Dachau was the first regular Nazi concentration camp, opening in March 1933 near Munich, Germany.
Heinrich Himmler announced the camp’s establishment on 20 March 1933, shortly after the Nazis came to power. The first prisoners, mainly political opponents, arrived on 22 March. Dachau initially held German political prisoners, including Communists and Social Democrats, but its prisoner population later expanded to include Jews, Roma, clergy, prisoners of war, and many others persecuted by the Nazi regime.
Dachau became a model for the concentration-camp system. The SS used its organization, prisoner categories, guard training, and forced-labor practices as patterns for other camps. More than 40 subsidiary camps and external work sites were eventually connected with the Dachau complex.
Dachau was liberated by U.S. forces on 29 April 1945. It was a concentration camp rather than one of the extermination camps specifically built for mass gassing, although tens of thousands of prisoners died there from starvation, disease, brutal treatment, executions, and other causes.