Dachau Concentration Camp, established by the Nazi regime in 1933 near Munich, Germany, played a significant role during World War II. Initially intended as a detention centre for political prisoners, it evolved into a model for the vast network of concentration camps across Nazi-occupied Europe. Dachau was notorious for its brutal treatment of inmates, which included political dissidents, Jews, Romani people, and homosexuals, among others.
The camp was not specifically designed for systematic extermination like Auschwitz-Birkenau; however, thousands perished due to harsh conditions, forced labour, medical experiments, and executions. Dachau also served as a training facility for SS guards, who were later dispatched to other camps, spreading the regime's brutal tactics. The liberation of Dachau by Allied forces in April 1945 revealed the horrors of the Holocaust to the world, symbolising the broader atrocities committed during the war.
It is impossible to visit Dachau and not be moved by its horrific history. One would have hoped that the human race would have learned from the lessons of World War Two and The Holocaust, but as we know, current-day events indicate that isn’t the case.
Dachau main entrance.
Dachau was the training site for Nazi camp guards who would go to the 23 main concentration camps and the sub-camps of these, which numbered at least 1000, although not all were active at the same time. The building on the right was the office of Commandant Theodore Eicke, who became Inspector of the concentration camp system. Eicke was a fanatic whose extreme violence had, only shortly before, in March 1933, caused him to be committed for evaluation at a psychiatric clinic at the University of Würzburg. Nazi leaders released Eicke, and he wrote the Disciplinary and Penal Code (German: Lagerordnung). First written for the Dachau concentration camp, it became the uniform code for discipline and systematic torture at all SS concentration camps in the Third Reich on January 1, 1934.
Dachau
On the entrance gate to Dachau: Arbeit macht frei - ‘Work sets you free’. Work did not set prisoners free: work led to extremes of cold and heat, minimal food and water, and physical and mental torture. Ultimately, it was only death that set prisoners free.
In 1937/38 prisoners built 32 barracks, holding 200 prisoners each. By the end of the war the barracks were completely overfilled with up to 2000 in each. Overcrowding, lack of food and sanitation and the resultant spread of disease was a major cause of death.
A reconstructed barrack. In front, two Roll Call Squares, where all prisoners were counted twice daily.
The inscription ‘Brausebad’ indicated to prisoners that they were entering the shower room, and the room had shower heads on the ceiling. It was not a gas chamber used for mass killing. Still, reports indicate its use in experiments to determine optimal chemical exposure for mass murder by this method, which would be replicated throughout the concentration camp system.
Over the 12 years of use as a concentration camp, the Dachau administration recorded the intake of 206,206 prisoners and deaths of 31,951. Crematoria were constructed to dispose of the deceased; however, by the end of the war, the crematoria could not cope with the rate of deaths, and with the liberation of Dachau, hundreds of bodies were found in piles outside the crematorium. Images of this scene spread across the world, demonstrating the truth about Nazi camps and the horrific practices that took place within them.
Honour the dead, warn the living
Can humanity learn from the events that took place here?
The Jewish memorial was inaugurated on the right side of the agony of Christ Chapel on 7 May 1967. The building was designed by architect Zvi Guttman and is made of black lavabasalt stone and leads as a ramp into the depths. The railing recalls the image of the ever-present barbed wire in a concentration camp, a reminder of the destruction of European Jewry. Approximately 6 million of the world's 10 million Jewish people were murdered during The Holocaust.
For the prisoners, the detention building was one of the main sites of terror, the SS carrying out harsher punishments. The SS named the building the ‘garrison detention’; the prisoners called it the 'bunker'. The prison facility visible here was built in 1937/38. In 1944, the SS installed four tiny standing cells measuring only 80 cm x 80 cm. The prisoners had to endure several days in these extremely cramped, bricked cells, with insufficient air to breathe properly and meagre food rations.
The International Monument was inaugurated on September 8 1968. The central bronze sculpture shows human figures entangled in barbed wire. It is framed by stylized concrete pillars, which symbolise the guard installations.
