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 at Dachau. The first Churchman arrived at Dachau in 1935, but from 1940, Dachau became the concentration point for clerical prisoners of the Nazi regime. Prior to this, in the early stages of the camp, the SS had permitted a local priest to say mass on Sundays in the camp, but invented discouragements for prisoners to attend: following the first Catholic mass in July 1933, those who attended were lined in ranks and forced to spit at, then lick at the face of the others lined up, before being beaten. The attendant priest was also humiliated and spied upon, but