On March 20th, 1933, the SS commander and temporary police chief of Munich, Heinrich Himmler, announced the construction of the first concentration camp in Bavaria. The camp was built on the premises of the former "Royal Powder and Ammunition Factory Dachau", which was situated close to the market town of Dachau during WW I. The first detainees, who arrived on March 22nd, were political prisoners, particularly communists, and were later joined by social democrats and Jews.

The second commander at Dachau, Theodor Eicke, who took over from Hilmar Wäckerle on June 26th, 1933, turned the concentration camp into a "school of violence" (Hans-Günter Richardi). Here, he developed the system of Nazi concentration camps and trained the guards in the relentless "Dachau spirit" (Rudolf Höß) that knew no mercy for the prisoners. Eicke's philosophy culminated in the phrase "tolerance is weakness". Among the SS, the concentration camp at Dachau was considered exemplary. It became the model for all other camps after Eicke was appointed the "Inspector of all Concentration Camps and Head of SS Guards" on July 4th, 1934. In this position, he had command over all concentration camps.

The Austrians who were brought to the camp after the annexation of their home country on March 13th, 1938, were the first foreign prisoners at the Dachau concentration camp, where other German groups of detainees had also been imprisoned: the gypsy groups of Sinti and Roma, welfare recipients labeled shy of work, beggars, homeless people, homosexuals and Serious Bible Researchers (today: Jehovah's Witnesses). On November 9th and 10th, 1938, following the pogrom against the Jewish population, 10,911 Jews were deported to the camp. They were followed by prisoners from Czechoslovakia in March of 1939, and during WW II, further prisoners came from Poland, the Soviet Union, the Netherlands, France, and other European countries. Many did not survive. They became victims of SS terror, starved or froze to death, were fatally injured during forced labor or succumbed to diseases and epidemics.

Of the more than 206,000 registered prisoners from over thirty nations who passed through the concentration camp Dachau from 1933 to 1945, approximately 32,000 died according to death records. However, the actual number of victims is much higher, since several groups were never registered.The Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial Site today commemorates the dead with a museum, an archive and a library. It was opened on May 9th, 1965, as a place of learning on the 20th anniversary of the day of liberation of the camp through American soldiers on April 9th, 1945. The Bavarian State Ministry of Education, Culture and Science oversees the memorial site.