Dachau concentration camp on to KZ Dachau. During April 1945 as U.S. troops drove deeper into Bavaria, the commander of KZ Dachau suggested to Gestapo Chief Heinrich Himmler that the camp be turned over to the Allies. Himmler, in signed correspondence, prohibited such a move, adding that "No prisoners shall be allowed to fall into the hands of the enemy alive." On 24 April 1945, just days before the U.S. troops arrived at the camp, the commandant and a strong guard forced between 6,000 and 7,000 surviving inmates — on a death march from Dachau south to Eurasburg, then eastwards towards the Tegernsee.
Priest Barracks of Dachau Concentration Camp incarcerated clergy at Dachau. The Clergy Barracks of Dachau : Clergy by nationality A small number of clergymen at Dachau were held in private cells in the bunker. These included high profile inmates Dr. Johannes Neuhäusler, a Catholic auxiliary Bishop from Munich and the Protestant pastor Reverend Martin Niemöller. In 1940, "the German bishops and the Pope had persuaded Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler to concentrate all the priests imprisoned in the various concentration camps into one camp, and to house them all together in separate blocks with a chapel where they could say Mass. In early December 1940, the priests already