Death numbers of the Dachau concentration camp

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Death notification

The National Socialist regime ran the concentration camp at Dachau for twelve years, of 22 March 1933 until its liberation by a battalion of the 7th US Army on April 29, 1945. In the register of prisoners at least 180,000 people were listed.

Numbers of the registry offices

The numbers of the registry offices are listed below.

  • Prittlbach registry office: from April 12, 1933 to March 31, 1939: 489 deaths
  • Dachau registry office: from April 1, 1939 to May 31, 1941: 3,486 dead
  • Special registry office "Dachau II" in the Dachau concentration camp: from June 1, 1941 to April 20, 1945: 8,948 deaths
  • In the registry offices of those communities in which external detachments and sub-camps were located: 705 dead
  • In the Bad Arolsen special registry office, which was established in 1949 to record further deaths in concentration camps: 18,741 deaths

The registry offices' documents show the total number of 32,099 dead for the time being. It is important to note that this number is by no means complete. The causes of death were varied, including executions, hunger, and typhoid and typhus epidemics.

Historical research on the numbers

The book “Das war Dachau” was published on the initiative of the International Dachau Foundation, founded by the Comité International de Dachau . As follows, this source cites reasons and other deaths that were mentioned in the above. Total number (32,099) does not include:

  • Since 1942, deaths of Jewish prisoners have no longer been officially registered.
  • From October 1943, with a few exceptions, the deaths of Polish and Soviet prisoners were no longer recorded.
  • The number of Soviet prisoners of war shot between 1941 and 1942 is not included; it is estimated at at least 4,000.
  • The record of the deaths of the external commandos and sub-camps was not complete. A further 1,181 deceased are included here, as the ITS Arolsen registry office did not document them.
  • On February 12, 1945, the SS put the crematorium out of operation and buried the deceased in mass graves in the Leitenberg cemetery and the forest cemetery. Exhuminations took place on the Leitenberg and the Waldfriedhof between 1955 and 1959. The source reports that the ITS Arolsen did not authenticate 880 people enough.

Deaths in transports:

  • The number of deceased in the transport train that arrived from Compiègne is not included and is put at 891 dead.
  • 188 deaths from prisoner transports, people who could not be identified.
  • The number of people who died from evacuation transports is not fully recorded.

Transports to other camps, prisoners who died there:

  • In 1944, 2,177 Jewish prisoners who were unable to work were transported to Auschwitz .
  • In November 1944, 150 disabled prisoners were sent to the gas chamber in Hartheim, according to the above. Source, the ITS lists these people “by mistake as prisoners from Mauthausen ”.

In the cited source, the total number of 41,566 deaths is cited, who died “in the entire Dachau camp complex”. It should be added to this figure that it cannot be regarded as final either. In addition, the question of which local registry office is to be used to document deaths (place of departure or place of arrival) must be clarified in advance for transports.

Please also note:

  • The documented total number (32,099) does not include the executions of those who were brought in by the Gestapo for so-called special treatment; it is estimated at several hundred deaths.
  • Likewise: 1,000 people were brought to Majdanek and 1,400 people to Bergen-Belsen on so-called invalid transports , and died there.

Mortality after the liberation of the camp

After the liberation on April 29, 1945, mortality remained high for a few weeks. On April 30, no one registered the newly deceased. A total of 2,221 people died in May. 68 people died in the first week of June 1945. On June 8th, Dr. B. Bolibaugh, Colonel of the U.S. Army Medical Corps , in a letter to Dr. Blaha that the epidemic had been defeated, that there were only 729 sick people in the camp and that no new case of typhoid had occurred. There are still 10,224 people in the Dachau main camp and 1,420 in the Allach sub-camp .

literature

  • Richard Zahlten (Ed.): The murdered: the memorial plaque of the Archdiocese of Freiburg for the persecuted priests (1933 to 1945) in "Maria Lindenberg", near St. Peter, Black Forest. Paperback. 224 pages. Vöhrenbach: Dold-Verlag, 1998. ISBN 978-3927677180 .
  • Stanislav Zámečník: That was Dachau. Luxembourg, 2002. Commissioned by the Comité International de Dachau

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f from: Stanislav Zámečník: (Ed. Comité International de Dachau): That was Dachau. Luxembourg, 2002., p. 398.
  2. ↑ a b c from: Stanislav Zámečník: (Ed. Comité International de Dachau): That was Dachau. Luxembourg, 2002., p. 399.
  3. ^ Archive of the Dachau Memorial, DA-36125. Source taken from Stanislav Zámečník: (Ed. Comité International de Dachau): That was Dachau. Luxembourg, 2002. p. 398.
  4. ↑ a b c d e f g h i from: Stanislav Zámečník: (Ed. Comité International de Dachau): That was Dachau. Luxembourg, 2002., p. 400.
  5. ^ Archives of the National Museum in Prague, Fund Prof. Dr. Frantisek Blaha.