Massacre of SS guards at Dachau

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Sid Guttridge
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Re: The Dachau liberation 29/4 1945 (Speculations or facts?)

#211

Post by Sid Guttridge » 03 Jan 2009, 13:32

Hi Georg,

Would this be the same Dachau at which the death rate of inmates in the concentration camp was already so high in the 1930s that the local town's crematorium had difficulty coping with the extra workload and the camp applied for a crematorium of its own?

Cheers,

Sid.

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Georg_S
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Re: The Dachau liberation 29/4 1945 (Speculations or facts?)

#212

Post by Georg_S » 03 Jan 2009, 14:08

Hello Sid,

As I have written many times before I don´t questioning the Holocoust, and the deathrate of KL Dachau isn´t the Topic here so?? Was that anything that would bring more fact to the "incident" at April 29, 1945??

//Georg


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DrG
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Re: The Dachau liberation 29/4 1945 (Speculations or facts?)

#213

Post by DrG » 03 Jan 2009, 23:55

Just a note: a fact that usually is not noted is that the men who killed the guards of Dachau belonged to the same 45th Division that committed similar warcrimes in Sicily two years before: http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=54905.

Guido
Last edited by DrG on 04 Jan 2009, 17:50, edited 1 time in total.

Michael Kenny
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Re: The Dachau liberation 29/4 1945 (Speculations or facts?)

#214

Post by Michael Kenny » 04 Jan 2009, 00:14

Georg wrote: if one guy or police/ military/ goverment etc. came to me and asked "Have you comitted those murders", of course I would say " Yes I did" especially when it´s only one or two days after.
So then if the answer to the question
Did you kill the SS men
is
no I did not

Then the reason is the men are liars?
There is no possibility that the answer is the truth and they did not kill them?
Your method seems to be
agree with me=true
Contradict me = liar.
[David] Israel began hearing about the killings at Army reunions in the late 1980s. In the early years of his research, he was sometimes suspected by participants of being a spy for the Army, which -- for all the veterans knew -- might still prosecute them, he said.
As I see it there was killing of the SS Gaurds. The dispute is over the number killed.
You claim 350? 500? how many?
Can you show that there were that many SS men there?
Your witness claims no prisoners were taken.
How does that match up with the fact prisoners were taken..
what is hidden in the archives in US?
That presumes there are hidden items-you have yet to show there are any.

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Georg_S
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Re: The Dachau liberation 29/4 1945 (Speculations or facts?)

#215

Post by Georg_S » 04 Jan 2009, 09:17

Michael Kenny wrote:
Georg wrote: if one guy or police/ military/ goverment etc. came to me and asked "Have you comitted those murders", of course I would say " Yes I did" especially when it´s only one or two days after.
So then if the answer to the question
Did you kill the SS men
is
no I did not

Then the reason is the men are liars?
There is no possibility that the answer is the truth and they did not kill them?
Your method seems to be
agree with me=true
Contradict me = liar.
[David] Israel began hearing about the killings at Army reunions in the late 1980s. In the early years of his research, he was sometimes suspected by participants of being a spy for the Army, which -- for all the veterans knew -- might still prosecute them, he said.
As I see it there was killing of the SS Gaurds. The dispute is over the number killed.
You claim 350? 500? how many?
Can you show that there were that many SS men there?
Your witness claims no prisoners were taken.
How does that match up with the fact prisoners were taken..
what is hidden in the archives in US?
That presumes there are hidden items-you have yet to show there are any.

Yes in my point of view the most Soldiers of the 45 US Div who entered the Dachau camp and really saw what happened is a Liar. But with some good reasons, that was the reason I pasted once more what D. Israel said / wrote.

The number of how many will we never probably never get, we can maybe manage a good figure of how many got killed, I don´t think it was 30-60 SS-Soldiers as many claims, including the Gedenkstätte KL Dachau.
But if I would make a guess the number will probably be between above 150 + all those who died of wounds they recieved after they got Captured. But as I wrote in my earlier post IF the German Gov would end this questioning about how many SS men was killed on that day, they should locate the unmarked grave of the SS men, exhume the grave and see the cause of death, which unit they belonged to, and finally how many are put to rest here, then we have to make a guess how many SS men was burned in the crematorium.

Yes what is hidden i US Archived? I don´t know I was just thinking that we haven´t seen the whole truth about this, and I am sure that in some archives in the US or Germany there will be the answers.

I don´t say that everyone who´s arguing to me must "follow" my thoughts, we have had discussion in the past about this matter, and I had do give in because lack of evidence, when I now get evidence / witnesses they or me are questioned, But now, when those statement exists see first post, we have a letter, all the witnesses must be around 10 at the time who says what happened so all of those 10 also must be Liars as well, just because they told what happened, even "Sammy" a jewish US Veteren would lie, with the risk of being prosecuted (which I doubt will happen)`?

Reg
Georg

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Re: The Dachau liberation 29/4 1945 (Speculations or facts?)

#216

Post by Georg_S » 04 Jan 2009, 10:15

One more thing, the only sources we have that tells us how many SS-men died at the coalyard is the two responcible US-officers, who was in charge of the soldiers that day. I have read somewhere that the Lueitenant who managed to stop the killing at the coalyard (famous photo when he is shooting with his Colt 45) that he was afraid that he now would be dismissed from the army and was trheatened to end up at Leawenworth (? spelling) But we can say that he was saved by Patton.

We can also ask us self why did the US soldiers at KL Dachau react in the way they did, we have seen and heard the excuse that the train with all the dead from KL Buchenwald, but it wasn´t new to this soldiers that they would meet terrible things when they entered such camps two weeks before Daucha the US Amry liberated the KL Buchenwald, with many corpses laying around the camp. Those soldiers who was there didn´t react the way as they did in Dachau, the Brits at KL BErgen Belsen even let SS-Hstuf Kramer with remaining staff walk in the camp TWO days before they arrested him/them. Then we have all the Subcamps, OK there it wasn´t many SS (if not a single one) left in those camps, I´m thinking most of Kauferingen Camps and PM Allach etc.

Those figures made by those responcible is the only source of how many died that day. Isn´t that strange? It´s like give Charles Manson the opportunity to be his own judge ....

Best regards,

Georg

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Re: The Dachau liberation 29/4 1945 (Speculations or facts?)

#217

Post by Michael Kenny » 04 Jan 2009, 15:16

Georg wrote: We can also ask us self why did the US soldiers at KL Dachau react in the way they did,
Because they were sickened and disgusted by the barbarity of the SS?
Because they were human and they got angry when they thought about the deptravity of the animals who allowed this to happen?
Because they were normal human beings ?
I probably would have done the same.

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Re: The Dachau liberation 29/4 1945 (Speculations or facts?)

#218

Post by Rob - wssob2 » 04 Jan 2009, 16:54

I have to bring this matter up again, because in the past I have been asked for evidence that it occurred as stated i.e. that the death rate of the SS at Dachau the day of the liberation was much higher then stated by many people, that includes witnesses and historians, both pro´s and amateurs.
We’ve discussed this over and over and over again on the forum already. Well, what’s one more time….
What I have found so far is a photo that shows that Buchner former Dr from the Btl of 45 US div who liberated the Dachau camp in april 1945,
I think by photo you mean the diagram Buechner drew of the coal yard shooting for his postwar book Hour of the Avenger. The diagram is inaccurate and contradicts his 1945 testimony, grossly inflating the number of dead he saw from 16 (what he claimed in his 1945 testimony) to 300+ (what he claimed in his book written 40 years later). The inaccurate diagram is a staple on revisionist websites.
but I also have found a lot of witnesses that confirms that the guards of the Camp was mainly from ordinary Waffen-SS units
Not to quibble, but ordinary KZ guards (totenkopfwachsturmbanne) were part of the Waffen-SS. But I assume you mean the “good guy” frontline Waffen-SS.
who had been withdrawn from battle
Which battle?
just to replace the ordinary SS-Guards of the KZ Dachau. One witness has confirmed that into a mail to me, he was himself a member of the 45 US Div. and was one of the liberators of KZ Dachau.
And can you provide your correspondent’s name, unit and a synopsis of his role during the liberation?

All witness statement below is from people who were in the camp either as inmate or as liberator.

One witness is particular interesting, David Israel,
David Israel wasn’t a witness to the Dachau liberation. He’s the author of a postwar book Tears of the Thunderbird. His book includes a chapter on the liberation.

writes that the former vets of the 45´th Div, is silent because they still fear that the US-Gov will punish them if the real truth of what happened in KZ Dachau on April 29 1945 comes out. - If this is the truth I don´t know, much because it´s published on a so called “Revisionist” homepage (I believe)
Your source is David Irving, and yes, he is a bona-fide dyed-in-the-wool pro-Nazi revisionist. Why any of the 45th vets present at the liberation wouldn’t want to talk about the event for fear of prosecution doesn’t make sense. Lt. Col. Sparks and Lt. Walsh, both mentioned in the Inspector General’s investigation of the incident, talked and wrote freely about their experiences multiple times in the postwar years with no legal repercussions whatsoever.

The crimes committed by the US forces at KZ Dachau April 1945

1. Summarily executions of unarmed Soldiers who clearly had surrendered, the figure is unknown but those statement and photos shows clearly that it´s much higher then earlier said.
The figure isn’t unknown; its somewhere between 50-100.

There are 3 main documented incidents
– the death train (5 SS men killed) by members of the 157th IR, 45th Infantry Division
– the coal yard (17 SS men killed) by members of the 157th IR, 45th Infantry Division
- Tower B (10-17 SS men killed) by members of the 42nd Infantry Division

There is one incident in which a 45th ID soldier lent his rifle to KZ inmates, who used it to shoot two guards.

There are several unconfirmed incidents in which single SS men were killed by US troops and KZ inmates BUT the total number of SS men killed during that day that I can determine, cross checking with multiple sources, is probably no more than 100. Note that my estimate is greater than Herbert Marcuse ("Legacies of Dachau" p52, estimates 40-50 SS killed) but is much less that Buechner’s specious 560.

2. Participating of murder, US soldiers gave the inmates guns and rifles so they could take revenge on the SS, in many cases the US soldiers turned their backs to the killing.
That is correct in at least one instance, which was documented as Point #31 in the Seventh Army’s Inspector General’s report:
“…Inmates shot and killed two guards, using a service rifle which they took from a soldier on guard duty, one P.F.C. Peter J. De Marzo, 42175967, Company “L,” 157th Infantry, 45th Division. No investigation of the circumstances was made in such soldier’s company…”
3. Trying to cover up the crime, first was Gen. Patton burning the first report without action, the report who turned up in the 90´s is it the real report or in other ways the complete report.
The Seventh Army Inspector General investigated the alleged mistreatment of surrendered German personnel during the April 29th liberation of Dachau and submitted a report dated June 8, 1945. The report recommended the report be forwarded to the commanding officer “for such action as he may deem appropriate.” Seventh Army commander Whittaker passed the report along to Patton, because the 45th ID was now serving under his command. Patton declined to initiate criminal proceedings, a decision well within his role as commander. Case closed.

The “burning up” the report is most likely hyperbole invented by Col. Felix Sparks about his supposed meeting with Patton about the incident. A copy of the report – presumably not the one burned in the trash can - survived, as it was eventually filed in the US National Archives.

The Boston Globe reported the report declassified by the US National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) in 1987. In 2001, that paper ran an extensive investigative piece on the Dachau liberation as part of its “WWII: The Secret History” series. That online piece included a transcription of the Seventh Army IG’s interviews with circa 41 witnesses and participants, and runs 71 pages printed out. (I’ve printed it out and have a copy with me)

A Photostat of the original report is reproduced on pp.129-132 of John H. Linden’s 1997 book Surrender of the Dachau Concentration Camp 29 Apr 1945: The True Account, although the declassification date of that reproduction is 1992. I also own a copy of this book, which I purchased through the 42nd Division’s veterans association.

As for a “cover-up,” of shooting SS guards, I’d argue that it was well-known, at least among American audiences, that SS troops were killed at Dachau in less than a combat situation.

For example, journalist Howard Cowan wrote in his piece on the Dachau liberation “…The GIs stormed through the camp with tornadic fury. Not a stone’s throw from a trainload of corpses lay the bodies of 16 SS men shot down as they fled the tommygunning yanks.” (“City General Helps to Free 32,000 in Camp,” Minneapolis Daily Times, April 30, 1945.)

At least three journalists reported on the liberation, and two of them (Marguerite Higgins and Peter Furst) were physically there during the actual liberation.

If you still want to believe in a cover-up, don’t assume a conspiracy when carelessness will suffice: the historian for the 157th Infantry Regiment mentioned to me that the report was misfiled at NARA under “157th Infantry Division.”

4. Removing the dogtags and other ID from the victims and burying them into unmarked graves.
What is your source for this allegation?
5. Avoiding to give the wounded soldiers medical care, which is a violation of the Geneva convention
Again, documented in the 7th IG’s report in point #29, which states that Lt. Howard E. Buecher “…violated his duty both as a physician and a soldier in ignoring the possibility of saving the wounded but still living prisoners who had been shot.” (See Surrender of the Dachau Concentration Camp 29 Apr 1945: The True Account, p. 131)
6. Mutilation of captured soldiers, see photo evidence, and statement
You are incorrect. Point #17, 7th IG report: “…there is no evidence that the SS men were mutilated before they were shot.” See Surrender of the Dachau Concentration Camp 29 Apr 1945: The True Account, p. 131.

One thing which would be very interesting and to close this speculations of what occurred at the April 29, 1945, and that is if the German Gov. would locate the unmarked Graves of the SS-soldiers murdered in KZ Dachau on that day,
Yes, we should hold off on locating, exhuming, and identifying all the thousands of unidentified civilian Dachau KZ inmates killed by the SS at the death train and the last week of SS administration until we get to the bottom of the what exactly happened to the circa 80-odd Waffen-SS concentration camp guards on April 29th, 1945.

Besides the names and personal histories of the 2,000 dead "muselmänner" found on the death train at Dachau are so unimportant anyway, right? We know so little about these individuals, these humans - their names, their stories. But they are nothing but heaps of bones, not people but part of the Dachau stage set to forum members like Georg, who fret over the innocence of killed SS concentration camp guards.



and make a proper exhumination of the bodies, question which would answered is:

1. How many got killed?
I answered that question for you.
2. Was the skeletons showing evidence that they got mutilated? As many witnesses claims here.
You won’t need forensic evidence. Many first-hand accounts of the liberation mention that former KZ inmates “stomped” former KZ guards to death. Read the testimony of former KZ inmate Marion Okrutnik, interviewed as part of the Seventh Army IG report.

3. Maybe some skeletons could be identified, DNA etc perhaps is it there were the DOG tags are laying, then we would get the answer if they belonged to the regular Waffen-SS or SS-KL Wachsturmbanne?
SS-KZ Wachsturmbanne WERE members of the Waffen-SS.

BTW captured SS men dug the mass graves for the KZ inmate corpses at Leiten Hill between May 5-10, 1945. Read Marcuse’s Legacies of Dachau, p. 57 and footnote 54.

BTW The Munich branch of the German Red Cross has compiled lists of military and civilians unaccounted for in the general area during the last weeks of the war. These lists include names of Dachau KZ guards who were MIA late April 1945. I’ll add a list of these names in a follow-up post.

All sources is from various webpage on the Internet I used the search criteria “Dachau Massacre” and found a LOT of WebPages containing info regard this subject.
I’ll give you a helpful tip. Do your research in the library first, then look at material on the internet. Just because something is online doesn’t mean it’s factual. Most online accounts of the Dachau liberation are grossly inaccurate, even Dachau Scrapbook. Don’t trust the online sources unless the are backed up with written citations. And even the written accounts will contradict one another. Nerin Gun, Michael Selzner and Howie Buechner’s accounts all contain gross factual errors.

Arthur Haulot, a Belgian political prisoner in the camp, wrote the following in his diary regarding the events of April 29, 1945:
The SS-officers are executed the same afternoon. At night the soldiers suffer the same fate. The Americans say: "Since we saw the first camp, we have known. We understood that we were not engaged in war against soldiers and officers, but against criminals. We treat them like criminals."
What is your source for this text above? I’ll take a URL if that’s all you have.

For other members, Arthur Haulot was a former KZ inmate and the second president of the Dachau “International Prisoners Committee” until he was repatriated from the camp in June 1945. He was for decades the president of the Belgian survivor’s association for the KZ.
In a diary entry, dated May 2, 1945 Arthur Haulot wrote that the Americans continued to kill the SS soldiers days after the surrender of the camp.
Source, please?

Unknown to 1st Lt. Cowling was the fact that the guards in the towers, who had surrendered, were not the regular guards, most of whom had escaped the day before. The SS men in the towers were replacements, including some of the 128 SS soldiers who were prisoners at Dachau. In his letter to his parents, Cowling wrote:
The Germans I took prisoner are very fortunate they were taken before I saw the Camp. I will never take another German prisoner armed or unarmed. How can they expect to do what they have done and simply say I quit and go scot free. I know now why our men kick and abuse the German prisoners. They are not fit to live.
This text reads like a mashup between Michael Selzner’s Deliverance Day and a snippet of Lt. Cowling’s April 30th letter to his parents, reproduced on p. 22-24 of the book Dachau 29 April 1945: The Rainbow Division Memoirs (Edited by Sam Dann - Texas Tech University Press - Lubbock, TX – 1998)

George, you didn’t seem to pick up on the phrase “…The Germans I took prisoner” – Cowling is describing his taking POWs that day (and not shooting them). In fact, the letter in question mentions two separate incidents at Dachau KZ in which Cowling took prisoners.

Also, at least in the Tower B incident in which circa a dozen surrendered SS troops were shot, two independent witnesses (KZ Inmate Marion Okrutnik and T/3 Henry Wells of the HQ MIS, 42nd ID) both mention that one of the SS guards made a “sudden move” as if reaching for a pistol under his armpit – which they ascribed as the reason the SS troopers were gunned down.

Abram Sachar statement
"Soon the advance scouts were joined by other Allied soldiers and one of the German guards came forward to surrender with what he believed would be the usual military protocol. He emerged in full regalia, wearing all his decorations. He had only recently been billeted to Dachau from the Russian front. He saluted and barked `Heil Hitler.' An American officer looked down and around at mounds of rotting corpses, at thousands of prisoners shrouded in their own filth. He hesitated only a moment, then spat in the Nazi's face, snapping `Schweinehund,' before ordering him taken away. Moments later a shot rang out and the American officer was informed that there was no further need for protocol.
Who is Abram Sachar?

This text is a mashup of Nerin Gun’s of the fictional Dachau-surrendering“young Teutontic lieutentant, Heinrich Skodzensky” SS officer from his book The Day of the Americans (- Fleet Publishing Corp. - NY – 1966).

BTW Gun claimed his account was based on the account given to him by the Lt. Commander R.N. “Patrick O'Leary” (aka Albert Guerisse), the first President of the International Prisoners' Committee. Gun/O’Leary’s account also mention “bursts” from a US Army tank’s silencing machine gun fire from one of the guard towers – another event that didn’t happen, especially since there were no US Army tanks present at the liberation.




Some of the Nazis were rounded up and summarily executed along with the guard dogs. Two of the most notorious prison guards had been stripped naked before the Americans arrived to prevent them from slipping away unnoticed. They, too, were cut down.
Actually this specific quote may refer to several kapos killed that day, one of them supposedly named Mandzourian.

Col. Howard Buechner of the 45th Division wrote in his book "The Hour of the Avenger" that a company of 200 Waffen-SS soldiers had arrived the day before to replace other Waffen-SS soldiers who had deserted from the Dachau garrison.
Buechner is incorrect. He also wasn’t in a position to know what unit the guards were from. The SS men Buechner saw shot and dying were from the walking wounded company.

The SS men in the towers were replacements, including some of the 128 SS soldiers who were prisoners at Dachau.
And your source that claims former SS men who were KZ inmates, suddenly given guns and cammo uniforms and told to man the guard towers is…?

The following morning I reported to General Patton's Chief of Staff and arranged for an appointment with the general that afternoon. At the appointed time, I reported to the general. He then said to me:
"Colonel, I have some serious court-martial charges against you and some of your men here on my desk. " I replied that I had never been advised of any specific charges but that I would like to offer an explanation of the events that took place at Dachau.
The general paused for a moment and then said: "There is no point in an explanation. I have already had these charges investigated, and they are a bunch of crap. I'm going to tear up these goddamn papers on you and your men."
This text is taken from the Boston Globe article, based on Sparks postwar account.

Interestingly enough, John H. Linden has some interesting documentation in his book which indicates that Sparks never met Patton.

It may not be well known on this forum, but in US Army veteran circles the big controversy about the liberation of Dachau wasn’t the shooting of prisoners but whether the 42nd or 45th ID liberated the camp and the supposed altercation between Sparks and General Linden at the jourhaus gate. It apparently caused a lot of bad blood between the two division’s veteran’s organizations.

John Linden’s book about his father’s actions on April 29, 1945 is in many ways an attempt to smear Spark’s account of the liberation and war-crimes investigation and exonerate the charges that his father strayed into the 45th Division’s AO (area of operations, which included Dachau) in order to get the glory of liberating Dachau and provide journalist Maggie Higgins with a scoop.

Accounts of Maggie Higgin’s role in the KZ liberation also got bigger in the (re)telling:

: “…Higgins learned quickly that transportation makes or breaks a war correspondent. The stories became legion of the lissome blond nuzzling up to pilots to hitch rides while other correspondents , and sometimes even the wounded, remained grounded. Higgins always got to go where she wanted to go. Her first coup gave her a plane and a jeep into Buchenwald just hours after Allied troops rolled back the veil hiding the madness of the Holocaust. Bit the real show came at Dachau, Hitler’s origional concentration camp. There the world caught its first glimpse of the Maggie Higgins whose exploits it would soon come to know.

Higgins was six miles away when she heard that American forces were poised to take the camp. She commandeered a jeep and headed out in a beeline, even thought the six miles still belonged to the Germans. With a reporter from the “Stars and Stripes” driving, Higgins disarmed and accepted the surrender of dozens of retreating soldiers, quitting only when the jeep would carry no more captured weapons.

Nearing the camp, two jeeps carrying the advance guard of the American troops fell in behind the reporters. At the gate American soldiers waited for their troops. Higgins and her colleagues did not. The smell was overwhelming, but Higgins spotted a little courtyard planted primly with rows of budding roses. As she turned in for a look, her colleague screamed frantically at her, and she looked up at a watchtower. It was jammed with SS men, all of their weapons trained on her. As she wrote later, she had “the instinctive feeling there was absolutely no point in running.” Instead, she shouted up to them “Kommen Sie hier, bitte,” and they came – twenty-two SS men surrendering to a twenty-four-year-old woman from Oakland. After Dachau, no one ever said Maggie Higgins didn’t have the guts to go with her gall.”


Once Upon A Distant War: Young War Correspondents and the Early Vietnam Battles – William Prochnau – times Books New York – 1995 – pp. 337-338

The tall tales of the Dachau liberation began on April 30th, 1945 and continued on throughout the postwar years.




Lt. Col. Joseph Whitaker, the Seventh Army's Assistant Inspector General, was subsequently ordered to investigate after witnesses came forward testifying to the massacre.
Witnesses didn’t “come forward” – the IG ordered them to testify.

The soldiers involved in shooting the POWs were court[-]martialed
Arrrgh. THEY WEREN”T COURT-MARTIALED!! Get your facts straight, or stop cutting and pasting inaccurate information from the internet!

Trubia:
We went back and through the gate and found out what it was. We looked at the gas chambers, the furnaces, went into the infirmary where there was a mother and child, and rigor mortis hadn’t even set in yet. The Germans were killin’ these prisoners right up to the last minute. I saw a prisoner take a guard by the arm, pull his arm out straight, and the other guy hit him with a cane and broke his arm, and then they tried to twist it off of him. That’s when I lost my breakfast. They just went wild. They tore the Germans apart by hand, just tore ’em apart by hand. Oh God, I couldn’t sleep for a week.
There were circa 100 US soldiers present at the actual liberation of the camp. PFC Dominick Trubia is only mentioned in Buechner’s postwar account. He wasn’t interviewed by the Seventh Army IG.


Winburn:
About an hour after we got back to the town they come after us agin’. They sent about six of us up. “Go back to Dachau. They’re shootin’ up the guards. Go git ’em out before they shoot any more.”
Everything was open by then. We went about a hundred yards in. There the guards was, about fifty of ’em. We lined ’em up four abreast. I was right up by the front on one side. There was two or three of ’em shot up. I tole the others, “You better help ’em if you want outta here.” They’d got ’em out in the street there when we got there. No idea how many’d been killed. Then we took ’em back to the town.
On the right where we went in we passed that shower where they gassed ’em, with the piles o’ clothing. We were only in there for twenty minutes or so, jest
“agin’… shootin’…’em… many’d… piles o’ clothing” = Is this a B-grade Western?

(about Buchners book)
To the best of my knowledge, the book contains an accurate reconstruction of the events which took place at Dachau during the time of liberation, with the exception of actions attributed to Lieutenant Bushyhead and the number of German casualties.
I’ve read the book. It’s not. BTW the exception you are claiming is the main “350+ Waffen-SS POWS executed” fable.

Here’s two other gross errors in Buchners book (of many):

- P20: Buechner mentioned the 157th SS regiment as "they never met their American counterparts in battle" – that’s right they didn’t – no 157th SS Regiment ever existed.

p23 Buechner railed against the "error" that journalists Marguerite Higgins and Peter Furst, travelling with General Linden’s group from the 42nd Infantry Division, were first to enter the KZ. But Higgins and Furst were MOST DEFINITELY among the first US troops to liberate the KZ – we know this from her dispatch, the official reports from the 42nd, the photographs taken during the liberation (which show her standing next to surrendering SS officer Wicker!) and books like Flint Whitlock’s history of the 45th ID, "The Rock of Anzio" Buechner’s attempted to "prove" that the 45th ID liberated the KZ first, but he got his facts wrong.



(As for charges that Buechner had failed to halt a massacre or treat the wounded, they were dismissed following an initial inquiry, Sparks wrote, while the others charged were summoned to Patton’s headquarters, questioned and dismissed. Lieutenant Bushyhead, Buechner claimed, was brought before the General himself, who questioned him, then ordered the investigating officers to appear with the entire evidence they had gathered, burned it in his metal wastebasket and had the affair stricken from the record.
Buechner wasn’t prosecuted – correct. Did Bushyhead meet Patton? No.

Georg, every point you have brought up has been discussed at length and refuted in previous posts.

I suggest that rather than cutting and pasting higgledy-piggedly from various websites, you re-read the previous topic threads on the subject, and purchase the following excellent, fact-based accounts of the liberation:

Legacies of Dachau: The Uses and Abuses of a Concentration Camp 1933-2001 - Harold Marcuse - Cambridge University Press - NY, NY - 2001

The Rock of Anzio: From Sicily to Dachau: A History of the US 45th Infantry Division - Flint Whitlock - Westview Press - Boulder, Colorado – 1998

Surrender of the Dachau Concentration Camp 29 April 1945: The True Account" - John H. Linden - Sycamore Press - Elm Grove, WI, USA - 1997

Dachau: The Harrowing of Hell - by Marcus J. Smith - University of New Mexico Press - 1972

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Georg_S
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Re: The Dachau liberation 29/4 1945 (Speculations or facts?)

#219

Post by Georg_S » 04 Jan 2009, 20:47

Rob - wssob2 wrote:
I have to bring this matter up again, because in the past I have been asked for evidence that it occurred as stated i.e. that the death rate of the SS at Dachau the day of the liberation was much higher then stated by many people, that includes witnesses and historians, both pro´s and amateurs.
We’ve discussed this over and over and over again on the forum already. Well, what’s one more time….
What I have found so far is a photo that shows that Buchner former Dr from the Btl of 45 US div who liberated the Dachau camp in april 1945,
I think by photo you mean the diagram Buechner drew of the coal yard shooting for his postwar book Hour of the Avenger. The diagram is inaccurate and contradicts his 1945 testimony, grossly inflating the number of dead he saw from 16 (what he claimed in his 1945 testimony) to 300+ (what he claimed in his book written 40 years later). The inaccurate diagram is a staple on revisionist websites.
but I also have found a lot of witnesses that confirms that the guards of the Camp was mainly from ordinary Waffen-SS units
Not to quibble, but ordinary KZ guards (totenkopfwachsturmbanne) were part of the Waffen-SS. But I assume you mean the “good guy” frontline Waffen-SS.
who had been withdrawn from battle
Which battle?
just to replace the ordinary SS-Guards of the KZ Dachau. One witness has confirmed that into a mail to me, he was himself a member of the 45 US Div. and was one of the liberators of KZ Dachau.
And can you provide your correspondent’s name, unit and a synopsis of his role during the liberation?

All witness statement below is from people who were in the camp either as inmate or as liberator.

One witness is particular interesting, David Israel,
David Israel wasn’t a witness to the Dachau liberation. He’s the author of a postwar book Tears of the Thunderbird. His book includes a chapter on the liberation.

writes that the former vets of the 45´th Div, is silent because they still fear that the US-Gov will punish them if the real truth of what happened in KZ Dachau on April 29 1945 comes out. - If this is the truth I don´t know, much because it´s published on a so called “Revisionist” homepage (I believe)
Your source is David Irving, and yes, he is a bona-fide dyed-in-the-wool pro-Nazi revisionist. Why any of the 45th vets present at the liberation wouldn’t want to talk about the event for fear of prosecution doesn’t make sense. Lt. Col. Sparks and Lt. Walsh, both mentioned in the Inspector General’s investigation of the incident, talked and wrote freely about their experiences multiple times in the postwar years with no legal repercussions whatsoever.

The crimes committed by the US forces at KZ Dachau April 1945

1. Summarily executions of unarmed Soldiers who clearly had surrendered, the figure is unknown but those statement and photos shows clearly that it´s much higher then earlier said.
The figure isn’t unknown; its somewhere between 50-100.

There are 3 main documented incidents
– the death train (5 SS men killed) by members of the 157th IR, 45th Infantry Division
– the coal yard (17 SS men killed) by members of the 157th IR, 45th Infantry Division
- Tower B (10-17 SS men killed) by members of the 42nd Infantry Division

There is one incident in which a 45th ID soldier lent his rifle to KZ inmates, who used it to shoot two guards.

There are several unconfirmed incidents in which single SS men were killed by US troops and KZ inmates BUT the total number of SS men killed during that day that I can determine, cross checking with multiple sources, is probably no more than 100. Note that my estimate is greater than Herbert Marcuse ("Legacies of Dachau" p52, estimates 40-50 SS killed) but is much less that Buechner’s specious 560.

2. Participating of murder, US soldiers gave the inmates guns and rifles so they could take revenge on the SS, in many cases the US soldiers turned their backs to the killing.
That is correct in at least one instance, which was documented as Point #31 in the Seventh Army’s Inspector General’s report:
“…Inmates shot and killed two guards, using a service rifle which they took from a soldier on guard duty, one P.F.C. Peter J. De Marzo, 42175967, Company “L,” 157th Infantry, 45th Division. No investigation of the circumstances was made in such soldier’s company…”
3. Trying to cover up the crime, first was Gen. Patton burning the first report without action, the report who turned up in the 90´s is it the real report or in other ways the complete report.
The Seventh Army Inspector General investigated the alleged mistreatment of surrendered German personnel during the April 29th liberation of Dachau and submitted a report dated June 8, 1945. The report recommended the report be forwarded to the commanding officer “for such action as he may deem appropriate.” Seventh Army commander Whittaker passed the report along to Patton, because the 45th ID was now serving under his command. Patton declined to initiate criminal proceedings, a decision well within his role as commander. Case closed.

The “burning up” the report is most likely hyperbole invented by Col. Felix Sparks about his supposed meeting with Patton about the incident. A copy of the report – presumably not the one burned in the trash can - survived, as it was eventually filed in the US National Archives.

The Boston Globe reported the report declassified by the US National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) in 1987. In 2001, that paper ran an extensive investigative piece on the Dachau liberation as part of its “WWII: The Secret History” series. That online piece included a transcription of the Seventh Army IG’s interviews with circa 41 witnesses and participants, and runs 71 pages printed out. (I’ve printed it out and have a copy with me)

A Photostat of the original report is reproduced on pp.129-132 of John H. Linden’s 1997 book Surrender of the Dachau Concentration Camp 29 Apr 1945: The True Account, although the declassification date of that reproduction is 1992. I also own a copy of this book, which I purchased through the 42nd Division’s veterans association.

As for a “cover-up,” of shooting SS guards, I’d argue that it was well-known, at least among American audiences, that SS troops were killed at Dachau in less than a combat situation.

For example, journalist Howard Cowan wrote in his piece on the Dachau liberation “…The GIs stormed through the camp with tornadic fury. Not a stone’s throw from a trainload of corpses lay the bodies of 16 SS men shot down as they fled the tommygunning yanks.” (“City General Helps to Free 32,000 in Camp,” Minneapolis Daily Times, April 30, 1945.)

At least three journalists reported on the liberation, and two of them (Marguerite Higgins and Peter Furst) were physically there during the actual liberation.

If you still want to believe in a cover-up, don’t assume a conspiracy when carelessness will suffice: the historian for the 157th Infantry Regiment mentioned to me that the report was misfiled at NARA under “157th Infantry Division.”

4. Removing the dogtags and other ID from the victims and burying them into unmarked graves.
What is your source for this allegation?
5. Avoiding to give the wounded soldiers medical care, which is a violation of the Geneva convention
Again, documented in the 7th IG’s report in point #29, which states that Lt. Howard E. Buecher “…violated his duty both as a physician and a soldier in ignoring the possibility of saving the wounded but still living prisoners who had been shot.” (See Surrender of the Dachau Concentration Camp 29 Apr 1945: The True Account, p. 131)
6. Mutilation of captured soldiers, see photo evidence, and statement
You are incorrect. Point #17, 7th IG report: “…there is no evidence that the SS men were mutilated before they were shot.” See Surrender of the Dachau Concentration Camp 29 Apr 1945: The True Account, p. 131.

One thing which would be very interesting and to close this speculations of what occurred at the April 29, 1945, and that is if the German Gov. would locate the unmarked Graves of the SS-soldiers murdered in KZ Dachau on that day,
Yes, we should hold off on locating, exhuming, and identifying all the thousands of unidentified civilian Dachau KZ inmates killed by the SS at the death train and the last week of SS administration until we get to the bottom of the what exactly happened to the circa 80-odd Waffen-SS concentration camp guards on April 29th, 1945.

Besides the names and personal histories of the 2,000 dead "muselmänner" found on the death train at Dachau are so unimportant anyway, right? We know so little about these individuals, these humans - their names, their stories. But they are nothing but heaps of bones, not people but part of the Dachau stage set to forum members like Georg, who fret over the innocence of killed SS concentration camp guards.



and make a proper exhumination of the bodies, question which would answered is:

1. How many got killed?
I answered that question for you.
2. Was the skeletons showing evidence that they got mutilated? As many witnesses claims here.
You won’t need forensic evidence. Many first-hand accounts of the liberation mention that former KZ inmates “stomped” former KZ guards to death. Read the testimony of former KZ inmate Marion Okrutnik, interviewed as part of the Seventh Army IG report.

3. Maybe some skeletons could be identified, DNA etc perhaps is it there were the DOG tags are laying, then we would get the answer if they belonged to the regular Waffen-SS or SS-KL Wachsturmbanne?
SS-KZ Wachsturmbanne WERE members of the Waffen-SS.

BTW captured SS men dug the mass graves for the KZ inmate corpses at Leiten Hill between May 5-10, 1945. Read Marcuse’s Legacies of Dachau, p. 57 and footnote 54.

BTW The Munich branch of the German Red Cross has compiled lists of military and civilians unaccounted for in the general area during the last weeks of the war. These lists include names of Dachau KZ guards who were MIA late April 1945. I’ll add a list of these names in a follow-up post.

All sources is from various webpage on the Internet I used the search criteria “Dachau Massacre” and found a LOT of WebPages containing info regard this subject.
I’ll give you a helpful tip. Do your research in the library first, then look at material on the internet. Just because something is online doesn’t mean it’s factual. Most online accounts of the Dachau liberation are grossly inaccurate, even Dachau Scrapbook. Don’t trust the online sources unless the are backed up with written citations. And even the written accounts will contradict one another. Nerin Gun, Michael Selzner and Howie Buechner’s accounts all contain gross factual errors.

Arthur Haulot, a Belgian political prisoner in the camp, wrote the following in his diary regarding the events of April 29, 1945:
The SS-officers are executed the same afternoon. At night the soldiers suffer the same fate. The Americans say: "Since we saw the first camp, we have known. We understood that we were not engaged in war against soldiers and officers, but against criminals. We treat them like criminals."
What is your source for this text above? I’ll take a URL if that’s all you have.

For other members, Arthur Haulot was a former KZ inmate and the second president of the Dachau “International Prisoners Committee” until he was repatriated from the camp in June 1945. He was for decades the president of the Belgian survivor’s association for the KZ.
In a diary entry, dated May 2, 1945 Arthur Haulot wrote that the Americans continued to kill the SS soldiers days after the surrender of the camp.
Source, please?

Unknown to 1st Lt. Cowling was the fact that the guards in the towers, who had surrendered, were not the regular guards, most of whom had escaped the day before. The SS men in the towers were replacements, including some of the 128 SS soldiers who were prisoners at Dachau. In his letter to his parents, Cowling wrote:
The Germans I took prisoner are very fortunate they were taken before I saw the Camp. I will never take another German prisoner armed or unarmed. How can they expect to do what they have done and simply say I quit and go scot free. I know now why our men kick and abuse the German prisoners. They are not fit to live.
This text reads like a mashup between Michael Selzner’s Deliverance Day and a snippet of Lt. Cowling’s April 30th letter to his parents, reproduced on p. 22-24 of the book Dachau 29 April 1945: The Rainbow Division Memoirs (Edited by Sam Dann - Texas Tech University Press - Lubbock, TX – 1998)

George, you didn’t seem to pick up on the phrase “…The Germans I took prisoner” – Cowling is describing his taking POWs that day (and not shooting them). In fact, the letter in question mentions two separate incidents at Dachau KZ in which Cowling took prisoners.

Also, at least in the Tower B incident in which circa a dozen surrendered SS troops were shot, two independent witnesses (KZ Inmate Marion Okrutnik and T/3 Henry Wells of the HQ MIS, 42nd ID) both mention that one of the SS guards made a “sudden move” as if reaching for a pistol under his armpit – which they ascribed as the reason the SS troopers were gunned down.

Abram Sachar statement
"Soon the advance scouts were joined by other Allied soldiers and one of the German guards came forward to surrender with what he believed would be the usual military protocol. He emerged in full regalia, wearing all his decorations. He had only recently been billeted to Dachau from the Russian front. He saluted and barked `Heil Hitler.' An American officer looked down and around at mounds of rotting corpses, at thousands of prisoners shrouded in their own filth. He hesitated only a moment, then spat in the Nazi's face, snapping `Schweinehund,' before ordering him taken away. Moments later a shot rang out and the American officer was informed that there was no further need for protocol.
Who is Abram Sachar?

This text is a mashup of Nerin Gun’s of the fictional Dachau-surrendering“young Teutontic lieutentant, Heinrich Skodzensky” SS officer from his book The Day of the Americans (- Fleet Publishing Corp. - NY – 1966).

BTW Gun claimed his account was based on the account given to him by the Lt. Commander R.N. “Patrick O'Leary” (aka Albert Guerisse), the first President of the International Prisoners' Committee. Gun/O’Leary’s account also mention “bursts” from a US Army tank’s silencing machine gun fire from one of the guard towers – another event that didn’t happen, especially since there were no US Army tanks present at the liberation.




Some of the Nazis were rounded up and summarily executed along with the guard dogs. Two of the most notorious prison guards had been stripped naked before the Americans arrived to prevent them from slipping away unnoticed. They, too, were cut down.
Actually this specific quote may refer to several kapos killed that day, one of them supposedly named Mandzourian.

Col. Howard Buechner of the 45th Division wrote in his book "The Hour of the Avenger" that a company of 200 Waffen-SS soldiers had arrived the day before to replace other Waffen-SS soldiers who had deserted from the Dachau garrison.
Buechner is incorrect. He also wasn’t in a position to know what unit the guards were from. The SS men Buechner saw shot and dying were from the walking wounded company.

The SS men in the towers were replacements, including some of the 128 SS soldiers who were prisoners at Dachau.
And your source that claims former SS men who were KZ inmates, suddenly given guns and cammo uniforms and told to man the guard towers is…?

The following morning I reported to General Patton's Chief of Staff and arranged for an appointment with the general that afternoon. At the appointed time, I reported to the general. He then said to me:
"Colonel, I have some serious court-martial charges against you and some of your men here on my desk. " I replied that I had never been advised of any specific charges but that I would like to offer an explanation of the events that took place at Dachau.
The general paused for a moment and then said: "There is no point in an explanation. I have already had these charges investigated, and they are a bunch of crap. I'm going to tear up these goddamn papers on you and your men."
This text is taken from the Boston Globe article, based on Sparks postwar account.

Interestingly enough, John H. Linden has some interesting documentation in his book which indicates that Sparks never met Patton.

It may not be well known on this forum, but in US Army veteran circles the big controversy about the liberation of Dachau wasn’t the shooting of prisoners but whether the 42nd or 45th ID liberated the camp and the supposed altercation between Sparks and General Linden at the jourhaus gate. It apparently caused a lot of bad blood between the two division’s veteran’s organizations.

John Linden’s book about his father’s actions on April 29, 1945 is in many ways an attempt to smear Spark’s account of the liberation and war-crimes investigation and exonerate the charges that his father strayed into the 45th Division’s AO (area of operations, which included Dachau) in order to get the glory of liberating Dachau and provide journalist Maggie Higgins with a scoop.

Accounts of Maggie Higgin’s role in the KZ liberation also got bigger in the (re)telling:

: “…Higgins learned quickly that transportation makes or breaks a war correspondent. The stories became legion of the lissome blond nuzzling up to pilots to hitch rides while other correspondents , and sometimes even the wounded, remained grounded. Higgins always got to go where she wanted to go. Her first coup gave her a plane and a jeep into Buchenwald just hours after Allied troops rolled back the veil hiding the madness of the Holocaust. Bit the real show came at Dachau, Hitler’s origional concentration camp. There the world caught its first glimpse of the Maggie Higgins whose exploits it would soon come to know.

Higgins was six miles away when she heard that American forces were poised to take the camp. She commandeered a jeep and headed out in a beeline, even thought the six miles still belonged to the Germans. With a reporter from the “Stars and Stripes” driving, Higgins disarmed and accepted the surrender of dozens of retreating soldiers, quitting only when the jeep would carry no more captured weapons.

Nearing the camp, two jeeps carrying the advance guard of the American troops fell in behind the reporters. At the gate American soldiers waited for their troops. Higgins and her colleagues did not. The smell was overwhelming, but Higgins spotted a little courtyard planted primly with rows of budding roses. As she turned in for a look, her colleague screamed frantically at her, and she looked up at a watchtower. It was jammed with SS men, all of their weapons trained on her. As she wrote later, she had “the instinctive feeling there was absolutely no point in running.” Instead, she shouted up to them “Kommen Sie hier, bitte,” and they came – twenty-two SS men surrendering to a twenty-four-year-old woman from Oakland. After Dachau, no one ever said Maggie Higgins didn’t have the guts to go with her gall.”


Once Upon A Distant War: Young War Correspondents and the Early Vietnam Battles – William Prochnau – times Books New York – 1995 – pp. 337-338

The tall tales of the Dachau liberation began on April 30th, 1945 and continued on throughout the postwar years.




Lt. Col. Joseph Whitaker, the Seventh Army's Assistant Inspector General, was subsequently ordered to investigate after witnesses came forward testifying to the massacre.
Witnesses didn’t “come forward” – the IG ordered them to testify.

The soldiers involved in shooting the POWs were court[-]martialed
Arrrgh. THEY WEREN”T COURT-MARTIALED!! Get your facts straight, or stop cutting and pasting inaccurate information from the internet!

Trubia:
We went back and through the gate and found out what it was. We looked at the gas chambers, the furnaces, went into the infirmary where there was a mother and child, and rigor mortis hadn’t even set in yet. The Germans were killin’ these prisoners right up to the last minute. I saw a prisoner take a guard by the arm, pull his arm out straight, and the other guy hit him with a cane and broke his arm, and then they tried to twist it off of him. That’s when I lost my breakfast. They just went wild. They tore the Germans apart by hand, just tore ’em apart by hand. Oh God, I couldn’t sleep for a week.
There were circa 100 US soldiers present at the actual liberation of the camp. PFC Dominick Trubia is only mentioned in Buechner’s postwar account. He wasn’t interviewed by the Seventh Army IG.


Winburn:
About an hour after we got back to the town they come after us agin’. They sent about six of us up. “Go back to Dachau. They’re shootin’ up the guards. Go git ’em out before they shoot any more.”
Everything was open by then. We went about a hundred yards in. There the guards was, about fifty of ’em. We lined ’em up four abreast. I was right up by the front on one side. There was two or three of ’em shot up. I tole the others, “You better help ’em if you want outta here.” They’d got ’em out in the street there when we got there. No idea how many’d been killed. Then we took ’em back to the town.
On the right where we went in we passed that shower where they gassed ’em, with the piles o’ clothing. We were only in there for twenty minutes or so, jest
“agin’… shootin’…’em… many’d… piles o’ clothing” = Is this a B-grade Western?

(about Buchners book)
To the best of my knowledge, the book contains an accurate reconstruction of the events which took place at Dachau during the time of liberation, with the exception of actions attributed to Lieutenant Bushyhead and the number of German casualties.
I’ve read the book. It’s not. BTW the exception you are claiming is the main “350+ Waffen-SS POWS executed” fable.

Here’s two other gross errors in Buchners book (of many):

- P20: Buechner mentioned the 157th SS regiment as "they never met their American counterparts in battle" – that’s right they didn’t – no 157th SS Regiment ever existed.

p23 Buechner railed against the "error" that journalists Marguerite Higgins and Peter Furst, travelling with General Linden’s group from the 42nd Infantry Division, were first to enter the KZ. But Higgins and Furst were MOST DEFINITELY among the first US troops to liberate the KZ – we know this from her dispatch, the official reports from the 42nd, the photographs taken during the liberation (which show her standing next to surrendering SS officer Wicker!) and books like Flint Whitlock’s history of the 45th ID, "The Rock of Anzio" Buechner’s attempted to "prove" that the 45th ID liberated the KZ first, but he got his facts wrong.



(As for charges that Buechner had failed to halt a massacre or treat the wounded, they were dismissed following an initial inquiry, Sparks wrote, while the others charged were summoned to Patton’s headquarters, questioned and dismissed. Lieutenant Bushyhead, Buechner claimed, was brought before the General himself, who questioned him, then ordered the investigating officers to appear with the entire evidence they had gathered, burned it in his metal wastebasket and had the affair stricken from the record.
Buechner wasn’t prosecuted – correct. Did Bushyhead meet Patton? No.

Georg, every point you have brought up has been discussed at length and refuted in previous posts.

I suggest that rather than cutting and pasting higgledy-piggedly from various websites, you re-read the previous topic threads on the subject, and purchase the following excellent, fact-based accounts of the liberation:

Legacies of Dachau: The Uses and Abuses of a Concentration Camp 1933-2001 - Harold Marcuse - Cambridge University Press - NY, NY - 2001

The Rock of Anzio: From Sicily to Dachau: A History of the US 45th Infantry Division - Flint Whitlock - Westview Press - Boulder, Colorado – 1998

Surrender of the Dachau Concentration Camp 29 April 1945: The True Account" - John H. Linden - Sycamore Press - Elm Grove, WI, USA - 1997

Dachau: The Harrowing of Hell - by Marcus J. Smith - University of New Mexico Press - 1972

Hi Rob,

I have been waiting for you =)

You say that all my sources are nonces or what?
The testimonies from many of those US soldiers is from a veteran page here on the Internet, where they can tell their story: http://www.unknownsoldiersmemoir.com/content/page-392 very interessting especially the topic "Revenge" there you can read about how they allowed inmates tearing a SS-Soldier apart if that is not mutilating I don´t know.
On scrapbook you can see soem SS-Soldiers in different views and time, one is especially interessting in one photo he has his trousers down to his knees in a other they are up, on both photos he is dead.....

The most sources you have is from those books you are mentioning and they get the most info from same source, the report, Sparks memoirs, testemonies by perpetrators. Here on the webpage I giving the link to they admit they slaughtered the SS-men, for you and others when I now presenting evidence that me and many more probably was right all the time, even if I don´t know the exact number of dead. And as I have written earlier now one will ever know.
You jsut bring up that they had the right to do so, so this soldiers was right to act judge, jury and executioner? Is that a common thing in the US point of view? The Brits managed to get their soldiers disciplined and that in camp as Bergen Belsen, and all have seen photos of that camp, why didn´t they slaughter the SS-Staff and the guards, they knew that in that case there wasn´t any doubts that this men was responcible for this camp.

You didn´t comment the video I published a link to, how come? Is Sammy a Lier?

Rob I know very well that SS-Wachsturmbanne was part of Waffen-SS, but you know exactly what I mean, don´t try to make fun of my post. You know that the discussion have been if the guards is from a regular Waffen-SS unit or that the slaughtered men was from the ordinary SS-Wachsturmbann, if you remember your earlier post in this topic you should know that. In many books about the KL Dachau and I have a couple of them, and I have more on its way into my libary, many sources are saying that the SS-Staff and the guards left the camp a couple of days before the US army arrived, this wasn+t uncommon, KL Mauthausens staff left the camp and handed over the responciblitity to ordniary police and firefighters. in KL Buchenwald the most regulare guards together with the staff left some days before the US arrived, why should in that happened in KL Dachau?

The diagram I have published is Buchners, I haven´t made that any secret I thin kI can see his signature on the photo of it as well. But the photos compared with his sketh sure make it possible that it may have been as he have told.

The list you are going to provide with soldier (German) who are listed as MIA, does that list make difference where the last place they been seen or heard from? To study SS-T.-Wachsturmbannens are pretty difficult much because that German don´t make lists of KL staff in their official sources, ONE exception does exist and that is stunningly Heinrich Wicker, but other camp kdt´s that all know are missing doesn´t exist in such places as DRK or Volksbund. Even if they are reportedly fighting as regulare soldiers at the end of the war Adolf Haas is one example.

Abram Sachar testimony is public on http://www.nizkor.org/hweb/camps/dachau/dachau-01.html

I am going to publish more sources later tonight or tomorrow morning.

Best regards,

Georg

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Harro
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Re: The Dachau liberation 29/4 1945 (Speculations or facts?)

#220

Post by Harro » 04 Jan 2009, 21:42

Georg, your logic creates a clear example of what the Germans call Hineininterpretierung: you see the letter an American soldier wrote home two days after the massacre as definite proof that they killed 350 SS guards. It seems to me this is because you want such proof and prefer all "evidence" that suits your agenda. For that matter, if written statements are that important to you, what about Buechners testimony from 1945 in which he stated that he saw sixteen killed SS men? Would not that be definite "evidence" that only sixteen guards were killed? It's just a thought.

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Re: The Dachau liberation 29/4 1945 (Speculations or facts?)

#221

Post by David Thompson » 05 Jan 2009, 00:25

Georg -- Please do not use up forum bandwidth quoting lengthy passages from the posts of others if you do not answer the points specifically. That way our readers don't have to waste time reading something twice.

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Re: The Dachau liberation 29/4 1945 (Speculations or facts?)

#222

Post by Sid Guttridge » 05 Jan 2009, 17:23

Hi Georg,

No problem. I just wanted to make sure that this thread wasn't being conducted in a context-free vacuum. After all, the trail of culpable deaths at the Dachau camp is over a decade long and not restricted to what happened on 29/4/1945.

From what I have read about the death rates of the inmates at the time of the liberation of Dachau in 1945, it is possible that more of them died on 29/4/1945 than did SS guards. It is certain that the SS were not the only deaths that day at Dachau and possible that they were only a minority. The difference was that the inmates underwent a 29/4 every day at this time. For the SS 29/4 seems to have been a one-off.

I will leave you to continue.....

Cheers,

Sid.

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Re: The Dachau liberation 29/4 1945 (Speculations or facts?)

#223

Post by yoricks » 14 Jan 2009, 20:36

I would love to know the name of any SS gaurd, officer, or Kapo killed at Dachau

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Re: Dachau guards

#224

Post by ignacioosacar » 09 Feb 2009, 19:08

There was an explicit self-explaining sequence of photos in an " After the Battle " magazine issue some 20 years ago. It might have been the front cover story under the title of " Dachau ".

Cheers

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Re: The Dachau liberation 29/4 1945 (Speculations or facts?)

#225

Post by Rob - wssob2 » 01 May 2009, 04:51

From what I have read about the death rates of the inmates at the time of the liberation of Dachau in 1945, it is possible that more of them died on 29/4/1945 than did SS guards. It is certain that the SS were not the only deaths that day at Dachau and possible that they were only a minority. The difference was that the inmates underwent a 29/4 every day at this time. For the SS 29/4 seems to have been a one-off.
Excellent point, Sid.

A while back I mentioned that I would post the names of SS men presumably killed at Dachau. Here it is.

A couple years back, I visited the Archives at the Hoover Institution in Stanford, CA and had the opportunity to research their files on Dachau, including the Pierre C.T. Verheye Collection, a former Buchenwald KZ prisoner who research and compiled a large list of notes and documents on the Dachau liberation 64 years and one day ago.

Author John Linden (mentioned earlier in the thread) donated his book and additional material to the Hoover Archives as well.

This list is from Appendix D-2, which appears to be a printed addendum to John Linden's book. It appears to be an appendix that was added after the book was published or at least was added in a subsequent printing than the one I possess. Linden includes it as documentation that he used to identify the SS officer who surrendered the camp to his father, General Linden of the 42nd ID. I photocopied the appendix and have transcribed it for the benefit of the AHF.

OK - so what is this list exactly? In Appendix D-2, it is a partial list of MIA at Dachau originally compiled by the Munich branch of the German Red Cross Tracing Service.

While researching his book, Linden contacted the tracing service in his efforts to track down the name of the SS officer who surrendered Dachau; they gave him a booklet list of MIA, of which Appendix D-2 is a copy of p.155 from the original Red Cross document.

This list of circa 17 people is a subset of the people MIA at Dachau in April-May 1945. It includes Heinrich Wicker. "re

Please note I said "presumably killed" - these are a list of MIA. We don't know where, or when exactly they died, just that it sometime at the end of the war and it was in the vicinity of Dachau. So this list doesn't indicate if an individual was killed at the coal yard, Guard Tower B, etc.

Note: I've kept the German terms for occupation (e.g. "arbeiter" - worker) but everything else I've put into English:

Partial list of SS Personnel MIA at Dachau
Compiled by the German Red Cross Tracing Service
Deutsches Rotes Kreuz – Suchdienst Munchen – Vermisstenbildelist
SS Lager und SS Bekleidungswerk Dachau
p.155

Name: Streke, Kurt
Occupation: Arbeiter
Date of Birth: July 5, 1922
Place of Birth: Naumberg/Saale
Rank: Sold
Posted to Dachau: January 1945


Name: Timmermann, Hans
Occupation:Pormer (? – type hard to read)
Date of Birth: Oct 8, 1922
Place of Birth: Landringsen/Westf.
Rank: SS-Man
Posted to Dachau: February 1945


Name: Tente (Tonte?), Martin
Occupation:Arbeiter
Date of Birth: November 1, 1895
Place of Birth: Yugoslavia
Rank: SS-Rottf.
Posted to Dachau: February 1945


Name: Totterer, Hans
Occupation:Landwirt
Date of Birth: September 2, 1917
Place of Birth: Rumania
Rank: SS-Man
Posted to Dachau: April 1945


Name: Uboda, Willem
Occupation: Arbeiter
Date of Birth: October 20, 1916
Place of Birth: Arbeiter
Rank: Sold. 2. Kp. (soldier, second company)
Posted to Dachau: April 1944

Name: Veen, Lambertus
Occupation:Handler
Date of Birth: May 22, 1921
Place of Birth: Netherlands
Rank: SS-Mann
Posted to Dachau: Feb 1944


Name: Vokel, Heinrich
Occupation:Kraftfahrer
Date of Birth: November 12, 1913
Place of Birth: Zwickam
Rank: SS-Rottf.
Posted to Dachau: March 1945


Name: Wald, Johann
Occupation:Landarbeiter
Date of Birth: 1905
Place of Birth: Yugoslavia
Rank: Sold.
Posted to Dachau: 1944


Name: Weber, Walter
Occupation:Schlesser
Date of Birth: October 11, 1906
Place of Birth: Bruchaal/Baden
Rank: SS-Unscha.
Posted to Dachau: 1945


Name: Wellesen, Jacobus
Occupation:Weber
Date of Birth: Feb 27, 1922
Place of Birth: Netherlands
Rank: SS-Strm.
Posted to Dachau: August 1944


Name: Wicker, Heinrich
Occupation:Kaufmann
Date of Birth: 1921
Place of Birth: Karlsruhe
Rank: Ustuf.
Posted to Dachau: April 1945


Name: Woelki, Heinz
Occupation:Bergmann
Date of Birth: June 5, 1925
Place of Birth: Golsenkirchen
Rank: SS-Mann
Posted to Dachau: March 1945


Name: Wolke, Willi
Occupation:Fleischer
Date of Birth: Oct 23, 1926
Place of Birth: Neuwedell/Pommern
Rank: SS-Mann
Posted to Dachau: December 1944


Name: Zink, Karl
Occupation:Schlosser
Date of Birth: Nov 6, 1922
Place of Birth: Austria
Rank: SS-Rottf.
Posted to Dachau: April 1945


Name: Zusker, August
Occupation:Arbeiter
Date of Birth: August 29, 1899
Place of Birth: Berkheim/Wurtt
Rank: o.A. (means “unknown?”)
Posted to Dachau: February 1945


Name: Zwann, Frederik de
Occupation:o.A.
Date of Birth: April 27, 1921
Place of Birth: Netherlands
Rank: SS-Mann.
Posted to Dachau: August 1944

It would be very interesting if other AHF members might be able to find additional biographical information on these men.

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