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With American troops approaching the Dachau concentration camp, the Nazis panicked. Camp commandant Martin Weiss fled, and command of one of Germany’s most important concentration camps was taken over by a young SS-Hauptsturmführer (captain) Heinrich Wicker, 23 years old, who had already made his history with Nazism as a 12-year-old, joining the Hitlerjugend.
The Dachau concentration camp was the model for most of the death camps later built by the Nazis. The purpose of its establishment by Heinrich Himmler was to isolate political opponents of Adolf Hitler’s new political regime. With the construction of places like Dachau, there was a need to hire the right staff.
Heinrich Wicker was 16 years old when he joined the SS-Totenkopfverbände (German for Corpse Skull Troops), created by Theodor Eicke to administer in German concentration camps. Beginning in 1938, Wicker served as a guard at the Dachau camp. When war broke out, he took part in battles in Holland, Belgium and France in 1940. He then took part in Operation Barbarossa – the invasion of the Soviet Union. While fighting on the Eastern Front, he was wounded and sent back to Germany.
After his convalescence, Wicker underwent courses for SS leaders in Bad Tölz, and at the end of 1943 was transferred to the SS Main Office of Economy and Administration. In June 1944, he became commandant of Bruttig-Treis and then Manheim-Sandhofen, the Natzweiler-Struthof sub-camps. Wicker was remembered by prisoners as a brutal person. His first victim was Polish prisoner Marian Krainski on January 3, 1945, for alleged sabotage. He even invited guests to his execution.
He also carried out so-called death marches, taking prisoners out of the camp ahead of the approaching Allies. The evacuees were directed toward Munich, including the Munich-Allach camps. The last of the marches was carried out to the Dachau concentration camp, where on April 28, 1945 Wicker found disorganization and an atmosphere of panic among the crew on the ground – camp commandant Martin Weiss had escaped, so Wicker took over the position himself.
On April 29, 1945, in the afternoon, the Americans arrived at the concentration camp site. Wicker surrendered the camp to General Henning Linden, commander of the 42nd Infantry Division, in the presence of a representative of the International Red Cross, Dr. Victor Maurer.
The events of April 29 remain controversial to this day, with witness statements and accounts of the events sometimes contradicting each other. Undoubtedly, more than 500 SS men and camp staff members were killed that day. Some of them were killed by the prisoners during self-judgment, but most of them were executed by the Americans themselves, who, influenced by the emotion caused by the scenes seen in the camp, took revenge on the camp’s crew, who at the time had de facto prisoner of war status. Among those murdered was Heinrich Wicker.