US Liberates Dachau

On this day, American troops liberated the Dachau concentration camp. The camp had been in operation for more than a decade. It initially held political prisoners, who were forced to help construct and expand it. In 1942, a new crematorium complex was built there. Prisoners were also subjected to medical experiments against their will, killing or harming hundreds of people.

In the days before liberation, more than 7,000 prisoners, most of them Jews, were forced on a death march toward Tegernsee, Germany. Nazi authorities also transferred large numbers of prisoners into Dachau from other camps as Allied forces advanced. When American troops arrived on April 29, 1945, they liberated approximately 32,000 prisoners. Historians estimate that at least 40,000 people died within the Dachau camp system during its twelve years of operation.