In the last months of the war, the SS drove thousands of concentration camp prisoners through Bavaria on the so-called death marches. Many concentration camp prisoners died of exhaustion or were murdered by the guards.

Their corpses were buried along the routes. At the sites of concentration camps sub- camps, the SS had mass graves excavated. Following pressure from survivors and the Allies, after the end of the war, the victims were given a dignified burial. Across Bavaria there appeared 493 concentration camp grave sites.

In the 1950s, many of these concentration camp grave sites were opened. The bodies were exhumed and – where it could be identified – repatriated to their home countries. Those dead that could not be identified were interred in the memorial cemeteries in Dachau and Flossenbürg. Today there are still 75 concentration grave sites in Bavaria.

In the area of Landsberg am Lech, 14 concentration camp cemeteries with memorial sites still exist. Most of them are close to the former concentration camp subcamps. Interred there are the victims of the Kaufering/Landsberg subcamp complex.

Separate records of the prisoners who died in the individual camps of the Landsberg/Kaufering subcamp complex were not kept. All subcamps reported their incidences of death to the Kaufering I camp, which aggregated them and forwarded them to the Dachau concentration camp. The various totals given refer to estimates by the Landsberg District Administration office and the Bavarian State Compensation Office from 1949.

Until October 1944, the concentration camp prisoners who died in the Landsberg/Kaufering subcamp complex were taken to the Dachau concentration camp and cremated there. Later on, concentration camp prisoners had to bury the dead in mass graves located close by. These were generally the starting point for the erection of today’s concentration camp cemeteries.

Since 2013, the concentration camp cemeteries in Bavaria have been administered by the Bavarian Memorials Foundation. For further information, visit:

https://www.stiftung-bayerische-gedenkstaetten.de/gedenkorte/kz-friedhoefe-in-bayern-1