On this day in 1945, Dachau was liberated by American troops of the U.S. Seventh Army’s 45th Infantry Division, headed by Gen, George Patton, and subdivision of the camp by the 42nd Rainbow Division. There were 123 sub-camps and factories in the vicinity of the town.
Dachau was the first concentration camp opened by the Nazi regime in 1933 on the grounds of an abandoned munitions factory less than 10 miles northeast of Munich. The camp was established 5 weeks after Adolf Hitler took power as chancellor and was used to house political prisoners, In 1938, the camp was primarily occupied by Jews. The camp served as a training center for the SS guards at other camps, medical experiments and forced labor.
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.
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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.