1945: Dachau Massacre
April 29th, 2012 Headsman
On this date in 1945, American troops liberated the Dachau concentration camp in Upper Bavaria — and then proceeded to summarily execute a number of its SS personnel.
The “Dachau massacre” involves several distinct incidents of wantonly killing defenseless POWs by American troops, who may have been set on edge by warnings of potential fake-surrender gambits, and then evidently went right off the rails with discovery of emaciated dead bodies around the place. In particular, a stranded transport that had been sent from Buchenwald, christened the “death train”, greeted the liberators with a 40-car phantasmagoria of horror.
“We had seen men in battle blown apart, burnt to death, and die many different ways, but we were never prepared for this. Several of the dead lay there with their eyes open, a picture I will never get out of my mind. It seems they were looking at us and saying, ‘What took you so long?'” -Private John Lee
“It made us sick at our stomach and so mad we could do nothing but clinch our fists. I couldn’t even talk.” -Lt. William Cowling
These stunned, outraged soldiers, some of them still teenagers, would soon have a bunch of disarmed German troops from the camp under their power. Uh-oh.
As the dry but shocking (and also marked “Secret”: nobody ever faced a court-martial for the incident*) U.S. Army investigation remarked, “The sight of these numerous victims would naturally produce strong mental reaction on the part of both officers and men. Such circumstances are extenuating, but are the only extenuating facts found.” (Read the entire report in this forum thread.)
The behaviors these facts propose to extenuate may also produce a strong mental reaction. “‘After what we saw, we shot any German guards we saw on sight,” one of the Dachau liberators admitted in the 1990s.
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A Lt. William Walsh took the surrender of four SS men near one of these train cars, then forced his prisoners inside the car and shot them on the spot.
About seven Germans taken prisoner at the camp’s Tower B were lined up a few steps away from the tower preparatory to marching them elsewhere, when for sketchy reasons one of their American guards started shooting, and then others followed suit.
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And the most notorious of the incidents, about 50 captured SS men were segregated from other POWs — again, by Lt. Walsh — and lined up in the camp coalyard by the wall of the hospital. There they were machine-gunned, resulting in 17 deaths before a superior officer interceded.
Another 25 to 50 guards were killed by prisoners themselves, many with the implicit blessing of American infantrymen who stood by and watched, and or the explicit blessing of Americans’ weapons on loan from sympathetic troopers.
The irony in all this was that most of the camp’s regular guards had already fled the place. The SS men whom outraged Americans were shooting down in the Dachau charnel house were Waffen-SS who had been transferred from the eastern front just days before and whose specific purpose in the camp was to surrender it to the western Allies. They probably considered this assignment far away from the vengeful Red Army a very lucky break.
It wasn’t so lucky: this is the mischance of war. But they didn’t have anything to do with Dachau’s horrors, and their deaths in a unthinking bloodlust disgraced only their executioners.
“German soldiers after their surrender as prisoners of war to American troops were summarily shot and killed by such troops.”
-Conclusion of the Army Inspector General’s report
* Court-martial charges were filed, but quashed. The whole affair remained unknown to the public until the 1980s.
On this day..
- 1972: King Ntare V of Burundi - 2020
- 1947: Karel Čurda and Viliam Gerik, Czechoslovakia resistance betrayers - 2019
- 1774: Daniel Wilson - 2018
- 2014: Two crucifixions in Raqqa - 2017
- 1836: Isaac Young/Heller, axman - 2016
- 2015: Eight drug smugglers in Indonesia - 2015
- 1862: Mary Timney, the last woman publicly hanged in Scotland - 2014
- 998: Crescentius the Younger - 2013
- 1951: Ospan Batyr, Kazakh freedom fighter - 2011
- 1968: Lin Zhao, martyr poet - 2010
- 1676: Anna Zippel, Brita Zippel and the body of Anna Mansdotter - 2009
- 1818: Alexander Arbuthnot and Richard Ambrister - 2008
Entry Filed under: 20th Century,Borderline "Executions",Capital Punishment,Death Penalty,Execution,Germany,History,Innocent Bystanders,Mass Executions,Milestones,No Formal Charge,Occupation and Colonialism,Shot,Soldiers,Summary Executions,U.S. Military,USA,Wartime Executions,Wrongful Executions
Tags: 1940s, 1945, april 29, dachau, dachau massacre, william walsh, world war ii
My paternal grandfather was Lt. William “Bill” Walsh. He never spoke of this until just before his death. He was both proud of what he had done, but also haunted by what he saw in that camp. Did the guards at that camp deserve to be executed? In my opinion of course. I just don’t like what that had done to my grandfather. He would say that “some people just need killed.” I guess he knew what he was doing.
Hey there, this is cousin Phil. I had the opportunity to talk with Uncle Bill about it shortly before he passed. Slightly different account but a tough situation regardless. Several good documentaries out there. You dad is still the best source for sure.
Dear Philip,
Apologies in advance for writing so out of the blue.
I work for a documentary production company called 72 Films, based in London. We are working on a new historical documentary series about the Second World War for a premium international streaming broadcaster. It is a hugely ambitious project that is essentially a global oral history of the Second World War.
It will be six one-hour episodes made up entirely of archive material filmed during the war, and testimony recorded at any time from the end of the war until now. As the overarching narrative of war plays out, the series will also zero in on personal stories.
We were inspired by the volume of powerful interviews sitting in archives, often unseen and unheard, and we wanted to make something for the historical record.
We are currently in production, and as we will not be filming any interviews ourselves, I’m trying to find the very best, most powerful recorded testimony with which we can shape the narrative of our series.
During my research, I came across the fascinating Lt. William Walsh and his extraordinary wartime experience. I understand from this website that he was your grandfather?
I would love the opportunity to speak with you to help with my research and would be incredibly grateful for your time and help.
Many thanks in advance for your time.
Kind regards,
Molly
My step-father was one of the Army JAG officers that was at Dachau. When I was a kid, I found numerous pictures. I eventually took them to the Holocaust Museum in D.C. and they kept one. Pictures of SS guards lined up along a canal that had been shot. Ironically, the commander of the group that liberated Dachau ( a retired General), was giving a talk about this incident the time I turned over the pictures. While they were establishing a government in numerous cities in Germany, he met and eventually married my mother, of which both of us were born in Hungary. My mother & I were at the bombing of Dresden. (Where hundreds of thousands of refugees were fleeing the Soviets) She also told me while she was looking for food and milk, the refugee train we were on were strafed by P51 Mustangs with US insignia.
All 300 SS scum should have been hung. Or just turned over to the prisoners to be tortured to death. William P. Walsh was a hero.
and so should you….you are not better than any of them may god reject your soul…this comment will haunt you in hell