Dachau concentration camp (
German:
Konzentrationslager Dachau or
KZ-Dachau) was the first
Nazi concentration camp opened in Germany, located on the grounds of an abandoned
munitions factory near the
medieval town of
Dachau, about 16 km (10
miles) northwest of
Munich in the state of
Bavaria which is located in southern Germany.
Opened in March
1933[1], it was the first regular
concentration camp established by the coalition government of National Socialist Party (
Nazi Party) and the German Nationalist People's Party (dissolved on
6 July 1933).
Heinrich Himmler,
Chief of Police of Munich, officially described the camp as "the first concentration camp for
political prisoners."
[2] Dachau served as a
prototype and model for the other
Nazi concentration camps that followed. Almost every community in Germany had members taken away to these camps, and as early as
1935 there were
jingles warning: "Dear God, make me
dumb,
that I may not to Dachau come."
[3] Its basic organization, camp layout as well as the plan for the buildings were developed by
Kommandant 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 himself became the chief inspector for all concentration camps, responsible for molding the others according to his model.
[4] In total, over 200,000 prisoners from more than 30 countries were housed in Dachau of whom two-thirds were political prisoners and nearly one-third were
Jews.
[5] 25,613 prisoners are believed to have died in the camp and almost another 10,000 in its subcamps,
[6] primarily from disease, malnutrition and suicide. In early
1945, there was a
typhus epidemic in the camp followed by an evacuation, in which large numbers of the weaker prisoners died.
Together with the much larger
Auschwitz, Dachau has come to symbolize the Nazi concentration camps to many people. Konzentrationslager (KZ) Dachau holds a significant place in public memory because it was the second camp to be liberated by
British or
American forces. Therefore, it was one of the first places where the
West was exposed to the reality of
Nazi brutality through firsthand journalist accounts and through
newsreels.
[7]From
Wikipedia
