Dachau concentration camp

Establishment '' newspaper that the camp could hold up to 5,000 people, and described it as "the first concentration camp for political prisoners" to be used to restore calm to Germany. It became the first regular concentration camp established by the coalition government of the National Socialist German Worker's Party (Nazi Party) and the German National People's Party (dissolved on 6 July 1933). Dachau was the concentration camp that was in operation the longest, from March 1933 to April 1945, nearly all twelve years of the Nazi regime. The camp's layout and building plans were developed by Commandant 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 became the chief inspector for all concentration camps, responsible for organizing others according to his model. The Dachau complex included the prisoners' camp which occupied approximately 5 acres, and the much larger area of SS training school including barracks, factories plus other facilities of around 20 acres. Jehovah's Witnesses, homosexuals and emigrants were sent to Dachau after the 1935 passage of the Nuremberg Laws which institutionalized racial discrimination. In early 1937, the SS, using prisoner labor, initiated construction of a large complex capable of holding 6,000 prisoners. The construction was officially completed in mid-August 1938. As the German military occupied other European states, citizens from across Europe were sent to concentration camps. Subsequently, the camp was used for prisoners of all sorts, from every nation occupied by the forces of the Third Reich. Representatives of the International Committee of the Red Cross inspected the camp in 1935 and 1938 and documented the harsh conditions. (front right, beside prisoner) inspecting Dachau Concentration Camp on 8 May 1936 First deaths in 1933: investigation Shortly after the SS was commissioned to supplement the Bavarian police overseeing the Dachau camp, the first reports of prisoner deaths at Dachau began to emerge. In April 1933, Josef Hartinger, an official from the Bavarian Justice Ministry and physician Moritz Flamm, part-time medical examiner, arrived at the camp to investigate the deaths in accordance with the Bavarian penal code. They noted many inconsistencies between the injuries on the corpses and the camp guards' accounts of the deaths. Over a number of months, Hartinger and Flamm uncovered clear evidence of murder and compiled a dossier of charges against Hilmar Wäckerle, the SS commandant of Dachau, Werner Nürnbergk, the camp doctor, and Josef Mutzbauer, the camp's chief administrator (Kanzleiobersekretär). In June 1933, Hartinger presented the case to his superior, Bavarian State Prosecutor Karl Wintersberger. Initially supportive of the investigation, Wintersberger became reluctant to submit the resulting indictment to the Justice Ministry, increasingly under the influence of the SS. Hartinger reduced the scope of the dossier to the four clearest cases and Wintersberger signed it, after first notifying Himmler as a courtesy. The killings at Dachau suddenly stopped (temporarily), Wäckerle was transferred to Stuttgart and replaced by Theodor Eicke. The indictment and related evidence reached the office of Hans Frank, the Bavarian Justice Minister, but was intercepted by Gauleiter Adolf Wagner and locked away in a desk only to be discovered by the US Army. In 1934, both Hartinger and Wintersberger were transferred to provincial positions. Flamm was no longer employed as a medical examiner and was to survive two attempts on his life before his suspicious death in the same year. Flamm's thoroughly gathered and documented evidence within Hartiger's indictment ensured that it achieved convictions of senior Nazis at the Nuremberg trials in 1947. Wintersberger's complicit behaviour is documented in his own evidence to the Pohl Trial. Forced labor , Oranienburg, Mauthausen and Dachau in The Polish White Book, New York (1941). The prisoners of Dachau concentration camp originally were to serve as forced labor for a munition factory, and to expand the camp. It was used as a training center for the SS-Totenkopfverbände guards and was a model for other concentration camps. The camp was about in rectangular shape. The prisoners' entrance was secured by an iron gate with the motto "Arbeit macht frei" ("Work will make you free"). This reflected Nazi propaganda, which had concentration camps as labor and re-education camps. This was their original purpose, but the focus was soon shifted to using forced labor as a method of torture and murder. The original slogan was left on the gates. As of 1938, the procedure for new arrivals occurred at the Schubraum, where prisoners were to hand over their clothing and possessions. One former Luxembourgish prisoner, Albert Theis, reflected about the room, "There we were stripped of all our clothes. Everything had to be handed over: money, rings, watches. One was now stark naked". The camp included an administration building that contained offices for the Gestapo trial commissioner, SS authorities, the camp leader and his deputies. These administration offices consisted of large storage rooms for the personal belongings of prisoners, the bunker, roll-call square where guards would also inflict punishment on prisoners (especially those who tried to escape), the canteen where prisoners served SS men with cigarettes and food, the museum containing plaster images of prisoners who suffered from bodily defects, the camp office, the library, the barracks, and the infirmary, which was staffed by prisoners who had previously held occupations such as physicians or army surgeons. Operation Barbarossa Over 4,000 Soviet prisoners of war were murdered by the Dachau commandant's guard at the SS shooting range located at Hebertshausen, two kilometers from the main camp, in 1941/1943. These murders were a clear violation of the provisions laid down in the Geneva Convention for prisoners of war. The SS used the cynical term Sonderbehandlung ("special treatment") for these criminal executions. The first executions of the Soviet prisoners of war at the Hebertshausen shooting range took place on 25 November 1941. by pushing a corpse toward one of the ovens. After 1942, the number of prisoners being held at the camp continued to exceed 12,000. Dachau originally held communists, leading socialists and other "enemies of the state" in 1933 but, over time, the Nazis began to send German Jews to the camp. In the early years of imprisonment, Jews were offered permission to emigrate overseas if they "voluntarily" gave their property to enhance Hitler's public treasury. The prisoner enclosure at the camp was heavily guarded to ensure that no prisoners escaped. A no-man's land was the first marker of confinement for prisoners; an area which, upon entry, would elicit lethal gunfire from guard towers. Guards are known to have tossed inmates' caps into this area, resulting in the death of the prisoners when they attempted to retrieve the caps. Despondent prisoners committed suicide by entering the zone. A four-foot-deep and eight-foot-broad (1.2 × 2.4 m) creek, connected with the river Amper, lay on the west side between the "neutral-zone" and the electrically charged, and barbed wire fence which surrounded the entire prisoner enclosure. In August 1944 a women's camp opened inside Dachau. In the last months of the war, the conditions at Dachau deteriorated. As Allied forces advanced toward Germany, the Germans began to move prisoners from concentration camps near the front to more centrally located camps. They hoped to prevent the liberation of large numbers of prisoners. Transports from the evacuated camps arrived continuously at Dachau. After days of travel with little or no food or water, the prisoners arrived weak and exhausted, often near death. In late 1944, a typhus epidemic occurred in the camp caused by poor sanitation and overcrowding, which caused more than 15,000 deaths. It was followed by an evacuation, in which large numbers of the prisoners died. Toward the end of the war, death marches to and from the camp caused the deaths of numerous unrecorded prisoners. Owing to repeated transports from the front, the camp was constantly overcrowded and the hygiene conditions were beneath human dignity. It is claimed that in 1942, more than 3,166 prisoners in weakened condition were transported to Hartheim Castle near Linz, and were executed by poison gas because they were deemed unfit. Starting from the end of 1944 up to the day of liberation, 15,000 people died, about half of all the prisoners held at KZ Dachau. Five hundred Soviet POWs were executed by firing squad. The first shipment of women came from Auschwitz-Birkenau. Final days As late as 19 April 1945, prisoners were sent to KZ Dachau; on that date a freight train from Buchenwald with nearly 4,500 was diverted to Nammering. SS troops and police confiscated food and water that local townspeople tried to give to the prisoners. Nearly three hundred dead bodies were ordered removed from the train and carried to a ravine over away. The 524 prisoners who had been forced to carry the dead to this site were then shot by the guards, and buried along with those who had died on the train. Nearly 800 bodies went into this mass grave. The train continued on to KZ Dachau. During April 1945 as U.S. troops drove deeper into Bavaria, the commander of KZ Dachau suggested to Himmler that the camp be turned over to the Allies. Himmler, in signed correspondence, prohibited such a move, adding that "No prisoners shall be allowed to fall into the hands of the enemy alive." Between January and April 1945 11,560 detainees died at KZ Dachau according to a U.S. Army report of 1945, though the Dachau administration registered 12,596 deaths from typhus at the camp over the same period. Any prisoners who could not keep up on the six-day march were shot. Many others died of exhaustion, hunger and exposure. Months later a mass grave containing 1,071 prisoners was found along the route. Though at the time of liberation the death rate had peaked at 200 per day, after the liberation by U.S. forces the rate eventually fell to between 50 and 80 deaths per day from malnutrition and disease. In addition to the direct abuse of the SS and the harsh conditions, people died from typhus epidemics and starvation. The number of inmates had peaked in 1944 with transports from evacuated camps in the east (such as Auschwitz), and the resulting overcrowding led to an increase in the death rate. ==Main camp==

Purpose badges), 20 July 1938 '', or 'Work Sets You Free.' Dachau was opened in March 1933. Whatever the publicly stated purpose of the camp, the SS men who arrived there on 11 May 1933 were left in no illusion as to its real purpose by the speech given on that day by Johann-Erasmus Freiherr von Malsen-Ponickau Comrades of the SS! You all know what the Fuehrer has called us to do. We have not come here for human encounters with those pigs in there. We do not consider them human beings, as we are, but as second-class people. For years they have been able to continue their criminal existence. But now we are in power. If those pigs had come to power, they would have cut off all our heads. Therefore we have no room for sentimentalism. If anyone here cannot bear to see the blood of comrades, he does not belong and had better leave. The more of these pig dogs we strike down, the fewer we need to feed. The entrance gate used by prisoners carries the phrase "Arbeit macht frei" (, or "Work makes [one] free"; contextual English translation: "Work shall set you free"). This phrase was also used in several other concentration camps such as Theresienstadt, near Prague, and Auschwitz I. Dachau served as a prototype and model for the other German concentration camps that followed. Almost every community in Germany had members taken away to these camps. Newspapers continually reported "the removal of the enemies of the Reich to concentration camps." As early as 1935, a jingle went around: ''"Lieber Herr Gott, mach mich stumm, dass ich nicht nach Dachau komm'"'' ("Dear Lord God, make me dumb [silent], That I may not to Dachau come"). Between 1933 and 1945, more than 3.5 million Germans were imprisoned in such concentration camps or prison for political reasons. Approximately 77,000 Germans were killed for one or another form of resistance by Special Courts, courts-martial, and the civil justice system. Many of these Germans had served in government, the military, or in civil positions, which were considered to enable them to engage in subversion and conspiracy against the Nazis. Organization The camp was divided into two sections: the camp area and the crematorium. The camp area consisted of 32 barracks, including one for clergy imprisoned for opposing the Nazi regime and one reserved for medical experiments. The courtyard between the prison and the central kitchen was used for the summary execution of prisoners. The camp was surrounded by an electrified barbed-wire fence, a ditch, and a wall with seven guard towers. The original records of the experiments were destroyed "in an attempt to conceal the atrocities". Extensive communication between the investigators and Heinrich Himmler, head of the SS, documents the experiments. During 1942, "high altitude" experiments were conducted. Victims were subjected to rapid decompression to pressures found at , and experienced spasmodic convulsions, agonal breathing, and eventual death. Demographics The camp was originally designed for holding German and Austrian political prisoners and Jews, but in 1935 it began to be used also for ordinary criminals. Inside the camp there was a sharp division between the two groups of prisoners; those who were there for political reasons and therefore wore a red tag, and the criminals, who wore a green tag. clergy who were imprisoned for not conforming with the Nazi Party line. During the war, other nationals were transferred to it, including French; in 1940 Poles; in 1941 people from the Balkans, Czechs, Yugoslavs; and in 1942, Russians. Priests were frequently denounced, arrested and sent to concentration camps, often simply on the basis of being "suspected of activities hostile to the State" or that there was reason to "suppose that his dealings might harm society". Total numbers incarcerated are nonetheless difficult to assert, for some clergy were not recognised as such by the camp authorities, and some—particularly Poles—did not wish to be identified as such, fearing they would be mistreated. Sixteen have been identified including Fanny Baur, Leopoldine Bittermann, Ernestine Brenner, Anna Buck, Rosa Dolaschko, Maria Eder, Rosa Grassmann, Betty Hanneschaleger, Ruth Elfriede Hildner, Josefa Keller, Berta Kimplinger, Lieselotte Klaudat, Theresia Kopp, Rosalie Leimboeck, and Thea Miesl. Female guards were also assigned to the Augsburg Michelwerke, Burgau, Kaufering, Mühldorf, and Munich Agfa Camera Werke subcamps. In mid-April 1945, female subcamps at Kaufering, Augsburg, and Munich were closed, and the SS stationed the women at Dachau. Several Norwegians worked as guards at the Dachau camp. In the major Dachau war crimes case (United States of America v. Martin Gottfried Weiss et al.), forty-two officials of Dachau were tried from November to December 1945. All were found guilty—thirty-six of the defendants were sentenced to death on 13 December 1945, of whom 23 were hanged on 28–29 May 1946, including the commandant, SS-Obersturmbannführer Martin Gottfried Weiss, SS-Obersturmführer Friedrich Wilhelm Ruppert and camp doctors Karl Schilling and Fritz Hintermeyer. Camp commandant Weiss admitted in affidavit testimony that most of the deaths at Dachau during his administration were due to "typhus, TB, dysentery, pneumonia, pleurisy, and body weakness brought about by lack of food." His testimony also admitted to deaths by shootings, hangings and medical experiments. Ruppert ordered and supervised the deaths of innumerable prisoners at Dachau main and subcamps, according to the War Crimes Commission official trial transcript. He testified about hangings, shootings and lethal injections, but did not admit to direct responsibility for any individual deaths. An anonymous Dutch prisoner contended that British Special Operations Executive (SOE) agent Noor Inayat Khan was cruelly beaten by SS officer Wilhelm Ruppert before being shot from behind; the beating may have been the actual cause of her death. ==Satellite camps and sub-camps==

Satellite camps under the authority of Dachau were established in the summer and autumn of 1944 near armaments factories throughout southern Germany to increase war production. Dachau alone had more than 30 large subcamps, and hundreds of smaller ones, in which over 30,000 prisoners worked almost exclusively on armaments. Overall, the Dachau concentration camp system included 123 sub-camps and Kommandos which were set up in 1943 when factories were built near the main camp to make use of forced labor of the Dachau prisoners. Out of the 123 sub-camps, eleven of them were called Kaufering, distinguished by a number at the end of each. All Kaufering sub-camps were set up to specifically build three underground factories (Allied bombing raids made it necessary for them to be underground) for a project called Ringeltaube (wood pigeon), which planned to be the location in which the German jet fighter plane, Messerschmitt Me 262, was to be built. In the last days of war, in April 1945, the Kaufering camps were evacuated and around 15,000 prisoners were sent up to the main Dachau camp. Typhus alone was estimated to have caused 15,000 deaths between December 1944 and April 1945. "Within the first month after the arrival of the American troops, 10,000 prisoners were treated for malnutrition and kindred diseases. In spite of this one hundred prisoners died each day during the first month from typhus, dysentery or general weakness". ==Liberation==

(man with helmet, looking to his right) during the camp's liberation (29 April 1945) Main camp As the Allies began to advance on Nazi Germany, the SS began to evacuate the first concentration camps in summer 1944. Thousands of prisoners were killed before the evacuation due to being ill or unable to walk. At the end of 1944, the overcrowding of camps began to take its toll on the prisoners. The unhygienic conditions and the supplies of food rations became disastrous. In November a typhus fever epidemic broke out that took thousands of lives. In the second phase of the evacuation, in April 1945, Himmler gave direct evacuation routes for remaining camps. Prisoners who were from the northern part of Germany were to be directed to the Baltic and North Sea coasts to be drowned. The prisoners from the southern part were to be gathered in the Alps, which was the location in which the SS wanted to resist the Allies. On 28 April 1945, an armed revolt took place in the town of Dachau. Both former and escaped concentration camp prisoners and a renegade Volkssturm (civilian militia) company took part. At about 8:30 am the rebels occupied the Town Hall. The SS gruesomely suppressed the revolt within a few hours. Being fully aware that Germany was about to be defeated in World War II, the SS invested its time in removing evidence of the crimes it committed in the concentration camps. They began destroying incriminating evidence in April 1945 and planned on murdering the prisoners using codenames "Wolke A-I" (Cloud A-1) and "Wolkenbrand" (Cloud fire). However, these plans were not carried out. In mid-April, plans to evacuate the camp started by sending prisoners toward Tyrol. On 26 April, over 10,000 prisoners were forced to leave the Dachau concentration camp on foot, in trains, or in trucks. The largest group of some 7,000 prisoners was driven southward on a foot-march lasting several days. More than 1,000 prisoners did not survive this march. The evacuation transports cost many thousands of prisoners their lives. On 26 April 1945 prisoner Karl Riemer fled the Dachau concentration camp to get help from American troops and on 28 April Victor Maurer, a representative of the International Red Cross, negotiated an agreement to surrender the camp to U.S. troops. That night a secretly formed International Prisoners Committee took over the control of the camp. Units of 3rd Battalion, 157th Infantry Regiment, 45th Infantry Division, commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Felix L. Sparks, were ordered to secure the camp. On 29 April Sparks led part of his battalion as they entered the camp over a side wall. At about the same time, Brigadier General Henning Linden led the 222nd Infantry Regiment of the 42nd (Rainbow) Infantry Division soldiers including his aide, Lieutenant William Cowling, to accept the formal surrender of the camp from German Lieutenant Heinrich Wicker at an entrance between the camp and the compound for the SS garrison. Linden was traveling with Marguerite Higgins and other reporters; as a result, Linden's detachment generated international headlines by accepting the surrender of the camp. More than 30,000 Jews and political prisoners were freed, and since 1945 adherents of the 42nd and 45th Division versions of events have argued over which unit was the first to liberate Dachau. On 30 April 1945, William Wilson Quinn, Chief of Staff of the G-2, IV Army Corps entered Dachau through the main gate with some of his officers in the 7th Army, a representative from the Office of Strategic Services and a group from his counter-intelligence corps division which was operating under his jurisdiction as G-2 of the 7th Army. He then commissioned each of those three divisions to separately prepare reports: "one was to take the camp; the other was to take the townspeople; the other was to take the organization and what happened and then to interrogate the internees". When I read the three reports, I decided it was too big and I didn't have the time to put it all together so I decided to let each one of them tell their own story in their own way and I would do an introduction...The composition was the work of Major Al House, who just died not too long ago. He designed the cover, his concept of the SS. He did the artwork in the "townspeople" area of the German with the pipe and those drawings. The artwork was also done by John Denny and the copy preparation by Charles Denny. The photographs were the 163rd Signal Photo Company and the printing done by the 649th Engineer Compo. Battalion. This was done in the 7th Army, with government funds, so it's a free document and there is no copyright to it and anybody can reproduce it at their will...I published this in early June, or maybe late May...I issued this to the troops...the press got copies of it, because it was in the Press Room...I sent copies also to the other G-2's who had the same kind of thing in Auschwitz Prisoners with typhus, a louse-borne disease with an incubation period from 12 to 18 days, were treated by the 116th Evacuation Hospital, while the 127th would be the general hospital for the other illnesses. There were 227 documented deaths among the 2,252 patients cared for by the 127th. Satellite camps liberation The first Dachau subcamp discovered by advancing Allied forces was Kaufering IV by the 12th Armored Division on 27 April 1945. Subcamps liberated by the 12th Armored Division included: Erpting, Schrobenhausen, Schwabing, Langerringen, Türkheim, Lauingen, Schwabach, Germering. During the liberation of the sub-camps surrounding Dachau, advance scouts of the U.S. Army's 522nd Field Artillery Battalion, a segregated battalion consisting of Nisei, 2nd generation Japanese-Americans, liberated the 3,000 prisoners of the "Kaufering IV Hurlach" slave labor camp. Perisco describes an Office of Strategic Services (OSS) team (code name LUXE) leading Army Intelligence to a "Camp IV" on 29 April. "They found the camp afire and a stack of some four hundred bodies burning ... American soldiers then went into Landsberg and rounded up all the male civilians they could find and marched them out to the camp. The former commandant was forced to lie amidst a pile of corpses. The male population of Landsberg was then ordered to walk by, and ordered to spit on the commandant as they passed. The commandant was then turned over to a group of liberated camp survivors". The 522nd's personnel later discovered the survivors of a death march headed generally southwards from the Dachau main camp to Eurasburg, then eastwards towards the Austrian border on 2 May, just west of the town of Waakirchen. Weather at the time of liberation was unseasonably cool and temperatures trended down through the first two days of May; on 2 May, the area received a snowstorm with of snow at nearby Munich. Proper clothing was still scarce and film footage from the time (as seen in The World at War) shows naked, gaunt people either wandering on snow or dead under it. Due to the number of sub-camps over a large area that comprised the Dachau concentration camp complex, many Allied units have been officially recognized by the United States Army Center of Military History and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum as liberating units of Dachau, including: the 4th Infantry Division, 36th Infantry Division, 42nd Infantry Division, 45th Infantry Division, 63rd Infantry Division, 99th Infantry Division, 103rd Infantry Division, 10th Armored Division, 12th Armored Division, 14th Armored Division, 20th Armored Division, and the 101st Airborne Division. Killing of camp guards . 29 April 1945 (U.S. Army photograph) American troops and liberated concentration camp prisoners killed some of the camp guards after they had surrendered. The number is disputed, as some were killed in combat, some while attempting to surrender, and others after their surrender was accepted. In 1989, Brigadier General Felix L. Sparks, the Colonel in command of a battalion that was present, stated: An Inspector General report resulting from a US Army investigation conducted between 3 and 8 May 1945—titled "American Army Investigation of Alleged Mistreatment of German Guards at Dachau"—found that 21 plus "a number" of presumed SS men were killed, with others being wounded after their surrender had been accepted. In addition, 25 to 50 SS guards were estimated to have been killed by the liberated prisoners. Lee Miller visited the camp just after liberation, and photographed several guards who were killed by soldiers or prisoners. According to Sparks, court-martial charges were drawn up against him and several other men under his command, but General George S. Patton, who had recently been appointed military governor of Bavaria, chose to dismiss the charges. American troops also forced local citizens to the camp to see for themselves the conditions there and to help bury the dead. There is a Russian Orthodox chapel at the camp today, and it is well known for its icon of Christ leading the prisoners out of the camp gates. ==After liberation==

Authorities worked night and day to alleviate conditions at the camp immediately following the liberation as an epidemic of black typhus swept through the prisoner population. Two thousand cases had already been reported by 3 May. By October 1945, the former camp was being used by the U.S. Army as a place of confinement for war criminals, the SS and important witnesses. It was also the site of the Dachau Trials for German war criminals, a site chosen for its symbolism. In 1948, the Bavarian government established housing for refugees on the site, and this remained for many years. Among those held in the Dachau internment camp set up under the U.S. Army were Elsa Ehrich, Maria Mandl, and Elisabeth Ruppert. After 1948, when hundreds of thousands of ethnic Germans were expelled from eastern Europe, it held Germans from Czechoslovakia until they could be resettled. It also served as a military base for the United States, which maintained forces in the country. It was closed in 1960. The Kaserne quarters and other buildings used by the guards and trainee guards were converted and served as the Eastman Barracks, an American military post. After the closure of the Eastman Barracks in 1974, these areas are now occupied by the Bavarian Bereitschaftspolizei (rapid response police unit). Deportation of Soviet nationals By January 1946, 18,000 members of the SS were being confined at the camp along with an additional 12,000 persons, including deserters from the Russian army and a number who had been captured in German Army uniform. The occupants of two barracks rioted as 271 of the Russian deserters were to be loaded onto trains that would return them to Russian-controlled lands, as agreed at the Yalta Conference. Inmates barricaded themselves inside two barracks. While the first was able to be cleared without too much trouble, those in the second building set fire to it, tore off their clothing in an effort to frustrate the guards, and linked arms to resist being removed from the building. Tear gas was used by the American soldiers before rushing the barracks, only for them to find that many had killed themselves. The American services newspaper Stars and Stripes reported: The GIs quickly cut down most of those who had hanged themselves from the rafters. Those still conscious were screaming in Russian, pointing first at the guns of the guards, then at themselves, begging to us to shoot. ==List of personnel==

on trial in 1961 Commandants • SS-Standartenführer Hilmar Wäckerle (22 March 1933 – 26 June 1933) • SS-Gruppenführer Theodor Eicke (26 June 1933 – 4 July 1934) • SS-Oberführer (4 July 1934 – 22 October 1934) • SS-Brigadeführer Berthold Maack (22 October 1934 – 12 January 1935) • SS-Oberführer Heinrich Deubel (12 January 1935 – 31 March 1936) • SS-Oberführer Hans Loritz (31 March 1936 – 7 January 1939) • SS-Hauptsturmführer Alexander Piorkowski (7 January 1939 – 2 January 1942) • SS-Obersturmbannführer Martin Weiß (3 January 1942 – 30 September 1943) • SS-Hauptsturmführer Eduard Weiter (30 September 1943 – 26 April 1945) • SS-Obersturmbannführer Martin Weiß (26 April 1945 – 28 April 1945) • SS-Untersturmführer Heinrich Wicker (28 April 1945 – 29 April 1945) Other staff • Adolf Eichmann (29 January 1934 – October 1934) • Rudolf Höss (1934–1938) • Max Kögel (1937–1938) • SS-Untersturmführer Hans Steinbrenner (1905–1964), brutal guard who greeted new arrivals with his improvized "Welcome Ceremony". • SS-Obergruppenführer Gerhard Freiherr von Almey, half-brother of Ludolf von Alvensleben. Executed in 1955, in Moscow. • Johannes Heesters (visited the camp and entertained the SS officers, was also given/giving tours) • Otto Rahn (1937) • SS-Untersturmführer Johannes Otto • SS-Obersturmbannführer Johann Kantschuster was the arrest commandant in Dachau (1933–1939), went on to become camp commandant at Fort Breendonk, Belgium • SS-Sturmbannführer Robert Erspenmüller, first warden of the guards and right-hand of Hilmar Wäckerle. Disagreed with Eicke and was transferred away. SS and civilian doctors • Dr. Werner Nuernbergk – First camp doctor, escaped charges for falsifying death certificates in 1933 in American internment • SS-Untersturmführer Dr. Hans Eisele – (13 March 1912 – 3 May 1967) – Sentenced to death, but reprieved and released in 1952. Fled to Egypt after new accusations in 1958. • SS-Obersturmführer Dr. Fritz Hintermayer – (28 Oct 1911 – 29 May 1946) – Executed by the Allies • Dr. Ernst Holzlöhner – (23 February 1899 – 14 June 1945) – Committed suicide • SS-Hauptsturmführer Dr. Fridolin Karl Puhr – (30 April 1913 – 31 May 1957) – Sentenced to death, later commuted to 10-years imprisonment • SS-Untersturmführer Dr. Sigmund Rascher – (12 February 1909 – 26 April 1945) – Executed by the SS • Dr. Claus Schilling – (25 July 1871 – 28 May 1946) – Executed by the Allies • SS-Sturmbannführer Dr. Horst Schumann – (11 May 1906 – 5 May 1983) – Escaped to Ghana, later extradited to West Germany • SS-Obersturmführer Dr. Helmuth Vetter – (21 March 1910 – 2 February 1949) – Executed by the Allies • SS-Sturmbannführer Dr. Wilhelm Witteler – (20 April 1909 – 13 May 1993) – Sentenced to death, later commuted to 20-years imprisonment • SS-Sturmbannführer Dr. Waldemar Wolter – (19 May 1908 – 28 May 1947) – Executed by the Allies == Memorial ==

erected in 1968 Between 1945 and 1948 when the camp was handed over to the Bavarian authorities, many accused war criminals and members of the SS were imprisoned at the camp. Owing to the severe refugee crisis mainly caused by the expulsions of ethnic Germans, the camp was used from late 1948 to house some two thousand Germans from Czechoslovakia (mainly from the Sudetenland). This settlement was called Dachau-East and remained until the mid-1960s. During this time, former prisoners banded together to erect a memorial on the site of the camp. The display, which was reworked in 2003, follows the path of new arrivals to the camp. Two of the barracks have been rebuilt and one shows a cross-section of the entire history of the camp since the original barracks had to be torn down due to their poor condition when the memorial was built. The other 30 barracks are indicated by low cement curbs filled with pebbles. Visitors may now walk through the buildings and view the ovens used to cremate bodies, which hid the evidence of many deaths. ==In media==

• In his 2013 autobiography, Moose: Chapters from My Life, in the chapter entitled, "Dachau", author Robert B. Sherman chronicles his experiences as an American Army serviceman during the initial hours of Dachau's liberation. • In Lewis Black's first book, ''Nothing's Sacred'', he mentions visiting the camp as part of his tour of Europe and how it looked all cleaned up and spiffy, "like some delightful holiday camp", and only the crematorium building showed any sign of the horror that went on there. • In Maus, Vladek describes his time interned at Dachau, among his time at other concentration camps. He describes the journey to Dachau in over-crowded trains, trading rations for other goods and favors to stay alive, and contracting typhus. • Frontline: "Memory of the Camps" (7 May 1985, Season 3, Episode 18), is a 56-minute television documentary that addresses Dachau and other Nazi concentration camps ==See also==