"Plantation"

In 1938 concentration camp prisoners were forced to build an herb garden (plantation) on the other side of the Alte Römerstrasse, east of the camp. The cultivation of local herbs was the idea of the 'working group for medicinal plants studies' and Reichsführer SS Heinrich Himmler showed particular interest in the plan. Germany should have no need to import foreign medicines and herbs. The economic importance of the work done by the prisoners in the herb garden increased as the war progressed.

The SS guards marched the prisoners to work on the large open-air site under abusive threats and blows, and prisoners were arbitrarily shot 'while attempting to escape'. Less brutal working conditions reigned only in the buildings and greenhouses. There a work detail of draftsmen was supposed to produce a plant collection for Himmler. At the risk of losing their lives, some of the prisoners managed to depict the crimes committed by SS guards in secret notes.

The SS set up a shop as part of the herb garden to sell produce from the 'plantation' to residents from Dachau and neighboring communities. Some prisoners succeeded in establishing secret contact to the civilian population.

"SS-Shooting Range Hebertshausen"

Located at Hebertshausen, a municipality adjoining Dachau, is a shooting range that was built for the SS. Apparently in 1937 a facility with two short shooting lanes between three bulwarks was set up. The shooting lanes were enclosed with a bunker that served as a bullet catch. Adjacent to this are a row of five long shooting lanes, which were connected to one another by a protected walkway at one end.

Some 4,000 imprisoned Soviet soldiers were executed there between 1941 and 1945. The SS used the cynical term "special treatment" for these criminal executions. The prisoners brought to Dachau for execution were not recorded in the concentration camp files.

In addition, on the grounds of the shooting range, covering a total of 85,000 m², stands the former SS guardhouse, which is used today by the City of Dachau as a shelter for homeless people.

Concentration Camp Memorial Cemetery Dachau-Leitenberg

Vom From February 28 to April 27 1945, following orders issued by the Dachau camp leadership, eight mass graves were dug on the Leitenberg located in the Dachau district Etzenhausen. Possibly, as some statements indicate, the first mass grave was already dug there in October 1944. There is demonstrable proof that 4,318 dead concentration camp prisoners were buried there up until liberation on April 29, 1945. A further 1,879 dead prisoners as well as regular German army troops killed in fighting around Dachau were buried in two further mass graves by May 18, 1945 at the latest.

All the mass graves were exhumed by the French Missing Persons Service for War Victims between 1955 and 1959. After completion of the exhumation, those dead identified as French nationals were transported back to France. The rest of the dead, together with concentration camp victims from some abandoned concentration camp cemeteries in Upper Bavaria, were once again buried on the Leitenberg. The exhumation protocols formed the basis for a grave list: according to counts made by the responsible authorities, a total of 7,609 dead are buried at the concentration camp cemetery Leitenberg, of whom only 204 are known by name.

The Memorial Cemetery was officially opened in December 1949; besides the graves, an octagonal tower-like memorial hall for the concentration camp victims as well as the Italian memorial chapel "Regina Pacis" (1963) are located there. In 1999 a memorial stone for the Polish victims under the dead was unveiled.