Dachau concentration camp: Meaning (information, definition, explanation, facts)

The Dachau concentration camp was a Nazi German concentration camp near the city of Dachau, north of Munich, in southern Germany.

The camp was constructed in a disused gunpowder factory and was completed on March 21, 1933. It was the first Nazi concentration camp and served as a prototype and model for the others that followed.

Although many Jews and surrendered Soviet prisoners of war died there from the horrible living conditions, it was a concentration camp, not an extermination camp, unlike Treblinka and several others.

However it holds a significant place in public memory because it was the first camp to be liberated by British or American forces, and therefore it was the first place in which the West was exposed to the reality of Nazi brutality through first-hand journalist accounts and through newsreels. After the camp was surrendered to Allied forces on April 29, 1945, the troops were so horrified by conditions at the camp that they summarily shot all of the camp guards.

All the original camp buildings were destroyed and the site of the concentration camp now houses a memorial, with a museum, a rebuild house for prisoners and four chapels.

• List of subcamps of Dachau