Dachau concentration camp Dachau administration registered 12,596 deaths from typhus at the camp over the same period. Dachau was the third concentration camp to be liberated by British or American Allied forces. After the takeover of Bavaria on 9 March 1933, Heinrich Himmler, then Chief of Police in Munich, began to speak with the administration of an unused gunpowder and munitions factory. He toured the site to see if it could be used for quartering protective-custody prisoners. The Concentration Camp at Dachau was opened 22 March 1933, with the arrival of about 200 prisoners from Stadelheim Prison in Munich and the Landsberg fortress
Dachau liberation reprisals Linden's memorandum to Maj. Gen. Harry J. Collins, entitled "Report on Surrender of Dachau Concentration Camp": Gen. of the Army Dwight D. Eisenhower issued a communiqué regarding the capture of Dachau concentration camp: "Our forces liberated and mopped up the infamous concentration camp at Dachau. Approximately 32,000 prisoners were liberated; 300 SS camp guards were quickly neutralized." Military historian Earl Ziemke describes the event: Lt. Col. Felix L. Sparks, a battalion commander of the 157th Infantry Regiment, 45th Infantry Division, Seventh United States Army, wrote about the incident. Sparks watched as about 50 German prisoners captured by the 157th Infantry