Archaeologists Find SS Dog Kennels and Bone Ash at Dachau Camp
Archaeologists at the Dachau camp site found SS dog kennels and ash with human bone fragments near the crematorium, Archaeology Magazine reports.
Archaeologists at the site of the Dachau concentration camp in southern Germany have uncovered thirty-five dog kennels and a layer of ash containing human bone fragments, according to Archaeology Magazine, which cited a Daily Express report. The finds lie in a well-preserved facility near the crematorium.
The facility is where units of the Nazi Schutzstaffel (SS) trained dogs to terrorize and attack prisoners, the magazine reported.
What the excavation found
The kennels were the dog-handler area of the camp. According to the report, the dogs were used to round up prisoners who tried to escape and to accompany forced labor details made up of malnourished inmates.
The ash layer with bone fragments was found during the same dig. The team also located the crematorium’s administrative offices. SS personnel kept records there of the incineration and disposal of the bodies of more than 41,500 people who were killed at the camp.
Who was held at Dachau
More than 200,000 people were imprisoned at Dachau over a 12-year period, the magazine said. They included Jews, political opponents, priests and resistance fighters.
How the researchers read the site
Gabriele Hammermann of the Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial Site said the crematorium area and the dog-handler area formed “a closely connected functional unit as places of terror.”
Mathias Pfeil, chief heritage conservation officer at the Bavarian State Office for the Preservation of Monuments, described the camp’s soil as “the last and incorruptible witness to Nazi crimes.”
What it means for the historical record
The kennels and the offices tie the camp’s written records to physical remains. Archaeologists located the rooms where SS staff documented the burning of the dead, and they found ash with bone fragments in the same area, so the paperwork and the ground now point to the same part of the camp.
Hammermann’s description of a “functional unit” places the kennels and the crematorium as parts of one system of terror at the camp. Pfeil’s remark about the soil explains why excavation matters at a site like this: the ground holds remains and building traces that survive whatever else was lost or destroyed.
Archaeology Magazine’s account is a short news item based on a newspaper report. The findings are reported here as announced, not as results from a peer-reviewed journal paper.
The Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial Site and the Bavarian State Office for the Preservation of Monuments are the two institutions named in the report.
Source: Archaeology Magazine
