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 among the incarcerated clergy at Dachau. Dachau was established in March 1933 as the first Nazi Concentration Camp. Dachau was chiefly a political camp, rather than an extermination camp, but of around 160,000 prisoners sent to its main camp, over 32,000 were either executed or died of disease, malnutrition or brutalization. The prisoners of Dachau were used as guinea pigs in Nazi medical experiments. The sick were sent to Hartheim to be euthanized. Along with priests, other political prisoners including Social Democrats and Communists, Jews, Gypsies, Jehovah's Witnesses and homosexuals were also incarcerated at Dachau. Prior to the Reichstag vote