History
On August 15th, 805, the noble lady Erchana from the ancient family of Count Aribon donated her entire property in "Dahauua" to the diocese of Freising. The deed of gift is the first document to mention the name Dachau. Dachau originated at the crossroads of a vast marshy area to the south ("Dachauer Moos") and wooded hill country to the north.
The favorable location along the main road connecting Munich and Augsburg brought not only privileges and profit to Dachau, which was described as a market town as early as 1270. The trade road also brought war, misery and disease. The worst time for the townspeople came during the Thirty Years' War, when Swedish troops besieged and looted the market town.
Painters discovered Dachau in the nineteenth century. In their search for motifs in nature, landscape painters took a liking to the charming landscape of marshes and swamps and established a home in Dachau. Finally, so many artists lived in the market town around 1900 that one in every ten people in the streets of Dachau was said to be a painter. The names of famous painters remain closely associated with the town until today: Carl Spitzweg, Max Liebermann, Lovis Corinth, Ludwig Dill, Adolf Hölzel, Arthur Langhammer. Just like Worpswede, Dachau made a name for itself as an important German artists' colony.
The decline of the town came with WW I. Dachau became impoverished and soon the town was among the communities with the highest unemployment. The construction of the concentration camp in 1933, which bore the name "Dachau" from the start even though it was initially located outside of town, cast a dark shadow over Dachau. All over the world, the previously respectable artist town became a symbol for the inhuman terror of the Nazi regime.
After WW II, refugees from the former Eastern German provinces found a new home in Dachau. They quickly drove up the population figures and a new part of town grew east of Dachau. Attaining city status on November 15th, 1933, Dachau now has a population of over 39,000.
