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N0KFQ > TODAY 29.04.15 15:46l 76 Lines 3679 Bytes #999 (0) @ WW
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Subj: Today in History - Apr 29
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1945
Dachau liberated
On April 29, 1945, the U.S. Seventh Army's 45th Infantry Division
liberates Dachau, the first concentration camp established by
Germany's Nazi regime. A major Dachau sub camp was liberated the
same day by the 42nd Rainbow Division.
Established five weeks after Adolf Hitler took power as German
chancellor in 1933, Dachau was situated on the outskirts of the
town of Dachau, about 10 miles northwest of Munich. During its
first year, the camp held about 5,000 political prisoners,
consisting primarily of German communists, Social Democrats, and
other political opponents of the Nazi regime. During the next few
years, the number of prisoners grew dramatically, and other
groups were interned at Dachau, including Jehovah's Witnesses,
Gypsies, homosexuals, and repeat criminals. Beginning in 1938,
Jews began to comprise a major portion of camp internees.
Prisoners at Dachau were used as forced laborers, initially in
the construction and expansion of the camp and later for German
armaments production. The camp served as the training center for
SS concentration camp guards and was a model for other Nazi
concentration camps. Dachau was also the first Nazi camp to use
prisoners as human guinea pigs in medical experiments. At Dachau,
Nazi scientists tested the effects of freezing and changes to
atmospheric pressure on inmates, infected them with malaria and
tuberculosis and treated them with experimental drugs, and forced
them to test methods of making seawater potable and of halting
excessive bleeding. Hundreds of prisoners died or were crippled
as a result of these experiments.
Thousands of inmates died or were executed at Dachau, and
thousands more were transferred to a Nazi extermination center
near Linz, Austria, when they became too sick or weak to work. In
1944, to increase war production, the main camp was supplemented
by dozens of satellite camps established near armaments factories
in southern Germany and Austria. These camps were administered by
the main camp and collectively called Dachau.
With the advance of Allied forces against Germany in April 1945,
the Germans transferred prisoners from concentration camps near
the front to Dachau, leading to a general deterioration of
conditions and typhus epidemics. On April 27, 1945, approximately
7,000 prisoners, mostly Jews, were forced to begin a death march
from Dachau to Tegernsee, far to the south. The next day, many of
the SS guards abandoned the camp. On April 29, the Dachau main
camp was liberated by units of the 45th Infantry after a brief
battle with the camp's remaining guards.
As they neared the camp, the Americans found more than 30
railroad cars filled with bodies in various states of
decomposition. Inside the camp there were more bodies and 30,000
survivors, most severely emaciated. Some of the American troops
who liberated Dachau were so appalled by conditions at the camp
that they machine-gunned at least two groups of captured German
guards. It is officially reported that 30 SS guards were killed
in this fashion, but conspiracy theorists have alleged that more
than 10 times that number were executed by the American
liberators. The German citizens of the town of Dachau were later
forced to bury the 9,000 dead inmates found at the camp.
In the course of Dachau's history, at least 160,000 prisoners
passed through the main camp, and 90,000 through the sub camps.
Incomplete records indicate that at least 32,000 of the inmates
perished at Dachau and its sub camps, but countless more were
shipped to extermination camps elsewhere.
73, K.O. n0kfq
N0KFQ @ N0KFQ.#SWMO.MO.USA.NA
E-mail: kohiggs@gmail.com
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