The HORRORS Of The Dachau Liberation Executions JJ

On the 29th of April, 1945, inside the barbed wire fences of Dachau concentration camp, American soldiers made their way past emaciated people who looked like skeletons, and they were forever haunted by what they found. Quickly, they realized that the regime which was responsible for this had been inflicted a huge amount of terror onto persecuted people.

But within the prisoner population, there were a number of SS guards who had worked at Dachau who needed dealing with. The official protocol dictated that captured SS guards who worked inside the camps should have been treated as prisoners of war and been given some protection by that status. However, that is not what happened that day.

As the allies went further into Dachau, they shot and executed SS guards, and many were beaten to death by the inmates within the camp. And they even borrowed American weapons to bring death to the people who had kept them in submission for years. As Dachau was liberated, there were around up to 50 SS guards, possibly more, who were shot and executed by both prisoners and also the US Army soldiers.

This included one specific event in which a machine gun was opened up on the captives. But why did this happen, and why was it so brutal? Dachau concentration camp was opened on the 22nd of March, 1933, and it was the longest-running camp built by the Nazis. It was planned that the site would, to begin with, imprison those political enemies of the Nazis, such as communists, but as the war went on, it imprisoned further civilians and those who were persecuted by the Nazis.

It had a huge amount of subcamps that served the main camp, and prisoners constantly were terrified by the guards there. They knew that the SS Death’s Head guards could torture them in different ways, publicly flog them, and even subject them to execution in front of the view of other prisoners. Guards would execute inmates on the gallows, and they also carried out shootings on makeshift firing ranges, and prisoners too weak to work were even given a lethal injection of phenol to the heart.

During its time in operation, over 41,000 prisoners died at Dachau from the treatment they received, disease, starvation, and even medical experimentation. As the Second World War was coming to an end with the defeat of the Germans very much on the horizon, guards still remained at Dachau to maintain law and order.

It was the US Army who would be the ones who came across the huge camp. Soldiers of the Third Battalion, 157th Infantry Regiment, 45th Infantry Division, commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Felix L. Sparks, discovered 39 railway boxcars close to the complex, and inside of these train carriages, they found around 2,000 corpses, many of them rotting, and many of them skeletal, showing that they had been there for some time.

Around these train cars were also human tissue and matter, including brain tissue, showing that there had been immense violence inflicted upon victims in that region. The smell and sight of the decaying corpses invoked rage and anger amongst the American soldiers. As the troops moved closer towards the camp, soldiers advised any remaining SS guards to surrender.

However, they continued to fire machine guns and weapons at the advancing Americans. It was said about the surrender of Dachau that, I quote, “At noon on Sunday, the camp was quiet, and the SS guards were at their posts in the towers when the cry, ‘Americans!’ went up.” A prisoner rushed towards the gate, and a guard shot him.

Outside, a single American soldier stood looking casually at the towers, while the guards eyed him and others who were 2 or 300 yards away. When the Americans opened fire, the guards in the gate tower came down hands in the air. One held a pistol behind his back and the first American shot him. In the days before the liberation, there was a mass escape of guards who tried to save their skin and left in charge was SS Untersturmführer Heinrich Wicker, a young but relatively experienced beast who would not survive.

He was left in charge and had around 560 guards at his disposal including conscripted prisoners who were forced to staff the camp and also Hungarian Waffen SS men. It was on the 29th of April 1945 that Dachau was officially surrendered to Brigadier General Henning Linden by Heinrich Wicker and he took control of the camp along with American soldiers.

But there was very much many SS guards who remained at the camp and did remain hostile. Around different parts of Dachau, sporadic fighting broke out between the Americans and the SS including around what was known as watchtower B. It was claimed later that 17 SS men were shot around tower B and these men being executed by soldiers who were scarred by what they’d earlier seen around the railway boxcars.

The bodies of the men were then left outside the barbed wire fences on an embankment. Now as the Allied soldiers made their way throughout the camp, they captured many SS prisoners. Some surrendered of their own volition and laid down their weapons. Others tried to hide amongst the prisoner population but they were soon turned over to the Americans.

This led to around 50 German prisoners who were captured being taken into the area of Dachau which was used for storing coal. It was enclosed by an L-shaped wall which was around 8 feet high. This was also close to the camp’s infirmary. The German prisoners were being guarded by machine gun which was overseen by a number of soldiers from I company of the 157th Infantry Regiment, 45th Infantry Division.

The soldier specifically in charge of the machine gun was a 19-year-old nicknamed Birdie. But as Lieutenant Colonel Sparks left the area after speaking with his troops, a shout of, “They’re trying to get away.” went up from the panicked Americans. And then the sound of machine gun fire was heard. Birdie had shot his weapon into the SS guards, and he had sprayed into the SS men who were stood up against the wall.

He allegedly instantly killed around 12 SS guards, and many more were injured, their bodies being littered with bullets. The gunner then broke out in tears. Specifically regarding this incident or accidental execution, if that’s what you call it, Sparks stated, I quote, “It was the foregoing incident which has given rise to wild claims in various publications that most or all of the German prisoners captured at Dachau were executed.

Nothing could be further from the truth. The total number of German guards killed at Dachau during that day most certainly did not exceed 50, with 30 probably being a more accurate figure. The regimental records for that date indicate that over a thousand German prisoners were brought to the regimental collecting points. Since my task force was leading the regimental attack, almost all the prisoners were taken by the task force, including several hundred from Dachau.

Other accounts did claim that there were many more who were killed in this incident, and also in further reprisals around Dachau. There were, as mentioned, other executions, too. It was claimed that, I quote, “Some of the Nazis were rounded up and summarily executed along with the guard dogs.” Another claim that Lieutenant William P.

Walsh, the commander of I company, shot four German soldiers in a boxcar who had surrendered. The men being forced in there before they were then gunned down. These men were then given a coup de grace gunshot by Private Albert C. Pruitt. Walsh also led other SS guards into a different enclosure and then organized a shooting of further soldiers, allegedly.

The American liberators also may have encouraged the shooting of further guards and killing of them by prisoners who had suffered so much. It was said during liberation that, I quote, “Prisoners swarmed of the wire and grabbed the Americans and lift them to their shoulders.” Other prisoners caught the SS men.

The first SS man elbowed one or two prisoners out of the way, but the courage of the prisoners mounted. They knocked him down and nobody could see whether they were stomped or what, but he was killed. All around the camp, angry prisoners captured guards and also capos, prisoner functionaries who had wielded some power over the other inmates and also dished out cruel punishments.

And these men were then battered and beaten. American soldiers often turned a blind eye to this and during one incident, US soldiers looked away as two prisoners beat a German guard to death with a shovel. Another soldier who saw one of these killings claimed that after the killing, there wasn’t much left of the SS man’s face.

Some prisoners also may have been given US weapons to finish off the guards being lent to them and a few other inmates following their release actively hunted SS guards in the local area. There was a small investigation at the end of World War II into the actions that happened at Dachau, but very little action ever came of it.

The executions and killings of the SS guards were put down to the difficulty that the liberating troops had in controlling their emotions as they’d seen sights that would haunt them for the rest of their lives. It’s considered today that up to 50 guards may have been killed in the liberation of the camp, but many believe that the true number may be even higher.

Lots of former guards of Dachau were taken to prisoner of war camps and were interrogated about the crimes that took place at the site. But the Dachau liberation reprisals were mostly driven by anger. The true actions of the SS were very much on show when the camp got liberated as the bodies lay all around the site and the prisoners informed the liberators as to what truly happened there.

But Dachau remained the longest used concentration camp of World War II and it became a place synonymous with the torture, execution, and terror the SS guards inflicted onto thousands of prisoners. Thank you for watching. If you found this video interesting, maybe click subscribe. Once again, thank you so much for giving your time to watch one of these videos.