SS Guards Surrender, Dachau - A rare photo showing liberated prisoners, Allied soldiers, and Dachau SS guards being arrested by the Allies on the day the camp was liberated. Dachau, [April 1945].
On April 29, 1945 the camp was officially liberated by the US Army. Some of the Nazi guards tried to evade punishment by blending in with the prisoners. However, the prisoners identified them and handed them over to the US Army. The US Army quickly captured the Nazi guards and disarmed them. They then forced the guards to march through the camp, in front of the prisoners who heckled them and spat on them. After the war, 40 of the Nazi guards who operated in Dachau during the war were put on trial. 23 of them were sentenced to death, and the rest were sentenced to imprisonment. Upon liberation, the horrors were exposed before the eyes of the liberators, soldiers of the 45th Division of the US Army's Seventh Army. Even before entering the camp they found 40 trucks and open railway cars full of corpses in advanced stages of decay, and as they entered the camp grounds they encountered the many dead scattered about. Under the influence of the difficult sights, the American soldiers indiscriminately killed German soldiers found in the camp in an event later called the 'Dachau liberation reprisals'.
13x11 cm. Described in English in the body of the photo. Good condition.
