In early 1933, the National Socialists came to power in Germany. In October, after the burning of the Reichstag, Hitler received special powers and began decisive actions to establish the order he conceived in the country.
The Dachau concentration camp was the first institution of mass re-education of the population, for a start of German. The place was chosen in Bavaria, near Munich, almost in the suburbs (only 17 km), on the site of an abandoned factory.
The Social Democrats and Communists, who failed to create a parliamentary coalition for various reasons, formed the basis of the special contingent. In addition to them, homosexuals, prostitutes, criminals and all those whom the Nazi leadership considered asocial elements fell into the dungeons. In total, the first race totaled five thousand people. Then the mocking slogan appeared on the gate: "Labor makes free."
In the early years, the Dachau concentration camp really became a place of “reforging”. Former Communists and Social Democrats, having worked for several months in the fresh air with a strict diet, often expressed sympathy for National Socialism. Such people were released and given the opportunity to prove their loyalty in practice.
In 1934, it became clear that much more camps were required. The Dachau concentration camp has become a forge of personnel for the staff of the prison system of the entire Reich.
Then, after the All-German pogrom, which received the poetic name “Crystal Night,” they seriously took up the Jewish population. The first ten thousand were brought here in the 38th.
With the outbreak of World War II , the national composition of prisoners expanded. Throughout Germany and beyond (in the occupied territories), new institutions were created that were no longer intended for re-education. People were brought here to kill.
The Dachau concentration camp has become a place of application of industrial methods of killing "human material". It utilized everything that could be of value to the military economy - tooth crowns, hair, clothes, ashes remaining from burnt bodies. But this is not all - prisoners were used to conduct experiments to study the boundary regimes of the body within and beyond survival. For this purpose, the prisoners were subjected to hypothermia, they were tested poisonous substances and protective equipment, they received fatal injections of toxins. In quarantine blocks, observations were made of infected phlegmon. Butchers from the SS slaughtered people, fixing their dying torment.
At the end of April 1945, units of the seventh American army approached the outskirts of Munich . On their way was Dachau (concentration camp). Photos taken by American soldiers immediately after the release of the prisoners, recorded mountains of corpses, skeletons, covered in leather. The guards preferred to surrender without a fight. Then something happened that no one expected. The SS men were brought to the fence and shot everyone without exception. This mass execution was not even revenge - American soldiers simply killed nonhumans as mad bloodthirsty animals.
In the post-war years, much has been done in order to perpetuate the memory of the victims of Dachau. The concentration camp museum, however, according to surviving prisoners, does not provide a complete picture of the real atmosphere of the "death factory." The blocks are neatly repaired, plastered and whitewashed, inside - clean and tidy. Only the cold ovens of the crematorium and the mocking iron letters above the entrance remind of the horrors of twelve years of Nazi rule and two hundred thousand people turned here into ashes and yellowish smoke.