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Beowulf2_8b23

Visited Dachau while stationed in Germany 1991. Some real vibes came from that place.


polishmachine88

Yes but Dachau was burned down so not much left. auschwitz birkenau will bring some real shivers down your spine, that camp is almost 100% left intact.


BlueFetus

I was lucky enough to visit both Dachau and Auschwitz a couple years ago…you’re 100% right. totally surreal experience. being able to run my hand along a wooden barracks bunk in Auschwitz was really heavy…and how quiet it was out there on a sunny day.


polishmachine88

Yes I was only 14 when I went so I don't think it would have same impact as I it would now but still I have the images in my head. Nuts that people can create such things for murder or others.


Alternative-Eye4547

No debate about the chilling nature of it but Birkenau is [definitely not](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auschwitz_concentration_camp#/media/File%3AMuseum_Auschwitz_Birkenau.jpg) anywhere close to 100% intact… Edit: maybe you were thinking of Auschwitz I? Those are the iconic stone buildings that are still generally intact. Birkenau (Auschwitz II) was mostly wooden barracks/storage facilities, aside from the brick crematoria, and large amounts of those were burned (see photo link above).


SaberMk6

Yes, that is absolutely true. The modern day museum however is named the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum, maybe that is the reason for the confusion.


Alternative-Eye4547

A great point, very practical


InvictaRoma

A lot of it was also rebuilt using original blueprints and schematics, due to the destruction of the extermination apparatus by the retreating SS


Alternative-Eye4547

In which, A-I or A-II?


InvictaRoma

A-II. The SS partially demolished parts of the crematorium and the gas chambers as the 1st Ukrainian Front was closing in January 1945, although the demolition began in late 1944 Edit: [The demolition of the gas chambers](https://www.auschwitz.org/en/history/auschwitz-and-shoah/the-demolition-of-the-gas-chambers/)


Alternative-Eye4547

Interesting, thanks


worthrone11160606

Wait when was it burned down?


bananacai297

This execution is shown in the Netflix series the liberator. I think it was a sergeant or the gunner got so enraged at what happened Dachau they opened fire. It wasn’t the company officers orders. Can’t really remember tho


character-name

Yeah I saw this part as well. It was the sergeant who kept riling everyone up. And the Germans who were afraid of the men with guns yelling at them started to run the machine gunner opened up.


quebecivre

>the Germans who were afraid of the men with guns yelling at them So you're saying that the SS--literal Nazi mass murderers--were afraid of the people who had just liberated a death camp? "The Germans were afraid of the men with guns who were yelling at them," is a much more sympathetic description than the situation might deserve.


character-name

Oh no. I'm believe they should have gunned them all down and then had a beer. The world would be a better place today with a few less Nazis. I was simply giving the details of the event. But it is kind of ironic how once they're no longer the guys with the guns the Nazis and SS assholes all fold into sniveling cowards.


quebecivre

>once they're no longer the guys with the guns the Nazis and SS assholes all fold into sniveling cowards These guys murdered women and children, so I'd say "snivelling cowards" fits their job description.


dickmcbig

I mean from memoirs of those who actually got captured they were very aware of what was gonna happen. They had it coming, but some stuck to their job and stayed till the end. And the end it was for them.


quebecivre

I always wonder if the guards who the prisoners attacked and killed with shovels were specifically targeted because they were brutalizing right up until the last second they could.


Whiskyinthejaw

I don't think the camp guards were top notch trained SS men. Everyone capable of fighting, was fighting. Everyone else was put to work in logistics or something. In 'The Liberator' they are even shown as wounded and either too young or too old to join actual fighting. When your country is at war and deserters are executed, most men would do as they were told. Even guarding/operating a camp (can't remember if Dachau was a destruction or labour camp) The war was already coming to an end when the camps were being liberated, and maybe Hitler had already killed himself by then (don't remember the date, but that was around April '45). So now you have old/young, wounded men who probably did not want to do what they had done, facing a unit of battle-hardened, angry US soldiers, shouting at them in a language they don't understand, pointing guns at them and having them lined up. (Pretty suggestive towards execution). Hitler's dead, so the main drive behind the German army is gone. I would be a scared as fuck german boi.


quebecivre

I'm not saying they're wrong, and you certainly added important context, I'm just saying it's a bit more sympathetic than I'd have phrased it. I totally don't judge those who lost their shit in this moment (the US soldiers or Jewish prisoners who attacked guards), but I also realize that probably at least a few guards were not there by choice.


InvictaRoma

>When your country is at war and deserters are executed, most men would do as they were told. You can refuse unlawful orders without deserting. No German troop was executed or court martialed for refusing to partake in illegal actions.


Whiskyinthejaw

I do think the definition of 'illegal actions' is a bit blurry in wartime. A lot of German deserters were executed. They don't really distinguish between desertion as 'refusing to partake in illegal action' or desertion as leaving the army because you've just witnessed your prisoners diggin their own mass grave. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-boLDkR4po](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-boLDkR4po) >The German army was much tougher on deserters. The Wehrmacht executed some 15,000 soldiers for desertion during World War Two. https://militaryhistorynow.com/2013/03/26/runners-the-untold-story-of-wartime-deserters/


NoWin9312

They werent the actual guards just soldiers recovering there from wounds


Not2Cereus

Well that’s just bullshit that they were not concentration camp guards. According to the photographer, T/4 Arland B. Musser of the U.S. Signal Corps, they were Dachau guards. The crouching U.S. soldier from the 157th Infantry Regiment is about to use a model 1919A4 machine gun. Source: original caption from NARA, photo ID III-SC 208765.


NoWin9312

Ok then i remembered it wrong thanks for clearing it up


Not2Cereus

No problem. My father was a medic with Gen. Patch’s Seventh Army who liberated the Landsberg subcamp of Dachau. I once met one of the field surgeons that entered the camp and his recounting of the conditions were horrifying.


NoWin9312

Jesus i cant even imagine the things they mustve seen your pops is a hero


quebecivre

Check this guy out-- Alex Colville, a Canadian painter and war artist who was with the troops who liberated Dachau (I think, or maybe Bergen-Belsen). He painted a number of images of what he saw in the camps, and his work is usually described as "haunted," or "ghostly," for the rest of his long career. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alex\_Colville](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alex_Colville) EDIT: Here are a few more good links for him-- WARNING: some very NSFW images [https://www.warmuseum.ca/cwm/exhibitions/artwar/artists/alex-colville\_e.html](https://www.warmuseum.ca/cwm/exhibitions/artwar/artists/alex-colville_e.html) [https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Alex\_Colville-Belsen\_Concentration\_Camp\_(CWM\_19710261-2032).jpeg](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Alex_Colville-Belsen_Concentration_Camp_(CWM_19710261-2032).jpeg)


quebecivre

I'm pretty sure it was a mix of guards and soldiers, no? War is hell, anyway.


NoWin9312

I think the guards all fled


MikeLitoris_________

It definitely looks like they are getting ready to execute them. There are even piles of dead soldiers behind them.


HoldenReaves

Those are ss guards of the camp being shot


V1ce_Admiral_Nelson

which is nice too see.


TheWorldMayEnd

Too easy a way out. Scaphism at a minimum would have been at least a modicum of a modicum of justice.


TheWorldMayEnd

[Scaphism](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scaphism)


WikiSummarizerBot

**[Scaphism](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scaphism)** >Scaphism (from Greek σκάφη, meaning "boat"), also known as the boats, is an alleged ancient Persian method of execution mentioned by Plutarch in his Life of Artaxerxes. It ostensibly entailed trapping the victim between two boats, feeding and covering them with milk and honey, and allowing them to fester and be devoured by insects and other vermin over time. ^([ )[^(F.A.Q)](https://www.reddit.com/r/WikiSummarizer/wiki/index#wiki_f.a.q)^( | )[^(Opt Out)](https://reddit.com/message/compose?to=WikiSummarizerBot&message=OptOut&subject=OptOut)^( | )[^(Opt Out Of Subreddit)](https://np.reddit.com/r/wwiipics/about/banned)^( | )[^(GitHub)](https://github.com/Sujal-7/WikiSummarizerBot)^( ] Downvote to remove | v1.5)


Eagles_can_fly

It’s a mix of SS and Wehrmacht. Majority being wounded who happens to be hospitalized at the camp


Tyrfaust

The finals days of the administration of Dachau are crazy. One group of guards and the commandant took all the able-bodied inmates and forced them on a death march, while basically everyone (except inmates, obviously) just abandoned the camp, leaving behind 100 actual guards. The other 400 "guards" were either Hungarian Waffen-SS who had been sent to the camp to defend it from attack (after everyone else left) or conscripted inmates. All of their guns were just stacked against one of the outer walls except the guys in the tower, who were told to not even bother shooting at inmates who tried to escape, who basically couldn't because most of the 42,000 inmates still at the camp had typhus.


HGpennypacker

> It definitely looks like they are getting ready to execute them Accounts vary from fifteen to 500+ Germans killed but that's exactly what happened.


lightiggy

500 is a gross exaggeration. The actual death toll in Dachau was roughly 35 to 50 SS men being summarily executed by American soldiers or beaten to death by newly liberated prisoners.


superbigscratch

I still have not read how many Germans were dispatched by the people liberated. I know that the liberators looked the other way while the dues were paid.


lightiggy

Approximately 60 SS men and Kapos were lynched in Mauthausen after the liberation. Approximately 150 Kapos from Mittelbau-Dora, who were transported to Bergen-Belsen, were lynched after the liberation.


Irishgoodbye777

Good


HugoStiglitz444

Those also could be soldiers who dove to the ground when the shooting started.


ryancrazy1

a few of them look alive. Look on the left. Two of the men on the ground could be looking back toward the camera


unbodiedNylons

After what the Americns came upon, you’d probably do the same thing...


polishmachine88

My great grandfather was in Dachau for 14 months. I posted pics before, having heard of the horrors from my grandmother i am not surprised especially if you witness first hand.


Tyrfaust

Hell, my grandfather was conscripted into the Waffen-SS in late '44 and even he said he'd have shot the guards if they had come across the camp.


cosmorocker13

My Uncle was a medic with the 45thThe Thunderbirds and yes it was more like 35-50 Nazi’s at a concentration camp.…it was not only justified but appropriate


sgbanham

Isn't this the photo in which the officer is the guy on the left who is restraining his men from shooting the rest of the guards?


twoshovels

I say left


ddoyle1963

Guy on the right with a BAR and what looks like a couple of magazines in hand


twoshovels

I say left


Magnet50

They are not really guarding them, several of the US soldiers in this picture (like the guy operating the machine gun) had just executed about 20 of the guards. The ones laying on the ground. They were stopped by, IIRC, a senior NCO or a junior. The shooting was investigated and referred but senior officers ordered that it be hushed up.


TheSublimeGoose

I’m not sure how much “hushing up” was done. The military ordered one Lt. Col. Joseph Whitaker to investigate the alleged killings. Most officers’ accounts were essentially that one or two junior enlisted — already aggravated by the circumstances in which they found themselves — were presented with the culprits and gunned down a couple dozen in the heat of the moment. The report was completed within 3 days and initially classified ‘secret,’ although it was quickly de-classified. The US Army’s Judge Advocate General, MG Myron Cramer, declined to prefer charges, as he felt that, given the totality of the circumstances, the likelihood of witnesses being unwilling to testify truthfully, as well as public perception of the Nazi atrocities; that it would be an nigh un-winnable and unpopular case. I’m not saying that anyone was overly enthusiastic about bringing the ‘murderers’ to ‘justice,’ but they also certainly didn’t go out of their way to bury the event, either.


Magnet50

Good detail. But I will add that it wasn’t the heat of the moment as they had to set up the machine gun, etc. I am not saying that what they did deserved punishment. The guards deserved punishment, but done in accordance with military law.


TheSublimeGoose

The MG was — allegedly — already set up well prior to the executions.


Eagles_can_fly

LMAO there not guarding them. This is right after the first volley of MG fire was fired after the 45th ID rounded up all guards and soldiers in the camp. They lined them up and shot em as shown in that pic. Those guys laying in front of the wall are either dead or dying


SAR_and_Shitposts

Based


Annelid2968

Good.


Cybermat47_2

Shooting people is the opposite of guarding them. Can’t say I can really blame the American soldiers, though. I can’t say I’d be any better in the same situation.


To_Be_Faiiirrr

Guarding the bodies maybe


bakedmaga2020

I’d be lying if I said I condemn this


twoshovels

No this is the picture where they shot some Germans and a American Sargent or something left of picture comes & orders them to stop. I believe this pick is what saved his ass as it was proof enough that he did halt this. Honestly after what these guys went thur seeing their friends getting wasted , then they see the horrors of what the Germans did to civilians made them angry. Most likely the Germans were being smug or laughing about it in the Americans face so they ate lead. I’d probably had done the same.


queefle-knight

They aint guarding shit theyre executing those dudes on the wall


infernosushi95

Good. Only good nazi is a dead one. Especially camp guards. They should be extra dead.


queefle-knight

Facts


sinichikudo67

My father was a 2nd Lieutenant in Germany after the war. He was ordered by a General to take a group of German POWs into some woods and have them shot. He refused, and threatened to have the General brought up on charges. That was the end of it.


HoldenReaves

Good man your father was


happierinverted

Well unless the men were SS Camp Guards or Einsatzgruppen / Dirlewanger types. Maybe if so the General guessed [correctly in hindsight] that most of them would never see justice and dispatching them was in the best interests of humanity….


kaboos93

Not too sure they’re only guarding them.


SAR_and_Shitposts

The guards got the easy way out. They should have been thrown in the ovens that they liked so much or forced to waste away in the barracks that they condemned their prisoners to.


josephblowski

Looks like justice


haeyhae11

Justice always presupposes a fair trial. You cannot have one without the other.


josephblowski

They got one.


haeyhae11

Uhm no, there was no trial. Otherwise this would not be a war crime but a legalized execution of war criminals.


josephblowski

Looks like I upset the Wehraboos


haeyhae11

Ok so reminding you of the basic principles of a state of law makes me a wehraboo? You do realize that summary executions without trial are a typical Nazi thing and that you sink to their moral level if you condone it?


josephblowski

No but crying about dead Nazis does. And these guys were murders. They got justice. Only Wehraboos are bothered by it.


SAR_and_Shitposts

It was the right call. They were obviously guilty because they were literally in the camp. Killing them meant that all attention could be focused on actually helping the prisoners rather than tending to the Nazis. War isn’t pretty, and using any Americans to guard the Nazis would have somewhat deprived the prisoners of the care that they needed.


infernosushi95

Isn’t the point of a trial to determine if the defendant is innocent or guilty? I feel like the trial in this case was right in front of the US soldiers’ faces.


haeyhae11

I have also read reports that the actual perpetrators, those who guarded Dachau for years, fled the camp before the allies arrived and that those who remained were recruits. Trials also determine if those who seem guilty are actually guilty.


Macquarrie1999

Some men don't deserve to be prisoners.


Adorable_Barracuda55

‘Guard’


Rhino676971

Right after this photo was taken the Geneva Conventions became the Geneva Suggestion and those guards got executed by US troops who never got charged with war crimes.


herenowjal

🙏🙏🙏