During the first year, the camp held about 4,800 prisoners and by 1937 the number had risen to 13,260. Initially the internees consisted primarily of German Communists, Social Democrats, and other political opponents of the Nazi regime. Over time, other groups were also interned at Dachau such as Jehovah's Witnesses, Gypsies, homosexuals, as well as "asocials" and repeat criminals. During the early years relatively few Jews were interned at Dachau and then usually because they belonged to one of the groups listed above.
In 1937, the SS, using prisoner labor, began construction of a large complex of buildings on the grounds of the original camp. Prisoners were forced to do this work, starting with the destruction of the old munitions factory, under terrible conditions. The construction was officially completed in mid-August of 1938 and the camp remained essentially unchanged until 1945. Dachau remained in operation for the entire period of the Third Reich..
The number of Jewish prisoners at Dachau rose with the increased persecution of the Jews, and on November 11, 1938, in the aftermath of Kristallnacht more than 10,00 Jewish men were interned there. The Dachau camp was a training center for SS concentration camp guards, and the camp's organization and routine became the model for all Nazi concentration camps. The camp was divided into two sections, the camp area and the crematoria area. The camp area consisted of 32 barracks, including one for clergy imprisoned for opposing the Nazi regime and one reserved for medical experiments. The camp administration was was located in the gatehouse at the main entrance. The camp area had a group of support buildings, containing the kitchen, laundry, showers, and workshops, as well as the prison block (bunker). The courtyard between the prison and the central kitchen was used for summary execution of prisoners. An electrified barbed-wire fence, a ditch, and a wall with seven guard towers surrounded the camp.
In 1942 the crematorium area was built next to the main camp. It included the old crematorium and the new crematorium (Barrack X) with a gas chamber. There is no credible evidense that the gas chamber in Barrack X was used to murder human beings. Instead, prisoners went through "selection", those who were deemed too sick, too old, or unable to work were sent to the Hartheim, "euthanasia" center near Linz, Austria. Several thousand prisoners from Dachau were murdered there. The SS used the firing range and the gallows in the crematoria area as killing sites for prisoners.
In Dachau, as in other Nazi camps, German physicians performed medical experiments on prisoners, including high-altitude experiments using a decompression chamber, malaria and tuberculosis experiments, hypothermia experiments, and experimental tests of new medications. Prisoners were also forced to test methods of making seawater potableand halting of excessive bleeding. Hundreds of prisoners died or were permanently crippled as a result of these experiments.
As allied troops advanced towards Germany, the German forces began to move prisoners away from camps located near the front to avoid large numbers of prisoners being liberated. Transports from evacuated camps arrived continuously at Dachau, resulting in drastic overcrowding of the camp. After days of travel, with little or no food and water, the prisoners arrived weak and exhausted, near death...many already dead from their travels. Typhus epidemics became a serious problem due to the overcrowding, unsanitary conditions, and the weakened state of the prisoners.
On April 26, 1945, as U.S. forces approached, there were 67,665 prisoners in Dachau and its subcamps. 43,350 were categorized as political prisoners, while 22,100 were Jews, the remaining prisoners fell into various other categories. The Germans forced more than 7,000 prisoners, mostly Jews, on a death march from Dachau to Tegernsee far to the south. During the death march, the Germans shot anyone who could no longer continue. Many died of cold, hunger, or exhaustion. On April 29, 1945, the American forces liberated Dachau. As they neared the camp, they found more than 30 railroad cars filled with bodies brought to Dachau, all in advanced stages of decomposition. In early May, 1945, American forces liberated the prisoners who had been sent on the death march.
The number of prisoners incarcerated at Dachau between 1933 and 1945 exceeded 180,000. The number of prisoners who died in the camp and subcamps between January 1940 and May 1945 was at least 28,000, to which must be added those who perished there between 1933 and the end of 1939. It's unlikely that the total number of victims who died in Dachau will ever be known.
