Dachau

Dachau (dä`khou), city, Bavaria, S Germany, on the Amper River; chartered in 1391. It is a rail junction and its industries include the production of paper, cardboard, electrical equipment, and textiles. There is a 16th-century castle. Nearby was (1933–45) the first Nazi concentration camp, which today has a number of memorials and a museum. Records indicate that at least 32,000 inmates died at the Dachau concentration camp, and numberless more were transported to extermination camps in Poland.

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Dachau

First Nazi concentration camp in Germany, established in 1933. It became the model and training center for all other SS-organized camps. In World War II the main camp was supplemented by about 150 branches in southern Germany and Austria, which were collectively called Dachau. It was the first and most important camp at which laboratories were set up to perform medical experiments on inmates. Such experiments and the harsh living conditions made Dachau one of the most notorious camps, though it was not designed as an extermination camp.

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Dachau

a town in S Germany, in Bavaria: site of a Nazi concentration camp. Pop.: 39 474 (2003 est.)

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Dachau

primarily work camp, experienced share of Nazi horrors. [Ger. Hist.: Hitler, 1055]

See : Genocide

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Dachau

the first concentration camp in Nazi Germany. Established in March 1933 on the outskirts of the town of Dachau (17 km from Munich).

During the period of the camp’s existence a total of 250,000 persons from 24 countries were imprisoned there, including some from the Soviet Union. Approximately 70,000 were brutally tortured or killed at Dachau, 140,000 were transported to other concentration camps, and 30,000 lived to be liberated. Criminal “medical experiments” were conducted on people in Dachau. During World War II (1939–45) the concentration camp had about 125 camp divisions and so-called external detachments at military enterprises in southern Germany and Austria. An underground organization of prisoners that was operating in Dachau under the leadership of an international committee staged an insurrection on Apr. 28, 1945, the day before the arrival of American troops, thus foiling the Nazi plan to annihilate all prisoners who were still alive. In 1960 a monument was unveiled to those who perished at Dachau.

REFERENCES

SS v deistvii. Moscow, 1969. (Translated from German.)
Hess, S. Dachau: Eine Welt ohne Gott. Nuremberg [1946].

A. B. GERMAN