German, Israeli jets honor Nazi victims with flyover
August 18, 2020
The memorial event marks the first time ever that Israeli fighter jets have performed such an exercise on German soil. The Luftwaffe chief has called the joint operation "a sign of our friendship today."
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/S. Hoppe
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Israeli Air Force (IAF) pilots and their German counterparts honored Holocaust victims with a flyover of Dachau concentration camp on Tuesday.
The symbolic event was the first time ever that Israeli airforces have trained in Germany and is part of a two-week program of manoeuvres.
Aircraft, including Israeli Air Force F-16s and Eurofighter jets from the German Luftwaffe, also flew over the nearby Fürstenfeldbruck airbase to commemorate the massacre at the 1972 Munich Olympics that left 11 Israeli athletes, and one German policeman, dead.
It is the only training exercise the IAF is carrying out abroad this year due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Luftwaffe chief Ingo Gerhartz described the joint effort as "a sign of our friendship today."
He said in an official statement that it was also a reminder that Germany has a responsibility "to fight anti-Semitism with the utmost consistency" because of its Nazi history.
What US soldiers found at Dachau
When the soldiers of the US Army reached the Dachau concentration camp gate, they had no idea what was behind it: over 30,000 prisoners, many of whom had died, starved to death.
Image: imago stock&people
The arrival of the US army
On Sunday, April 29, 1945 Colonel Sparks gave the marching orders to the 3rd battalion of his infantry regiment. The US troops came from the West, advancing towards Munich. They didn't know exactly where Dachau, the concentration camp the Nazis set up in 1933, was located. When they discovered it, the troops encountered gruesome sights.
Image: imago stock&people
Atrocious conditions
Just a few days prior, SS guards had hurriedly fled the camp. In the meantime, a railway train carrying concentration camp prisoners from the East had arrived. Most of its passengers had died of thirst or suffocated in the locked cars, while others were shot and killed in cold blood by the SS men. When they arrived, US soldiers found 2,300 human corpses in the cars.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa
Under US army control
After arriving, the US soldiers took over command of the camp with little gunfire. Yet, tragic incidents still occurred during the liberation of the prisoners. Some were accidentally electrocuted when they ran to the fences in joy to greet the US soldiers. Approximately 32,000 prisoners were found alive, most requiring medical care.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa
Prisoners after the liberation
The hygienic conditions in Dachau were catastrophic. Many prisoners were infected with typhoid and had scabies. Their striped concentration camp clothing, which would later become a symbol for the misery in Nazi camps, often hung on them in rags. Many prisoners did not have shoes. The prisoner pictured, Jean Voste from Belgian Congo, is shown wearing his uniform during liberation.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/akg-images
A march to death
On April 14, 1945, Nazi leader Heinrich Himmler (pictured here during an inspection during the camp's construction) ordered the immediate "complete evacuation" of the concentration camp. The SS camp administration forced about 7,000 inmates to embark on a so-called death march towards the south. Most did not survive.
Image: Imago/ITAR-TASS
A cynical slogan
The gate of the main entrance to the Dachau concentration camp bore the inscription "Arbeit macht frei," or "work sets you free." This cynical Nazi slogan was later used in almost all National Socialist concentration camps. The motto was invented by Theodor Eicke, the first SS camp leader of Dachau. His "Dachau School" was also attended by Auschwitz commanders Rudolf Höss and Richard Baer.
Image: imago
Shortly before the liberation
When the rumor spread throughout the concentration camp that the US soldiers were right in front of the Bavarian town of Dachau, some prisoners joined together to form a resistance committee. They used the chaos in the overcrowded camp to deliberately sabotage the orders of the last remaining SS guards to join the death marches.
After the US army took over the administration of the liberated concentration camp in April 1945, army photographers staged pictures of cheering concentration camp prisoners and used them as a propaganda tool to depict US success. The photos depicted seemingly healthy children and young people, who were a minority at the camp. Most of the survivors could hardly stand on their feet.
Image: Keystone/Getty Images
Touching reunions in the USA
Years after the Second World War, former US soldiers who were present during the liberation of the concentration camp in 1945 met with former prisoners. Donald Greenbaum (right), who was among those who liberated Dachau at the time, met former Dachau prisoner Ernest Gross (left) at the memorial in Liberty State Park, New Jersey in 2015.
Over 200,000 people from across Europe were imprisoned at the Dachau concentration camp, some 25 kilometers to the north of Munich, during World War II. Roughly 41,500 people lost their lives at the camp.
The Israeli jets arrived at the Nörvenich airbase near the western German city of Cologne on Monday. "The six F-16 aircraft are taking part in the BlueWings2020 and MAGDAYs exercises over the next two weeks," the German Air Force said on Twitter.
German Defense Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer and Israeli Ambassador Jeremy Issacharoff will join the team to take part in the subsequent memorial service.
