Dachau liberation reprisals

Dachau liberation reprisals
Part of World War II
Soldiers of the U.S. Seventh Army guard SS prisoners in a coal yard at Dachau concentration camp during its liberation. April 29, 1945 (U.S. Army photograph)[Note 1]
LocationDachau concentration camp
DateApril 29, 1945
Target SS personnel
Kapos
Attack type
Massacre
Summary executions
Vigilantism
Deaths~35–50
PerpetratorsUnited States Army
Former Dachau prisoners
MotiveOutrage
Revenge

During the Dachau liberation reprisals,[Note 2] German SS troops were killed by U.S. soldiers and concentration camp prisoners at the Dachau concentration camp on April 29, 1945, during World War II. It is unclear how many SS guards were killed in the incident, but most estimates place the number killed at around 35–50. In the days before the camp's liberation, SS guards at the camp had forced 7,000 inmates on a death march that resulted in the death of many from exposure and shooting.[1] When Allied soldiers liberated Dachau, they were variously shocked, horrified, disturbed, and angered at finding the massed corpses of prisoners, and by the combativeness of some of the remaining guards who allegedly fired on them.


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  1. ^ "Death Marches". www.ushmm.org. U.S. Holocaust Museum. Retrieved March 4, 2018.