On April 13, 1945, as the Allies cross the Rhine river and push into German territory, a contingent of German soldiers, Hitler Youth and local police transport 4,000 prisoners from the Dora-Mittelblau concentration camp and its satellites to the Gardelegen area. More than 1,000 of these were forced into a large barn, which was set on fire. Their pursuers hoped to conceal the evidence of their monstrous war crimes as the end of the Reich quickly became a reality.
In Gardelegen, as the victims attempted to burrow their way out of the blazing barn, Germans surrounding the conflagration shot them. More than 1,000 bodies were recovered from the fire.
The Germans planned to incinerate the victims' remains to eliminate evidence of the crime, but American troops arrived before that took place. One U.S. soldier famously commented, "I never was so sure before of exactly what I was fighting for. Before this you would have said those stories were propaganda, but now you know they weren't. There are the bodies and all those guys are dead."
