In addition to the Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial, there are several other places in the Dachau Old Town and its immediate surroundings that bear witness to NS history.
Commemorative Sites in the vicinity
Commemorative Sites in the old town of Dachau
Resistance Square
On April 28, 1945, the city hall was occupied by citizens of Dachau and concentration camp prisoners in the so-called Dachau Uprising. SS troops overpowered the insurgents. The former "Square of the Lindentree" was renamed in the year 1946 to "Resistance Square" (Widerstandsplatz) to commemorate the Dachau Uprising and honor those who gave their lives.
On April 28, 1945, Dachau concentration camp prisoners and Dachau citizens occupied the town hall. The uprising was crushed by SS units.
A commemorative plaque for the victims of the Dachau Uprising is located closeby in front of the bank (Sparkasse).
Memorial plaques at the town hall
The displacement and murder of the Dachau Jews
Dachau commemorates the expulsion and murder of its Jewish citizens with two bronze plaques at the town hall. In connection with the anti-Semitic progroms on November 9, 1938, the last Dachau Jews had been expelled from their hometown.
Places of remembrance in Dachau and the surrounding area
Death March Memorial
6,887 prisoners were evacuated from the Dachau Concentration Camp and forced to march south on April 26, 1945. Hubertus von Pilgrim created a bronze sculpture to commemorate the victims of this so-called death march. The sculpture was erected in Dachau, where the march began, and in other towns, through which the SS forced the prisoners.
Forest Cemetery
After World War II, 1268 concentration camp prisoners, who died after the liberation of the camp, were laid to rest here. The Jewish prisoners who died during the death march from the Flossenbürg concentration camp to Dachau are also buried here.
In remembrance to them, a four-meter-high monument was erected at the memorial burial ground. There is also a memorial for the Austrian victims of the Dachau Concentration Camp, and a commemorative stone for the victims of the Dachau uprising (the latter can be found among a row of tombstones near the main entrance).
Concentration Camp Memorial Cemetery Leitenberg
Leitenberg hill, used as a mass grave by the SS, is the final resting place of 7,609 prisoners of the concentration camp.
All of the mass graves were exhumed by a French association searching for war victims during 1955-1959. Identified victims were transferred to their homelands, while the other bodies were buried again on the Leitenberg hill.
The Memorial Cemetery was consecrated in 1949 and the Memorial Hall was completed in 1951. The “Regina Pacis” chapel was erected in 1963 to commemorate all the Italians who died in the concentration camps. In 1999 a memorial for the Polish victims was set up as well.
Former SS Shooting Range
The memorial commemorates the over 4000 Sovjet prisoners of war, who were executed here in 1941 and 1942 by members of Dachau's camp SS.
An Exhibition depicts the historical context of the crime, biographies of the victims and the post-war history of the memorial.
An artistic installation referring to the former site of crime, displays the names of the victims known so far.
Places of remembrance on the premises of the Dachau concentration camp memorial site
Religious memorials at the northern end of the former camp grounds.
Jewish memorial
On May 7 1967, the regional association of the Israelite Communities in Bavaria unveiled a Jewish memorial. Designed by Zvi Guttmann, the parabola-shaped structure features a ramp that leads downward, reminding visitors of the extermination of European Jews. At its lowest point, light shines into the memorial through an opening. A menorah – a seven-branched candelabrum – made of marble from Peki’in is positioned on the top of the structure. The town of Peki’in in Israel symbolizes the continuity of Jewish life.
Mortal Agony of Christ Chapel (catholic)
On August 5, 1960, the chapel was consecrated by the former Dachau prisoner and Munich Auxiliary Bishop Johannes Neuhäusler.
The name "Mortal Agony of Christ" was chosen by Archbishop (1952-1960) Joseph Cardinal Wendel as a "reference to the fear of death from which tens of thousands of inmates in this camp had suffered day and night for years".
The structure consists of unhewn pebbles (from the Isar riverbed near Bad Tölz), which were built inside and outside around a reinforced concrete wall.
Protestant Church of Reconciliation
The church, consecrated in 1967, is on the grounds of the Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial Site.
It was designed by Helmut Striffler, arranged like a path leading gradually downwards - a symbol of suffering and death, but also of protest and resistance.
Carmelite Convent
The monastery (Carmel = "Vineyard of God") is located directly north of the concentration camp memorial. It was built according to the plans of Josef Wiedemann and inaugurated in 1964. At present 16 Carmelite nuns form the convent, which was founded for prayer and in memory of the many victims.
Russian Orthodox chapel
Upon the end of the Cold War, public attention began to turn to the fate of Soviet prisoners, the third largest victim group of the Dachau concentration camp. The initiative to erect the memorial chapel “Resurrection of Our Lord” came from the leaderships of the Russian Orthodox Church in Germany and Russia together with the embassy of the Russian Federation. The architect Valentin Utkin created the design.
The octagonal wooden structure was prebuilt in Moscow and erected in Dachau by soldiers of the Russian Armed Forces in 1994. The metropolitan of Nizhny Novgorod and Arzamas, Nicolai Kutepov, dedicated the chapel on April 29 1995. It sits on a mound, partly comprised of earth from the republics of the former Soviet Union.