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KF5JRV > TODAY 12.05.19 10:16l 65 Lines 3341 Bytes #999 (0) @ WW
BID : 35423_KF5JRV
Read: GUEST
Subj: Today in History - Apr 29
Path: IZ3LSV<ED1ZAC<LU4ECL<VE2PKT<N3HYM<KF5JRV
Sent: 190429/1135Z 35423@KF5JRV.#NWAR.AR.USA.NA BPQ6.0.18
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 subcamp 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.
73 de Scott KF5JRV
Pmail: KF5JRV@KF5JRV.#NWAR.AR.USA.NA
email: KF5JRV@GMAIL.COM
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