The Dachau liberation reprisals were a series of incidents in which German prisoners of war were killed by American soldiers and concentration camp internees at the Dachau concentration camp on April 29, 1945, during World War II. It is unclear how many SS members were killed in the incident but most estimates place the number killed at around 35–50. In the days before the camp's liberation SS guards at the camp had forced 7,000 inmates on a death march that resulted in the murder of many from exposure and shooting.[1] When Allied soldiers liberated the camp, their reactions varied from being shocked, horrified, disturbed, and angered by the masses of dead they found and the combativeness of some of the remaining German guards who had initially fired on them and had refused to surrender.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dachau_li ... _reprisals
"American soldiers executed dozens of German guards at the Dachau WWII concentration camp after screaming: 'Let's get those Nazi dogs!'
The US troops opened fire on 50 members of the SS and the Wehrmacht with a machine gun after lining them up and saying: 'Take no prisoners!'
One commander shot dead four other Germans and became so hysterical that his own colonel had to hit him with the butt of his gun to stop him battering a fifth."
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... -book.html
It's 1945. The war is coming to its end, and American troops stumble upon the Dachau Concentration Camp. What they find leaves them horrified; thousands of corpses littering the camp and thousands more of imprisoned men women and children clinging to life.
Out of utter disgust and anger, the GIs line up the SS guards and begin shooting them. Other Nazis are beaten to a pulp. Even the prisoners jump in and beat their former captives to death.
After the incident, the event was put under investigation as a possible war crime, with court martials being considered for the GIs who took part. Nevertheless, these charges were dropped by General Patton, who burned the papers and believed that the men had done nothing wrong.
Were the GIs guilty of their crimes, and if so, should they have been punished by the law? Or did the SS prison guards deserve their fate as the staff of a concentration camp and mass murderers?
I personally am under the impression that while technically illegal, what the GIs did was the norm in the Eastern and Pacific theaters, where the Geneva and Hague Conventions meant absolutely nothing to those fighting. In major conflicts, all laws of war go out the window and the war becomes a matter of kill or be killed. In the event of the Dachau massacre, it is impossible to feel sympathy for the SS, and quite frankly, I believe they deserved it. If you are going to act like a savage animal, you will be treated like a savage animal.
Could they have awaited trial and execution later on? Perhaps, though how many would escape, commit suicide, have their charges dropped, or even be given light sentences?
