Summit Gist

The Last Days of the Dachau Concentration Camp The historic winter of 1944-45 tested the endurance of the Dachau concentration camp’s captive population. News, much of it good, about the Allies’ recent triumphs —stopping Adolf Hitler’s Ardennes Offensive and the unleashing of the Red Army’s Vistula-Oder Offensive (mid-January 1945)—seeped in. As the weeks passed, confidence in Allied victory, while fragile, struck roots in Dachau. There were powerful reasons for inmates, though, to temper expectations. Despite the fragmentary knowledge of the state of the war they gained, there was much uncertainty about how long the Hitler regime might withstand the Allied advance. Due to its location in Bavaria, quite distant from the battle fronts, liberation would not happen anytime soon. Undoubtedly, the omnipresence of the SS guaranteed that attempted escape or rebellion would be met with extreme violence. Other factors besides the SS’s wanton cruelty incited new terror among Dachau’s prisoners. ...

The Last Days of the Dachau Concentration Camp The historic winter of 1944-45 tested the endurance of the Dachau concentration camp’s captive population. News, much of it good, about the Allies’ recent triumphs —stopping Adolf Hitler’s Ardennes Offensive and the unleashing of the Red Army’s Vistula-Oder Offensive (mid-January 1945)—seeped in.  As the weeks passed, confidence in Allied victory, while fragile, struck roots in Dachau. There were powerful reasons for inmates, though, to temper expectations. Despite the fragmentary knowledge of the state of the war they gained, there was much uncertainty about how long the Hitler regime might withstand the Allied advance. Due to its location in Bavaria, quite distant from the battle fronts, liberation would not happen anytime soon. Undoubtedly, the omnipresence of the SS guaranteed that attempted escape or rebellion would be met with extreme violence. Other factors besides the SS’s wanton cruelty incited new terror among Dachau’s prison...