Film of Catholic Mass at Dachau

The featured film clip shows imprisoned priests and other prisoners at Dachau observing Catholic mass in the days after the camp was liberated by US forces. Three divisions of the US Army liberated Dachau on April 29, 1945.¹ This footage was created between May 3–9, 1945 by members of the US Army Signal Corps.

Nazi policies toward Christian churches became more severe over the years of Nazi rule (1933–1945). During the years of World War II (1939–1945), German police arrested thousands of Christian leaders.² The Nazis began to view some branches of the Catholic Church as hotbeds of anti-Nazi resistance during the war, and they imprisoned many priests from countries throughout Europe.³ German authorities often arrested and imprisoned Catholic leaders without explaining what crimes they may have been suspected of committing.⁴

In late 1940—after intense negotiations between representatives of the Nazi government and the Pope—Nazi leader Heinrich Himmler ordered the transfer of all priests imprisoned by the Nazis to Dachau. More than 1,000 priests were imprisoned at there by the end of 1940—over 2,500 were imprisoned there between 1940 and 1945.⁵ The priests were housed together in barracks apart from the other prisoners. Living conditions improved for them temporarily between February 1941 and September 1941 through the intervention of the Pope, but they still faced severe hunger and abuse. Conditions grew worse for them in fall 1941. Nazi doctors performed inhumane and unscientific medical experiments on some Polish priests, and older priests deemed incapable of work were removed from the camp and killed in the so-called “euthanasia” program code-named “14f13.”⁶

Despite these abuses, Nazi authorities had agreed to recognize the right of the imprisoned priests to practice their religion and establish a chapel. The first service at the simple chapel created at Dachau took place in late January 1941.⁷ The priests added furniture and ornamentation to the chapel over time. By the end of the war it was fully decorated. In November 1944, Archbishop Michael von Faulhaber⁸—the highest-ranking Catholic leader in the nearby city of Munich—granted the congregation of prisoners at Dachau the official status of a deanery⁹ within the hierarchy of the Catholic Church.¹⁰

The featured film footage shows several close-up shots of priests and other recently liberated prisoners observing Catholic mass in early May 1945. Why might the members of the US Army Signal Corps have chosen to record this event at a concentration camp in the days after its liberation? What details about the priests’ clothing show that they had been prisoners? What else about their appearance might give clues about their experiences as prisoners of Dachau?

To learn more about the experiences of American soldiers involved in the liberation of concentration camps in World War II, see the related Experiencing History item, Oral History of Leon Bass.

Individual priests had been arrested in the 1930s, but it was not until the beginning of World War II that Nazi authorities began systematic, widespread arrests of priests. To learn more, see Guillaume Zeller, The Priest Barracks: Dachau, 1938-1945, translated by Michael J. Miller (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2015), 17-29.

The majority of the priests imprisoned at Dachau were Polish. Nazi authorities believed that the Polish Catholic Church harbored many so-called “agitator priests” and targeted Polish Catholic leaders with particular severity. To learn more, see Jonathan Huener, The Polish Catholic Church under German Occupation: The Reichsgau Wartheland, 1939-1945 (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2021).

Some German police had been granted legal authority to detain people without cause. The use of "protective custody” gave the Gestapo the ability to jail anyone they decided was a threat to national security. The Kripo also had the authority to place those they considered professional criminals or threats to public order under "preventive arrest."

These figures include seminarians studying to become priests as well as a number of Catholic monks who were not ordained. To learn more about the experiences of priests imprisoned at Dachau, see Guillaume Zeller, The Priest Barracks: Dachau, 1938-1945, translated by Michael J. Miller (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2015).

To learn more about the T4 program and the mass murder of people with disabilities under Nazi rule, see the related Experiencing History collection, Targets of Eugenics.

For more primary sources about Nazi medical experiments, see the related Experiencing History items, Shoah Outtake with Ruth Elias, Oral History with Blanka Rothschild, and Christmas Card Given to a Polish Prisoner at Ravensbrück.

Camp authorities permitted priests of all nationalities to attend the chapel until September 1941, when only those considered to be "ethnically German" (German: Volksdeutsche) were allowed to use it. Non-German priests were able secretly to gain greater access starting in summer 1944. Catholic prisoners without formal seminary training were officially not allowed to use the chapel, but they were able to gain some access over time.

In 1937, Faulhaber played a crucial role in the drafting of Mit Brennender Sorge (German: "With Burning Concern"), a papal letter circulated among German Catholic leaders. Priests throughout Germany read it aloud from the pulpit. It did not specifically name the Nazi Party or Adolf Hitler, but it was highly critical of Nazi policies and Nazi racial ideology.

To learn more about Faulhaber’s positions during the years of Nazi rule, see Gordon C. Zahn, German Catholics and Hitler’s Wars: A Study in Social Control (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1962). For more information about the Vatican’s responses to the policies of the Nazi regime, see Gerhard Besier, The Holy See and Hitler’s Germany, translated by W. R. Ward (New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2007).

See also the related item in Experiencing History, Letter from Archbishop Michael von Faulhaber to Dachau Camp Administration.

A deanery is a smaller area within a diocese that is usually made up of several communities or congregations under the authority of a bishop.

Guillaume Zeller, The Priest Barracks: Dachau, 1938-1945, translated by Michael J. Miller (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2015), 219.

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