Massacre of SS guards at Dachau

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#136

Post by KalaVelka » 02 Mar 2004, 19:45

If the GIs were guilty then they should have been IMHO exterminated.

It is hard to say. Nobody has the wisdom to jugde things right, but the laws of war should be same to everybody. If German soldiers got deathsentences from atrocities similar like Dachau, then should the Allied soldiers get also.

I have never heard about even a single one allied soldier that has been jugded from his acts in European teather.

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#137

Post by Michael Miller » 02 Mar 2004, 20:14

Our esteemed Moderator can likely provide precise statistics, as he is well-versed in military law, but I can say with certainty that numerous U.S. soldiers in the ETO were tried and in some cases executed for crimes such as rape and murder.

A case in point appears on the "Massacres of World War II" website of George Duncan. Not sure how accurate the following account is, but it indicates that at least two U.S. Army war criminals were at least convicted for their crimes:
ATROCITIES IN SICILY
(1943)
Many massacres of prisoners of war were committed by the American 45th (Thunderbird) Division during the invasion of Sicily in 1943. At Comise airfield, a truck load of German prisoners were machine-gunned as they climbed down on to the tarmac, prior to be air-lifted out. Later the same day, 60 Italian prisoners were cut down the same way. On July 14, thirty six prisoners were gunned down near Gela by their guard, US Sergeant Barry West. At Buttera airfield, US Captain Jerry Compton, lined up his 43 prisoners against a wall and machine-gunned them to death. West and Compton were both arrested and convicted of murder. They were sent to the front where both were later killed in action. On April 29, 1945, units of the 45th. liberated the concentration camp of Dachau where more atrocities were committed.
Unfortunately, on further reading I see that Mr. Duncan appears to have swallowed the Buechner story in its entirety, as the following article indicates:

THE DACHAU KILLINGS
(April, 1945)

The Dachau Concentration Camp, near Munich, was liberated by US forces on the 29th. of April, 1945. First to enter the camp and confront the horror within was Private First Class John Degro, the lead scout of Company 1, 3rd. Battalion, 157 Infantry Regiment, 45th Division of the US 7th Army. Prior to entering the camp, the troops had come upon a train of thirty nine cattle trucks parked just outside the camp. The train had come from Auschwitz in Poland after a journey of thirty days. The trucks were filled with the corpses of 2,310 Hungarian and Polish Jews who had died from hunger and thirst. Enraged, the Americans rounded up most of the SS guard complement of 560 men, hundreds of whom had already deserted. Included in the round-up was a detachment from the 5th SS Panzer 'Viking' Division sent to Dachau earlier to maintain security and replace those who had deserted. Guarded by angry GIs, one group of guards were lined up against a wall to await the appearance of their commander, SS Obersturmfüher Heindrich Skodzensky.

When he appeared, dressed immaculately with polished boots, and giving the military salute, which was ignored by the US company commander, Lt. William Jackson, who ordered "Line this piece of shit up with the rest of 'em over there". The GIs lost control and began shouting 'Kill em, kill em'. Filled with murderous rage and with tears streaming down his face, one GI of the 15th Infantry Regiment, opened fire with his machine-gun. After three bursts of raking fire, a total of 122 SS men lay dead or dying along the base of the wall. A few of the camp inmates, dressed in the familiar striped clothing and armed with .45 caliber pistols, then walked along the line of dead and dying guards and administrated the coup de grace to those still alive. Forty other guards were killed by revengeful inmates, some having their arms and legs torn apart. At another site near the SS hospital, hundreds of German guards were machine gunned to death on the orders of the executive Officer of Company 1, 3rd Battalion. Altogether, a total of 520 persons, acting as camp and tower guards, including many Hungarians in German uniforms and recently returned from the Eastern Front, were killed that day. The sad fact is that many of these guards were new arrivals at the camp and were not the real culprits, the truly guilty had already fled. (Controversy rages to this day over just how many camp guards were killed at Dachau and different units of the US Army are still claiming the title 'First Liberators').
~ Mike
Last edited by Michael Miller on 02 Mar 2004, 20:19, edited 1 time in total.


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#138

Post by KalaVelka » 02 Mar 2004, 20:18

Thanks very much for the information Mike.

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#139

Post by Rob - wssob2 » 03 Mar 2004, 00:49

Unfortunately, Duncan hasn't done his research. BTW this account is based on Michael Selzer's Deliverance Day which is a extremely embellished account of the Dachau liberation. Selzer based his book on the testimony of Dachau inmate Carel Steensma, but its so fictionalized as to be almost useless.
When he appeared, dressed immaculately with polished boots, and giving the military salute, which was ignored by the US company commander, Lt. William Jackson, who ordered "Line this piece of shit up with the rest of 'em over there". The GIs lost control and began shouting 'Kill em, kill em'. Filled with murderous rage and with tears streaming down his face, one GI of the 15th Infantry Regiment, opened fire with his machine-gun. After three bursts of raking fire, a total of 122 SS men lay dead or dying along the base of the wall. A few of the camp inmates, dressed in the familiar striped clothing and armed with .45 caliber pistols, then walked along the line of dead and dying guards and administrated the coup de grace to those still alive. Forty other guards were killed by revengeful inmates, some having their arms and legs torn apart. At another site near the SS hospital, hundreds of German guards were machine gunned to death on the orders of the executive Officer of Company 1, 3rd Battalion. Altogether, a total of 520 persons, acting as camp and tower guards, including many Hungarians in German uniforms and recently returned from the Eastern Front, were killed that day. The sad fact is that many of these guards were new arrivals at the camp and were not the real culprits, the truly guilty had already fled. (Controversy rages to this day over just how many camp guards were killed at Dachau and different units of the US Army are still claiming the title 'First Liberators').
There was no "Lt. William Jackson" nor US "15th Infantry Regiment" at Dachau, for starters... :roll:

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#140

Post by Dimitrii » 04 Mar 2004, 01:43

David Thompson wrote:Interested readers can find more on the subject on these threads:
I'm very interested in the book you have shown. In what year was this published? And for what purpose - commercial or educative, as it seems to come from the US Army itself.

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#141

Post by David Thompson » 04 Mar 2004, 02:14

Stubaf -- The original date of publication was 1951. The volume was/is part of the series "The United States Army in WWII." The purpose of these texts was primarily educational, as the volumes always had a low price and may have been printed at cost. The original publisher was the US Government Printing Office, although the pages I posted had been reprinted by a commercial publisher. You can find all of the titles in the original set at:

http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USA/index.html

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#142

Post by KalaVelka » 04 Mar 2004, 10:32

Rob - WSSOB wrote:Unfortunately, Duncan hasn't done his research. BTW this account is based on Michael Selzer's Deliverance Day which is a extremely embellished account of the Dachau liberation. Selzer based his book on the testimony of Dachau inmate Carel Steensma, but its so fictionalized as to be almost useless.
When he appeared, dressed immaculately with polished boots, and giving the military salute, which was ignored by the US company commander, Lt. William Jackson, who ordered "Line this piece of shit up with the rest of 'em over there". The GIs lost control and began shouting 'Kill em, kill em'. Filled with murderous rage and with tears streaming down his face, one GI of the 15th Infantry Regiment, opened fire with his machine-gun. After three bursts of raking fire, a total of 122 SS men lay dead or dying along the base of the wall. A few of the camp inmates, dressed in the familiar striped clothing and armed with .45 caliber pistols, then walked along the line of dead and dying guards and administrated the coup de grace to those still alive. Forty other guards were killed by revengeful inmates, some having their arms and legs torn apart. At another site near the SS hospital, hundreds of German guards were machine gunned to death on the orders of the executive Officer of Company 1, 3rd Battalion. Altogether, a total of 520 persons, acting as camp and tower guards, including many Hungarians in German uniforms and recently returned from the Eastern Front, were killed that day. The sad fact is that many of these guards were new arrivals at the camp and were not the real culprits, the truly guilty had already fled. (Controversy rages to this day over just how many camp guards were killed at Dachau and different units of the US Army are still claiming the title 'First Liberators').
There was no "Lt. William Jackson" nor US "15th Infantry Regiment" at Dachau, for starters... :roll:
So in your opinion that confirms that there were no waffen SS combat troopers in Dachau?

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#143

Post by Rob - wssob2 » 04 Mar 2004, 20:41

So in your opinion that confirms that there were no waffen SS combat troopers in Dachau?
No Kalavelka, you have misunderstood me and you haven't read this or previous threads on the subject.

I was pointing out the fact that Selzer's book misidentifies the US Infantry Regiments that liberated Dachau (the 157th and 222nd, not the 15th) and uses ficticious names like "Lt. William Jackson" and in essence, gets the facts wrong, so as a historical source it must be approached with caution.

As should the Duncan website. Let's analyze it, bit by bit:

Enraged, the Americans rounded up most of the SS guard complement of 560 men,
Wrong. Lt. Walsh's group of the 157th IR rounded up circa 60 SS men from the infirmary/SS hospital area into the coal yard, which was next to power plant and the railroad siding where the "death train" was found. This roundup was prior to the US troops reaching the protective custody compound, where the "560 guard troops" supposedly were. you can confirm this by reading Rock of Anzio or the 7th Army's report on the mistreatment of guards at Dachau at the Boston Globe URL. There were several roundups of SS troops during the liberation - the coal yard and the jourhaus being but 2 of them.

The "560" number for SS guards comes from Gun's book The Day of the Americans - it is an innacurate guestimate, and is greater than the number of SS troops SHAEF estimated (300) or that the Red Cross estimated ("a company" i.e. 100-200)
hundreds of whom had already deserted. Included in the round-up was a detachment from the 5th SS Panzer 'Viking' Division sent to Dachau earlier to maintain security and replace those who had deserted.
Virtually all accounts agree that at least some of the Dachau SS personnel and the KZ staff fled the area the night of April 28th. However, we have no evidence to proove if there was a contingent W-SS men to replace the KZ personnel who fled. I don't use cammo uniforms, edelweiss patches and cuff titles as "proof" since they aren't reliable standards. (SS men often wore cuff titles other than the unit they were in, but that's a whole other subject)

The inverse version of the Dachau liberation story - "the Dachau as US warcrime" myth - really hinges on the W-SS story line elements:

a) Waffen-SS are the "good" SS - they weren't Nazi racists, they didn't run the KZ system, they were good and honest and brave and basically everything that the "bad" Allgemeine-SS wasn't. "Frontline" W-SS troops are even better, because it further separates them from Nazi totaliarism and envelops them in the cocoon of front line bravery and comradeship.

b) Having the W-SS troops replace the KZ guard troops the night before the Americans come conveniently sets up the W-SS troops as "innocent" of whatever crimes were committed at Dachau literally up to the last 12 hours. This innocence is important, because it plays into the role these troops play as

c) Victims of American injustice. The slaughtered SS troops just happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time and those terrible Americans, so arrogant and typically shooting first and asking questions later, line up those brave, blond anti-Bolshevik fighters and gun them down, to paraphrase pro-Nazi Holocaust denier and anti-Semite Erst Zundel, like a St. Valentine's Day massacre (a very famous gangland slaying of 1920's Chicago)

The "Nazi's as victims" concept is one of the three themes of Herbert Marcuse's work Legacies of Dachau . The book discusses at great length how generations of Germans from 1945-2000 viewed their Nazi past and how for many Germans, it was the Nazi's, not the KZ inmates, who were the victims of history. This perception of Nazi's as good guys unjustly persecuted is of course a defining feature of Revisionists. They continue to proclaim the "Nazi as victim" theme even as German society has eventually moved towards an much more nuanced ability to understand and accept their past both as victims - and as perpetrators.



As I have pointed out again and again and again, we can't as of yet conclusively confirm the identity of these SS troops - meaning we can't find any information that links, for example, the SS troops killed at Tower B with a specific W-SS specific platoon, battalion, regiment etc.

On this very forum I can find out what 11th SS division unit - down to the exact platoon - manned the "Devil's Meadow" position near Orphanage Hill on July 16th 1944 during the Battle of Narva. I can find out the color scheme and call sign of Michael Wittman's Tiger tank during the July 1944 Hill 112 battles at Normandy. I can find out the exact when and where Himmler, Karl Wolf and von dem Bach met to watch a specifically documented einsatzgruppen massacre. But I've never been able to find much of anything on these "frontline SS troops" that supposedly marched into Dachau the evening of April 28th online, offline, anywhere.

This account says they were 5th SS "Viking" . The 5th SS was fighting in Austria at the time - hundreds of kilometers away. The 5th SS AuE (training and replacement) battalion wasn't stationed anywher near Dachau. And the 5th SS choice is interesting because it's often considered the SS division with the most "clean" reputation with regards to war crimes - playing into the "innocent victim" mythology I mentioned above. The only 5th SS reference I've been able to track down is from Buechner's Hour of the Avenger in which he cites footnote 19 of Paul Berber's book Dachau: The Official History

Other account say the "frontline W-SS troops" were Hungarian volksdeutsche SS. Or Western European SS. From the 11th SS division. Or the 17th SS division. We do know that Linberger, one of the survivors of the coal yard shooting, was a member of the Dachau training and replacement company - essentially a unit of "walking wounded". A W-SS unit, but a rear-area one.

There's no mention of these possible W-SS troops belonging to the 3rd SS "Totenkopf" division - which is very odd because this 3rd SS had its administrative offices at Dachau. But the 3rd SS, formed at Dachau by the former KZ Inspector, doesn't have the "clean reputation" of its sister division.
Guarded by angry GIs, one group of guards were lined up against a wall to await the appearance of their commander, SS Obersturmfüher Heindrich Skodzensky.
Wrong again. There is no SS officer named "Skodzensky" - not in the 1944 or '45 SS officer lists, not in John Moore's 26,000 SS officer CD database. "Skodzensky" is the name that Nerin Gun made up for his 1966 book The Day of the Americans BTW Gun describes "Skodzensky" as belonging to the 1st SS Panzer LSSAH division. "Skodzensky" could be Gun's made-up name for the German SS officer who did surrender the camp, Lt. Wicker. But Wicker wasn't a W-SS officer, but a KZ/WVHA officer. But Lt. Wicker wasn't anywhere near the coal yard when Lt. Walsh's trooper were herding the SS men into it. Wicker was waiting at the KZ protective custody front gate, called the jourhaus.
When he appeared, dressed immaculately with polished boots, and giving the military salute, which was ignored by the US company commander, Lt. William Jackson, who ordered "Line this piece of shit up with the rest of 'em over there".
Wrong. Wicker and the Swiss Red Cross Representative Victor Mauer met with General Linden of the 42nd Infantry Division at the jourhaus gate sometime after the coal yard shooting. The troops of the 45th ID weren't even aware yet of Gen Linden's 42nd ID group at the gate of the protective custody compound.

The GIs lost control and began shouting 'Kill em, kill em'. Filled with murderous rage and with tears streaming down his face, one GI of the 15th Infantry Regiment, opened fire with his machine-gun.
This sounds like it's referring to the coal yard incident and specifically to Pvt. Curtain - member of 4th Squad, 2nd Platoon, Company "M", 157th IR, 45th ID - who was manning the .30 cal machine gun during the illegal killing. Lt. Col. Sparks stopped Curtain and the others from firing, terminating the massacre in progress. See the photo earlier in the thread. Lt. Walsh was the guy who instigated the shooting, and Sparks immediately relieved him of command on the spot.

They only "large-scale" illegal killing of US troops anywhere near Gen. Linden and the jourhaus gate was the "Tower B" incident in which 10-17 SS men were killed.

After three bursts of raking fire, a total of 122 SS men lay dead or dying along the base of the wall.
Incorrect. The true number is 17 SS men dead - seeRock of Anzio and the 7th Army report.


A few of the camp inmates, dressed in the familiar striped clothing and armed with .45 caliber pistols, then walked along the line of dead and dying guards and administrated the coup de grace to those still alive.
Wrong. The witness testimonies taken by Seventh Army IG during the investigation make absolutely no mention of KZ inmates armed with pistols. Interestingly enough, Buechner claims to have seen the pistol-packing inmates as well, but he's claims it was during the 346-SS man massacre that he witness as opposed to the 122-man massacre described here. Needless to say, Buechner forgot to mention the pistol-packing inmates in his 7th IG testimony but does mention 17 bodies as opposed to 346.


Forty other guards were killed by revengeful inmates, some having their arms and legs torn apart.
Yes there are documented instances of KZ inmates killing SS men and (more frequently) KZ kapos/trustees - incidents which continued throughout the first week of May. Forty, however, seems like a high number. The International Prisoner's Committee of Dachau KZ on April 30th decreed that all SS men flushed out by inmates were to be turned over to the US Army. SS men and inmates continued to turn up and were turned over to the GIs, but only in 1-2's.

At another site near the SS hospital, hundreds of German guards were machine gunned to death on the orders of the executive Officer of Company 1, 3rd Battalion.
A self-replicating warcrime. There was no "other" massacre involving SS men lined up in front of a wall - there was one - the coal yard incident - the one with 17 SS dead. And the coal yard incident wasn't instigated by the executive officer (Lt. Bushyhead) but by the company commander, Lt. William Walsh. And it isn't "1" company it's "I" company.




Altogether, a total of 520 persons, acting as camp and tower guards, including many Hungarians in German uniforms and recently returned from the Eastern Front, were killed that day. The sad fact is that many of these guards were new arrivals at the camp and were not the real culprits,[/quote]

See my point about a) W-SS as innocent front line fighters and b) discrepancy of total number of SS troops at Dachau on April 29th.

the truly guilty had already fled.
Except perhaps for this guy:

Image

Beaten to death and his corpse dumped on the inmate corpses at the Dachau crematory.

Image

This is his collartab, torn off his uniform by a GI as a grisly souvenir. This is a Totenkopfwachturmbanne-KZ tab not a W-SS tab. Guess some of the truly guilty did get caught as well.

(Controversy rages to this day over just how many camp guards were killed at Dachau and different units of the US Army are still claiming the title 'First Liberators').
Yes. Both the 42nd and the 45th ID claim to be the "first" to liberate Dachau. But it wasn't a race. They both were there literally within 1/2 of each other, they both liberated it, freeing 32,000 inmates. Which, by the way, Himmler had ordered killed, and order Dachau commandant Weiss chose to ignore. We should be thankful that both divisions got there just in time before more (or all) inmates were slaughtered.

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#144

Post by Michael Miller » 04 Mar 2004, 21:37

As I've already stated once this year, Rob's meticulous and painstaking work in dissecting this matter has me 100% convinced (i.e.- on his side in this endless debate).

~ Mike

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#145

Post by Penn44 » 04 Mar 2004, 21:48

Yes, Rob is to be congratuated!


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#146

Post by Englander » 04 Mar 2004, 22:47

If the GIs were guilty then they should have been IMHO exterminated
That's the most shocking quote i've read on this forum.

Definition: [adj] destroyed completely

Synonyms: annihilated, destroyed, wiped out(p)

What's your preferred method?

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#147

Post by Vadim » 04 Mar 2004, 23:06

Englander, it was simply a poor word choice, English is not his first language. I am sure he meant "executed".

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#148

Post by xcalibur » 04 Mar 2004, 23:11

Vadim wrote:Englander, it was simply a poor word choice, English is not his first language. I am sure he meant "executed".
That was my take on it too, except that it would have been nice to see the word "trial" before jumping to the word "executed".

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#149

Post by Penn44 » 04 Mar 2004, 23:26

xcalibur wrote:Kasper,

What do you think the outcome of the investigation should have been, assuming Patton hadn't stopped it?
My understanding from posters on this forum is that Patton did not stop the investigation. The investigation was completed. Patton decided simply decided not to procede with courts martial proceedings which was within his right as a general courts martial appointing authority to do.

From reviewing A Manual of Courts-Martial, US Army, 1928, all that the US soldiers were guilty of was voluntary manslaughter, not murder. There was no malice aforethought and the crime was committed in the heat of passion. The maximum penalty for voluntary manslaughter was ten years hard labor.


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#150

Post by WalterS » 04 Mar 2004, 23:43

Uninen wrote:
I guess that your going to tell me next that there was no massacre of millions of German civilians by GB's and USA's air forces?
I will definitely tell you that there was no “massacre” of “millions” of German civilians by the USAAF and the RAF.

Your use of the word “massacre” is false and pejorative. The aim of the Allied bombing effort was to shorten the war by attacking German war production. The two air forces went about this differently, but the ultimate goal was the same. The RAF, flying at night, attacked built up, residential areas of major German industrial cities in an effort to deprive the German war industry of skilled laborers, primarily by “dehousing” large numbers of people, damaging civilian infrastructure and overwhelming civil defense authorities. The USAAF, flying in daylight, attempted to target discreet military and industrial installations. The natural result of these efforts was large numbers of German civilian casualties but that does equate to either massacre or murder. These were legitimate acts of war carried out by the Allies against a brutal regime which had, let us not forget, started the war in the first place. To equate the Allied efforts with the systematic brutality, murder and attempted extermination of entire peoples carried out by the Nazi regime is to descend to the depths of intellectual dishonesty and Nazi apologia.

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