Dachau concentration camp United States Army", Vol. 3, page 382. Authorities worked night and day to alleviate conditions at the camp immediately following the liberation as an epidemic of black typhus swept through the prisoner population. Two thousand cases had already been reported by that 3 May. By October of the same year the camp was being used by the U.S. Army as a place of confinement for war criminals, the SS and important witnesses. It was also the site of the Dachau Trials for German war criminals, a site chosen for its symbolism. In 1948 the Bavarian government established housing for refugees
Priest Barracks of Dachau Concentration Camp nationalities and the chapel was also used by other denominations. While Catholics could communicate in Latin, the multinational nature of the prison population made communication difficult. In December 1944, Karl Leisner, a deacon from Münster who was dying of tuberculosis received his ordination at Dachau. Gabriel Piguet, Bishop of Clermont-Ferrand had arrived at the camp in September and was able to organise for the necessary documents. The necessary objects of worship were secretly scrounged, a bishop's cross, mitre, cassock and cape were improvised and Piquet presided at the secret ceremony, enabling Leisner to say his first mass. The new priest