Massacre of SS guards at Dachau

[Arminiusder Cherusker1]

Mr. Kaschner,
as much as I know both Divisions, the 42nd and the 45th claim to be the liberators of KZ Dachau.
Warren Thompson wrote the same in another thread (Who liberated KZ Dachau?)

/Rudi

[Arminiusder Cherusker1]

Hi Georg,
I#ll sent you a list of the names of the murdered soldiers in Webling the next days

/Rudi

[Rob - wssob2]

I have been reading this thread with great interest, and I have also made some replies, but according to Rob, I was wrong saying that members of regulare SS-Div. was sent to Dachau in the final days, everywhere I look I find the information that the main staff of Dachau and Guards left the camp just days before it was libirated, and even the Commandant was captured in München on the same day it was libirated together with his Aide (Suttrop). I don´t know where Rob find his Info that it wasn´t any Wiking or GvB soldiers there

Hi Georg - I am trying to find concrete, documentary evidence as to the identity of the SS troops killed at Dachau on April 29th, 1945. We're playing historical sleuth - attempting to connect the dots.

Commandant was captured in München on the same day

Are you referring to Martin Weiss?

together with his Aide (Suttrop)

OK - flesh this out - provide more information. But also explain the connection as to how the capture of high-level SS KZ officers proves the SS troops at Dachau were from "Wiking".


As I mentioned, a common assumption is that they were from the 5th SS "Wiking" division.

BUT when one asked for SPECIFIC details - what platoon, company, battalion, regiment etc. nobody knows. The more specifics we find on the SS troops, the more we can accurately reconstruct the events during the liberation of Dachau.

Even now you are engaging in impreciseness - which was it Georg? "Wiking" AND "GvB" troops now? Why not "Nordland"? (as some accounts do) Or all three? I'd like to order 3 SS divisions and a side of Luftwaffe for my KZ liberation!

Why does Mr. Mills say these troops were Luftwaffe conscripts when you say they were from the front line SS divisions "Wiking" and/or "GvB"?

Most accounts say the SS troops were Hungarian volksdeutsche. I believe Arminiusker Cherusker posted that they were western European SS volunteers - well, which is it?

Other accounts say that the SS troops killed at Dachau were recently released from the Dachau stockade - i.e. military jail. OK - let's use a unit organization book like Kurt Mehner's Die Waffen-SS und Polizei to see if we can find any reference to a Dachau stockade. Any if we can't find any reference - can we assume it to be true?

We also need to use our heads to ask some hard logical questions:

Many accounts say the number of SS troops at Dachau KZ was 560. OK - how do we know this exact number? And does that mean that the SS troops from the infirmary and the SS troops from Tower B were from the same unit? Does that mean that a battalion-sized component of the "Wiking" division suddenly appeared at Dachau?

Most accounts say SS officer "Skodenzsky" commanded the SS troops killed at Dachau. But "Skodenzsky" doesn't and didn't exist. SS officer Wicker existed - a long time member of the WVHA & KZ staff. I can understand him surrendering a concentration camp, but what's he doing commanding front line Waffen-SS troops from "Wiking"?

Why would a W-SS combat formation (which presumably has its own officer in charge other than Wicker) opt to guard Dachau rather than be on the front line fighting American troops? WHO gave the order for these "Wiking" troops to guard the KZ and WHY did they obey it?

What role did these "front line W-SS" troops play in the supression of the civilian uprising at Dachau on April 28th?

We know that the remmnants of the "Wiking" division was fighing the Red Army troops in Austria near Vienna in April 1945. Vienna's 356km or 221 miles away from Munich, Georg. Did the 5th SS troops take a Me-262 express to get to the KZ? The 17th SS was fighting near Nürmberg - circa 151km or 94 miles away from Dachau. I'm asking you to literally walk us through it Georg - explain how each specific unit from an SS division (take your pick) started X date at Y place and arrived at Dachau on April 28-29. Or, if you opt to say that the SS troops were from the 5th SS training and replacement battalion based at Ellwangen near Stuttgart, walk me through how these troops migrated the circa 70miles/120km distance to Dachau.





Thanks for posting the photo. I've seen similar photos taken during the US 7th Army's investigation of the event. I can't read the cuff title - looks kinda like "Deutschland" - but then we'd be opening another can of worms with the 2nd SS division!

Photos taken of the surrender ceremony show either Wicker or his aide wearing a cuff title as well. The aide may have an edelweiss badge on his cap, but I'll have to reconfirm

The problem is, however, that cuff title don't always match the unit to which the SS man was currently posted, since their was a honorary status to them. If you served in LSSAH and were then posted to the 13th SS division, you could still wear you LSSAH cuff title.

And if were going to be serious about this research, then you need to
a) Explain where you got this scan
b) Document where this photo came from
- who took it,
- when did they take it
- why did they take it
- where was it reproduced/printed

And then we'll be getting somewhere!

[Rob - wssob2]

as much as I know both Divisions, the 42nd and the 45th claim to be the liberators of KZ Dachau.

And both were. A contingent of I & M Companies, 3rd Battalion, 157th Infantry Regiment, 45th Infantry Division under Lt. Col. Felix Sparks came in through the back door of Dachau KZ so to speak, and a task force under General Linden came in through the front door. Here's a list of the 42nd division liberators:

Brigadier General Henning Linden, Assistant Division Commander, US 42nd Infantry Division
Major Herman L. Avery, 222nd Supply Officer
Captain John E. McLaughlin, CO, 222nd Infantry Regiment Headquarters Company
First Lt. William Cowling III - 42nd ID HQ Co. - Gen. Linden's Aide
Brig. Gen. Charles Y. Banfill, Deputy Commander for Operations, US Eighth Air Force
PFC William R. "Pat" Donahue, 42nd ID HQ Co. - guard for Gen. Linden
T-5 Guido Oddi, 42nd ID HQ Co. - guard for Gen. Linden
T-5 Carl Tinkham, 42nd ID HQ Co. - guard for Gen. Linden
T-5 Harry W. Shaffer, 42nd ID HQ Co. - jeep driver
T-5 John G. Bauerlein - 42nd ID HQ Co. - jeep driver
T-5 (Pfc?) John Veitch, 42nd ID HQ Co. - driver for Linden's jeep

2 jeeps contained press
Mr. Paul Levy - Belgian reporter
Mr. Raphael Algoet - photographer
Sergeant Peter Furst - German-born photographer with "Stars and Stripes"
War Correspondent Marguerite Higgins

The contentious issue is regarding which party - the 42nd or the 45th - got there first

[Rob - wssob2]

I have found one interessting photo of some of the executed soldiers, all of them wearing the SS collartab, no one have the Totenkopf Collartab, which was regular for guards of Totenkopfsturmbannen to wear.

About 2 years ago WWII historian Mark Bando (who, in addition to being an excellent WWII US Army and W-SS scholar, is a militaria collector) posted on http://www.germandaggers.com a scan of a photo of one of the SS guards at Dachau beaten to death by the inmates, plus a scan of a letter from the US GI who took the photograph. Guess what collar tab that unfortunate SS fellow had, Georg! Death’s head. Let me email Mark and see if I can get permission to post the scan here.

He also claims that the camoflauge uniforms the SS men are wearing is and excuse that those was made in the clothing factory in Dachau, but I can´t udnerstand why they should go and pick up those camoflaugeuniforms to meet the US Soldiers, in my opinoin these men warn´t ordinary members of the Guarddepatchment of KL Dachau.

Georg, do you believe that clothes always make the man?

I don´t know if I can post it here, because of the deadmen, but I find it rather important to show you people this photo, one of the men seems even to be a member of the "Grossdeutschland" div (Wehrmacht) see he his "Ärmelband".

Congratulations, Georg, you win the Guy Sajer Forgotten Soldier Cuffband Award. Not only do you forget that the Grossdeutschland Herr division wore their cuffbands on the RIGHT SLEEVE of the uniform, you ignore the SS eagle patch further up the LEFT SLEEVE of the dead man in the photograph you posted.

[Rob - wssob2]

while reading a lot of your postings here and in another forum I get more and more the impression that it's nearly hopeless to argue with you.

I just don’t like to let b.s. slide. I can’t stand sloppy research, incorrect facts, poor logic, double standards and pro-Nazi mythology and arguments that can’t tell left from right. (I’m talking about the human body, not the political spectrum)

For example you call Mr. Buechner a liar, because he told in April 45 the interrogating officer not the truth, but later in his book.

Actually, you’ve got the truth/lies part inverted, but thanks for mentioning Buechner, because it is about time we discussed why Dachau: Hour of The Avenger is an unreliable historical document.[/quote]

It is unreliable. Thanks for bringing it up – now is a great time to explain why it is unreliable. I’ll get to work on that post immediately.

What would y o u have done? He escaped a formal disciplinary action.

He was investigated, but the charges were dropped. The investigation was a disciplinary action, but he did escape a court martial.

For my conviction Buechner was right and if you look at the pictures taken that day, you'll see and - I hope - believe, that there happened a lot of forbidden executions (see the new book of David Israel).

I’m looking forward to getting the book by David Israel (boy I bet the fascist-friendly set is going to have a field day with THAT name!) I think your use of the phrase "hope – believe" is quite accurate. As in all mythologies, hope and belief supercede facts and rational analysis, especially when the facts begin to diverge from the myth.

But this wasn't the first warcrime of this famous unit that day.
Some hours before they murdered 43 soldiers of the Waffen-SS in Webling, a little village near Dachau, a f t e r they had surrendered.It was a unit of the 222nd Inf. Regiment. The commanding officer killed
SS-Hauptsturmführer Veit-Heinrich Truchsess von Wetzhausen with his spade with such force that his skull was cleft in two.

You are of course recounting the article in Issue #27 of After the Battle which attempts to recreate the history of the events that Signal Corps photos 207123-207128 illustrate. Tell me, what’s the name of the elderly German farmer who recounts the story to Andrew Mollo?

If you want to I can post you the names of all killed soldiers.
BTW, Mr Kaschner, was that murder 1st or2nd degree?
Will you tell me and the others this is a "internet legend" too?

Better yet- can you post their name AND look them up in the German Graves Registration database?

I have a letter of a german fried to Mr. Buechner, dated May 10th 1990. He says that he met Buechner and Sparks 1987 near Trier/Germany.

OK. What were Buechner and Sparks doing in Trier in 1987? Why did they meet with your friend?

Sparks told him, that he shot down an SS-Sturmbannführer with his pistol because he and his GIs had seen short before the so called death trains. He also said - and i think this is important - that they had no briefing be- fore, that means, they didn't know what was located beside the KZ.

I am unaware that Sparks shot anybody and will need to confirm if he and Buechner were in contact (I don’t think they were, and I’m not sure they got along postwar, for reasons I’ll get into in my Buechner book post.) Don’t you mean Lt. Bill Walsh – who shot the SS officer by the death trains? – that’s documented. And yes they didn’t expect to find 2,000 massacred civilian slaves on a train siding at the back entrance of the camp.

Hans Linberger was a inmate of the hospital.He lost one arm…

Your account is probably taken from the "Dachau Scrapbook" site. For those interested, the URL is at http://www.scrapbookpages.com/DachauScr ... erger.html

BTW thanks providing an example that Buechner’s account is factually incorrect. Buechner wrote in Dachau: Hour of the Avenger that every single last SS man present at Dachau on April 29th was killed by US troops. Linberger wasn’t. Linberger, the survivor of coal yard incident = Buechner incorrect.

The example of Webling show that the GIs from this unit didn't need a motiv to kill, because they had not seen either the KZ nor the death trains too.

Mollo does a pretty bad job of presenting a case that the US troops committed a war crime at Webling. Want to get into discuss particulars?

BTW, you always denied that all named units of the Waffen-SS were separated from the KZ. Please have a look at page 6/7 of "After the
Battle" Nr. 27 and you'll see, that all other units were fine separated.

By a moat and barbed wire – that vertical black line near the right page seam between the jourhaus and the DAW buildings? BTW notice how the "plantage" area is mislabeled on the May 27, 1945 photo? The actual plantage was outside of the wire above the "SS officer houses" on the top right of the photograph (see those fields?) The "plantage" label is where the site of the 1967 Protestant Church is. Don’t know what this area was in 1945 – perhaps the herb garden and rabbit hutches.

Now, who is really engaging in obfuscation here?

I give up! You?

You are wrong again. Members of the trainingscamp of the 5th Waffen-SS- Division "Wiking" near Augaburg had been ordered to Dachau on the 28th of April 1945, one day before the GIs arrived.

OK – prove it. Name a primary source document for your information.

BTW where is Augaburg? You must mean Augsburg NE of Dachau. Seems like the US 3rd Infantry Division captured Augsburg on April 27th – see http://www.army.mil/cmh-pg/lineage/cc/003id.htm (although Buechner places "Task Force Love" NE of Augsburg at 7AM of the 29th.)

In addition, the 5th SS Training and Replacement detachment was based at Ellwangen/Jagst, which is closer to Stuttgart than Munich. And was behind US lines in late April, 1945. (And, interestingly enough, was the site of a KZ as well.

Speaking about this executions has nothing to do with revisionism

It’ does when Ernst Zundel makes a stink about it – and gets his facts wrong.

but I think you will not even believe that a lot of the murdered soldiers - not former guards - were in the hospital as patients , they had absolutely nothing to do with the inmates of the KZ.

Yep – 2,000 dead civilians lying in heaps in 39 train cars - even some survivors barely clinging to life. And a short walk away, the SS hospital, where not a single SS man or woman – patient, medic, doctor or nurse, bothered to do anything about it – not even so much as to cover one single inmate corpse with a sheet. Yep, they really had nothing to do with it all right. That was the problem.

It seems to me, that for you and some few fellows in this forum somebody belongs to the
Faschist-friendly-waffennista-crowd (your words),
if he tells the truth.

Isn’t "waffenista" a great word! It’s like the haute couture "fashionista" but replace Isaac Mizrahi with Jochen Peiper and clothing glorification with SS glorification and you’ll get what I mean. Tell me, what part of the "truth" is the Grossdeutschland cuff title George mentions?

[David Thompson]

Another general warning -- everyone, please avoid personal remarks in your posts.

[Georg_S]

To answer your questions (some of them)

Yes I was refering to Martin Weiss who took command over KL Dachau in March 45 (again).
The history of the capture of these men is from the GI who took them.
To get the info , who, how and when, about the photo is rather impossible the capture of the photo on http://www.gfh.il is "SS men killed by the inmates at the libiration of the camp"

OK I was wrong about the "Grossdeutschland" cufftitle, but if he was a SS Soldier why is he not where the eagle on his arm?

Why there aren´t any records of the transports of the SS units to Dachau:
To get such exact infomation about troop transports in that late stage of the war is impossible, espeacilly when it´s only a small unit, and as Rudi wrote it was a Ausbildungs und Ersatz abteilung of Wiking or other unit who was there and was summarily executed by the US. To get the exact information today and with the most (or all) members of the SS at KL Dachau are dead it´s impossible.

Why Wicker stayd:
SS-Ustuf Heinrich Wicker was presuaded by the Red Cross official Maurer to stay in the camp and surrender the camp. All of this in Victor Maurers report to the Red Cross HQ.

About why they didn´t leave the camp:
I have read on many places that the officials wanted the camp to stay safe, and it would be more safer for both prisoners and the German citizens if the prisoners stayd in the camp. As it was in many other camp, even after the Germans had surrendered the prisoners had to stay in the camp so they didn´t go out on the streets and comitted any crimes against the German people or spread diseases (Typhus etc).

Why I didn´t pointed on the Eagle on the photo:
It wasn´t any evidence since both ordinary Waffen-SS soldiers and Soldiers of the Totenkopfsturmbannen wore the Eagle. I just wanted to point out the SS collartab and the strange Cufftitle, the man with the cufftitle haven´t got any collartab or eagle on his arm, unfortunately it´s able to see if he has got a eagle on his breast.

To David Thomson the Moderater, If I have made any personal attack/remarks to anyone I am the first to Appoligize for that.

/Georg

[michael mills]

Rob-WSSOB wrote:

Most accounts say the SS troops were Hungarian volksdeutsche. I believe Arminiusker Cherusker posted that they were western European SS volunteers - well, which is it?

Most accounts of what? The capture of the Dachau concentration camp in particular, or of concentration camps in general?

The unit guarding the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp at the time of its surrender to the British Army consisted of Hungarian Volksdeutsche, and all accounts of the surrender agree on that point.

Although the British military authorities arrested all the members of the camp administrative staff who had remained behind to implement the agreed surrender of the camp, they did not arrest the members of the Hungarian Volksdeutsche unit providing the camp guard, and indeed retained it as an organised unit for some time, to maintain order in the camp and to prevent the inmates escaping and spreading typhus.

I gain the impression that Rob WSSOB is trying to muddy the waters here, by mixing up details of the surrender of Belsen with details of the surrender of Dachau and thereby insinuating that those making statements he does not like are somehow perpetrating falsehoods and cannot get their stories straight. So far as I can see, nobody on this thread has claimed that the Dachau concentration camp guards were Hungarian Volksdeutsche, nor have I seen any such claim made in anything that I have read about the capture of the Dachau SS-base and concentration camp.

He is also trying to muddy the waters with his reference to the Luftwaffe personnel drafted into the Waffen-SS who were posted to replace the concentration camp guards transferred to frontline duty. There is no conflict between the presence of former Luftwaffe men in the guard companies at the Dachau concentration camp and the presence of men from a variety of Waffen-SS units in the SS base immediately adjacent to the concentration camp, which contained a large number of units and offices, as Rob-WSSOB humself has shown (and also contained the SS hospital from which a number of men were dragged out and summarily executed).

I also take with a rather large grain of salt his assertion that he is merely opposed to sloppy research. Throughout his posts on this thread he has referred to those he disagrees with in such terms as "fascist-friendly", and tried to smear them through association with persons such as Zundel and the IHR.

[David Thompson]

Avoid personal comments in posts or this thread has a padlock in its future.

[walterkaschner]

Mr. Kaschner,
as much as I know both Divisions, the 42nd and the 45th claim to be the liberators of KZ Dachau.
Warren Thompson wrote the same in another thread (Who liberated KZ Dachau?)

/Rudi

Yes, that is certainly true, but as far as I am aware (and of course I may be wrong) the units of the 222 Regiment of the 42nd (Rainbow) Infantry Division, implicated in the massacre at Webling, were never accused of being involved in the SS massacre at Dachau. That dubious distiction belongs to the 157th regiment of the 45th (Thunderbird) Division.

And the units of the 42nd Division contending for the honor of being the first to liberate Dachau were not combat troops at all. They consisted of a Brigadier General and his entourage, accompanied by members of the Press, whose mission, IMHO, judged soley by the composition of the group, had nothing to do with the liberation of the camp but rather to reap the most propaganda and publicity from it.

I personally have little patience for the petty dispute over who was the first to liberate Dachau, but for what it's worth I think that General Linden's arrival, accompanied by Marguerite Higgins, was nothing much more than a publicity stunt.

Regards, Kaschner

[walterkaschner]

Hello all!

I would hate to see David put a padlock on this thread, which I consider to be of exceeding interest, so would urge all to follow his admonition and refrain from personalities. Moreover, IMHO they seriously detract from the effect of posts which otherwise might be powerfully persuasive.

Regards, Kaschner

[Rob - wssob2]

Mr Mills, you wrote:

"Most accounts of what? The capture of the Dachau concentration camp in particular, or of concentration camps in general?"

Regarding the identity of the SS troops at Dachau on April 29th 1945:

Arminiusder Cherusker1 wrote on page 1 of this thread

"Most of the victims were wounded and came from Norge, Netherlands and Belgium and had been ordered to Dachau days before.
The former campguards had left before."

This is the first paragraph of the Zundelsite on the Dachau massacre:

"The German guards murdered at Dachau by the Americans in their mafia-style, St. Valentine's Day Massacre machine-gunning were previously wounded and exhausted veterans from the Eastern Front. These ethnic Germans and Hungarian army soldiers in German uniforms had fought communism with deeds, not words, and had been transferred to Dachau only days before their murder at the hands of the Americans, so whatever one might accuse the Germans of doing at Dachau, these murdered men had no part in it!"

I trust that I have made it clear I am referring to the liberation of Dachau in particular.

[Rob - wssob2]

Hi Kaschner,

I personally have little patience for the petty dispute over who was the first to liberate Dachau, but for what it's worth I think that General Linden's arrival, accompanied by Marguerite Higgins, was nothing much more than a publicity stunt.

That's exactly what many in the 45th ID thought as well, which is why the dispute still festers among the two division's surviving members. In fact, in Buchener's book he attempts to correct the "error" that Peter Furst and Marguerite Higgins were at the camp liberation.

[Rob - wssob2]

Mr Mills continued:

I gain the impression that Rob WSSOB is trying to muddy the waters here, by mixing up details of the surrender of Belsen with details of the surrender of Dachau and thereby insinuating that those making statements he does not like are somehow perpetrating falsehoods and cannot get their stories straight.

As I mentioned, I am only referring to the liberation of Dachau. As I know absolutely nothing about the liberation of Belsen, I won't refer to it.

So far as I can see, nobody on this thread has claimed that the Dachau concentration camp guards were Hungarian Volksdeutsche, nor have I seen any such claim made in anything that I have read about the capture of the Dachau SS-base and concentration camp

I was referring specifically to the Zundelsite. Please see above. Marcuse also refers to the SS troops as Hungarian volksdeutsche.