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Documentation of the crimes

A liberated Polish prisoner showing a US soldier the ovens in the crematorium, mid-April, 1945.
Photo: John R. Driza (National Archives, Washington)

After the US troops liberated the camp, they immediately began securing evidence of the violent crimes committed at the Mittelbau-Dora concentration camp. They collected statements from witnesses, reconstructed the course of events, and identified those involved in the crimes.

The primary means of preserving evidence were photographs and films. The Signal Corps of the US Army, specialized units with the appropriate technical equipment, documented the crimes and filmed the situation in the camps in the weeks following liberation.

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After the liberation of the Mittelbau-Dora concentration camp, US soldiers found the bodies of many concentration camp prisoners next to the crematorium, which had been destined for cremation, mid-April 1945.
Photo: unknown (National Archives, Washington)
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The slope next to the crematorium served as an ash dump until April 1945: the cremated remains of several thousand concentration camp prisoners were dumped there. A Soviet military commission documented the evidence in October 1945 after the Soviet military administration had taken over responsibility for the region in July 1945 from the US troops.
Photo: unknown (GARF, Moskau)
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Numerous prisoners from the Mittelbau-Dora concentration camp were murdered on death marches to other locations. Allied troops documented the crime scenes. This photo shows the bloody cap of a concentration camp prisoner who was shot. It was taken on 19 April 1945 near the barn of the Isenschnibbe estate near Gardelegen.
Photo: Larry R. Darcy (National Archives, Washington)

The collected documentary footage, investigation reports, and protocols formed the basis for legal prosecution. The information was also published in many international newspapers and magazines, making the crime scenes and Nazi atrocities a matter of public knowledge worldwide.

The material was also used in exhibitions and film screenings to confront the German population with the National Socialist crimes.

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In its issue of 7 May 1945, the US-American LIFE magazine ran a report on the crimes committed in the Boelcke barracks subcamp of the Mittelbau concentration camp, ensuring that the photos received international distribution and attention.
(Mittelbau-Dora Memorial)
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On 11 May 1945, US troops posted photos of the scene at the Gardelegen massacre site on a public display board in the town of Beckum, so that residents could see them. More than 1,000 prisoners on death marches from the Mittelbau and Neuengamme concentration camp complexes had been murdered in the barn on the Isenschnibbe estate in Gardelegen on 13 and 14 April 1945. Confronting the German population with the evidence of National Socialist crimes was part of the Allied Forces’ re-education concept. It was intended to inform the German population about the atrocities that had been discovered and to show them a way back to democracy and humanity.
Photo: Nathaniel N. Milgrom (National Archives, Washington)
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Investigation report by the US military authorities on clearance transports and death marches to Gardelegen from the Mittelbau and Neuengamme concentration camp complexes in April 1945, May 23, 1945.
(National Archives, Washington)
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