Dachau/Bergen-Belsen/Majdanek Guards after Liberation

[Totenkomf]

Looking at the Liberation of three different Concentration Camps I find it strange that the American soldiers started to kill some of the surrendered SS Guards but the British and the Soviets seemingly didn't (in exeption three SS Männer) were shot after they tried to escape from Belsen), but they just arrested them and later prosecuted some of them.

Like why did this happen different ways? The British captured: 77 KZ Staff Members and shot three that tried to escape, and the Soviets seemingly killed none but executed SS Guards after a trial. And the Americans or Inmates killed 30/50 Guards/Kapos + SS-Untersturmführer Wicker or some other German Officer.

Also the Brits/Soviet didn't seemingly give the inmates weapons or SS men to kill.

Some of you will say that the American G.I's killed the Guards at Dachau because they saw the conditions of the camp/ the 'Death Train' and the dead prisoners.

Bit didn't the British and the Soviets witness the same horrors and piles of corpses/ starving prisoners but still didn't outright kill the SS Guards/kapos?. Or was it the American way of shooting first and asking questions later?.
(Not a generalisation)

Belsen-Guards after Liberation:



Dachau Guards after Liberation:


Majdanek Guards after Liberation:

[LAstry]

The suddon shock of seeing a German KZ horrors?

[Totenkomf]

The suddon shock of seeing a German KZ horrors?

Yes I mentioned it as the reason for the killing of some of the Guards at Dachau. But I wondered why the British soldiers for an example didn't kill some Guards at Bergen-Belsen during the Liberation like the Americans did.

[Hans1906]

I am sorry, but this "topic" is finished, for many decades already.

Americans, British, and Russians behaved completely different on the sight of the german crimes, understandable, no idea.

It makes no sense, to compare one crime to another crime, the Scheisse happened, for whatever the reasons were.
What we later generations had to learn is very simple: "Never again!"

Erschießung von SS-Männern bei der Befreiung des KZ Dachau
Link: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erschießu ... _KZ_Dachau

Dachau liberation reprisals
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dachau_li ... _reprisals

They were our fathers, our grandfathers, our great-grandfathers, everyone of us is still a part of all this, all of us...


Hans

[Totenkomf]

I am sorry, but this "topic" is finished, for many decades already.

Americans, British, and Russians behaved completely different on the sight of the german crimes, understandable, no idea.

It makes no sense, to compare one crime to another crime, the Scheisse happened, for whatever the reasons were.
What we later generations had to learn is very simple: "Never again!"

Erschießung von SS-Männern bei der Befreiung des KZ Dachau
Link: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erschießu ... _KZ_Dachau

Dachau liberation reprisals
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dachau_li ... _reprisals


Hans

How is this "topic" finished?. Has someone else asked why the Allied powers acted different regarding the German Camp Guards?. Have you asked the veterans about their experiences?. Do need to shoot down the thread after you saw it?.

[Hans1906]

Yes, I did, I talked personally to several former SS members, and to former victims of the german KL system.
I was born 1956, and I remember many of them from my younger years.

All these people are nowadays not alive anymore, nobody, they are dust in the wind of time...


Hans

[Totenkomf]

Yes, I did, I talked personally to several former SS members, and to former victims of the german KL system.
I was born 1956, and I remember many of them from my younger years.

All these people are nowadays not alive anymore, nobody, they are dust in the wind of time...


Hans

If you would be so kind to tell me bit about what they told you? Maybe they would clear the picture reagrding the liberation of Concentration Camps: if they were present during those events.

[Hans1906]

Nein!

I am not even able to write, what my american father told me about his years in Korea and Vietnam, never.


Hans

[Totenkomf]

Nein!

I am not even able to write, what my american father told me about his years in Korea and Vietnam, never.


Hans

Your father is an American? Well your choice; no need to tell about those things - the war memories.

[gebhk]

Hi Totenkompf

How certain are you that the British and Soviets did not kill SS guards out of hand?

[Totenkomf]

Hi Totenkompf

How certain are you that the British and Soviets did not kill SS guards out of hand?

Hello gebhk

I am not sure by 100%. I based my assessment on that I haven't seen many photos or testimonies that British/Soviets had shot guards out of hand. As Americans killed around +30 at Dachau this being proven.

Was there some difference in the personalities of these Liberators?. Soviets most probably captured the German pows alive to but them on trial for press/media purposes.

[Hans1906]

Your father is an American? Well your choice; no need to tell about those things - the war memories.

Mathias,

this is really strange, but you probably got no better idea about all this, but you are welcome!


Hans

[Totenkomf]

Your father is an American? Well your choice; no need to tell about those things - the war memories.

Mathias,

this is really strange, but you probably got no better idea about all this, but you are welcome!


Hans

What's strange mein freund? Better Idea about what? I just said that you don't need to tell me about those things you heard about ww2 , Korea or whatever if you do want to -that's all.

[gebhk]

I have to ask and please don't be offended, how many Soviet photos and personal accounts of the liberation of Majdanek have you to compare? How do they compare in terms of reliability? I appreciate fully that we are in the realms of proving a negative, which is impossible. However, not being able to prove something and it never happening are not the same thing. This is something you need to establish before you start speculating on 'differences in national characteristics'

You also need to take into account the very different circumstances of each liberation. Dachau was captured after combat with the remaining guards, by frontline troops, who were greeted in the heat of battle by a chaotic house of horrors - over 30K strving victims, unburied bodies, trainloads of rotting corpses, etc. Even larger numbers of starving prosoners and even more chaotic scenes of horror met the Anglo/Canadian and American troops who entered Belsen, however the handover of Belsen was an orderly affair governed by a local ceasefire. Very few SS remianed and the Hunhgarian and WH German troops who largely took over maintainbing order continued to do so for a few days after the handover to the Allies before bing returned to German lines. AFAIK only the commandant, Kramer, was arrested on the spot. Even so, something like 170 'kapos' were murdered by other inmates in one of the satellite camps.

When it comes to Majdanek, it is difficult to even talk of a 'liberation'. The German operation was virtually liquidated by the time the Soviets arrived. The grounds had been essentailly tidied up and, while the erasure had not been completed to the extent that had been hoped for due to the unexpectedly rapid rate of advance of the Soviet armies, there was none of the hoirrific and macabre chaos that met the liberators of Dachau and Belsen. While, no doubt, the prisoners had their tales to tell, there were a mere 480 of them on site - mainly the sick, invalids and Polish peasants uprooted in the 'pacification' campaigns against partisans in the local countryside. Very few staff were there. Within two weeks the camp was back in business, now run by the NKVD, its dietary and hygienic conditions allegedly even worse than they had been under the previous German administration. Bitterly ironically, a number of former inmates of German concentration and extermination camps found themselves there.

I would suggest that even if it is true (and that is a big 'if', I would suggest) the vastly different circumstances and processes of the liberations that took place, are more than enough explanation without having to reach for 'personality traits' of the various forces involved.

[Hans1906]

In this context, I recommend the production "Die Nazijäger - Den NS-Verbrechern auf der Spur"

A horrible, semi-documentary film, about what happened to the children in the concentrations camps.
Broacasted yesterday in the NDR TV channel after 10:00 in the night, I as not able to follow the film to the final end, impossible...

Link: https://www.ndr.de/geschichte/chronolog ... er110.html

Sometimes, it is to much, not always, but sometimes...


Hans