Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial Site

In March 1933, only weeks after Hitler came to power, the SS opened a concentration camp on the grounds of a disused munitions factory at Dachau, a small town about twenty kilometres north-west of Munich. It was the first such camp, and for twelve years it served as the model and training ground for the whole system of terror. Political opponents were the first prisoners, followed by Jews, Sinti and Roma, Jehovah's Witnesses, homosexual men, clergy and, during the war, people from across occupied Europe. More than 200,000 people were imprisoned in Dachau and its many subcamps, and tens of thousands died there, from starvation, disease, forced labour, medical experiments and murder. American troops liberated the camp on 29 April 1945. Today the Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial Site preserves the former prisoners' camp: the roll-call square, the reconstructed barracks and the foundations of the others, the gatehouse with its cynical gate inscription, the bunker, the watchtowers and fences, and, outside the camp perimeter, the crematorium area. The main exhibition, in the former maintenance building where prisoners were registered, tells the history of the camp and its prisoners through documents, photographs and personal stories, and there are religious memorials built by different faiths, and the international memorial on the roll-call square. The memorial site is open daily from 9am to 5pm, with the crematorium area closing at 4:30pm, and is closed only on 24 December. Admission is free, with no need to book; parking costs a fee. The memorial offers guided tours and audio guides, and education programmes are designed for visitors over thirteen. From Munich, the S-Bahn takes you to Dachau station, where a local bus continues to the memorial; alternatively, a guided tour from Munich, like the one linked here, takes care of the journey and gives you an English-speaking guide for about four and a half hours.

Why go with a guide: the memorial's exhibitions are excellent and well labelled in English, but many visitors find that a good guide transforms the visit, explaining the camp's place in the Nazi system, the daily life and death of the prisoners, and the camp's afterlife, as an American internment camp and later as housing for refugees, before it became a memorial in 1965. The tour linked here meets at a central Munich tour office near the main station, travels out to Dachau with a live English-speaking guide, and returns to the city, taking about four and a half hours in total. If you go independently, the memorial's own audio guide and its documentary film are good alternatives, and the visitor centre can advise on the day's guided tours.

How to prepare: this is a place of remembrance, not a tourist attraction, and it asks for respectful behaviour: quiet voices, appropriate clothing and no selfies or playful photographs. The visit is emotionally heavy, and the museum's content is not suitable for young children; the memorial recommends its education programmes for visitors over thirteen. Allow at least three hours on site, wear comfortable shoes, as the grounds are large and exposed, and dress for the weather, since much of the visit is outdoors. In winter, the bare roll-call square and the cold make the history feel especially present.

Fitting it into a Munich trip: most visitors combine a morning at Dachau with a quiet afternoon back in the city, rather than rushing to another sight. To deepen the history, the NS-Dokumentationszentrum in Munich's Maxvorstadt, on the site of the former Nazi party headquarters, explains Munich's role as the birthplace of the Nazi movement, and the Koenigsplatz nearby was one of the party's parade grounds. Together they give an honest, necessary counterpart to the palaces and beer halls of the city centre.