticing the hate the prisoners held in their hearts but there was an investigation into the killings of the Gods of Dachau and Witnesses came forward about what happened further information came to light regarding more deaths with four German soldiers being shot in a boxcar and these men had surrendered and they were given a coup de gras which was given to the wounded also further accounts about SS men being shot by the Americans in different enclosures were spoken about and the investigation resulted in possible court martials but charges were

later dismissed it was considered a violation of international law but no one really ever answered the charges for it the Dakar Liberation reprisals as they were known were a series of executions and killings of those SS men who were responsible for the huge suffering and evil that occurred inside of Dachau they were people who were responsible for the thousands of dead at the camp and they did little to help the suffering but the executions that were carried out around the camp were a sign of the anger and horror that the Americans held these men in

it's likely that they were affected by the mass bodies and the horror that they encountered at Dachau and this is why some of them turned a blind eye to the reprisals and killings with inside of the liberated Camp between 35 and 50 SS guards were executed thanks for watching to support our Channel please make sure to subscribe and once again thank you so much for watching