The Foreign Service Journal, July-August 2010

22 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / J U LY- A U G U S T 2 0 1 0 F O C U S O N F S R E F L E C T I O N S R ETURNING TO D ACHAU , 65 Y EARS L ATER his past April, I traveled to Dachau, Germany, as the representative of all the Amer- ican troops who had liberated the prisoners from the con- centration camp there exactly 65 years before. As president of the 20th Armored Division, one of the three units that had entered the camp, I was privileged to de- liver a message from President Barack Obama to an au- dience of about 1,000 survivors and their families. When our unit approached Dachau on April 29, 1945, very few of us, even our commanders, had any clue that we were about to enter a concentration camp. The facil- ity just happened to be on our direct route to capture Mu- nich. Intelligence in those days did not benefit from today’s communication techniques. But the poor, starving in- mates knew that we were nearby, because they listened clandestinely to the British Broadcasting Corporation’s radio broadcasts. We were moving south quickly after taking Frankfurt, heading full steam for Munich, when we suddenly arrived at a gigantic prison camp surrounded by a high barbed- wire fence. We broke through the fence with our tanks, with the 42nd Infantry Division riding on them, ready to occupy the camp. Unfortunately, a few German snipers killed several of our men, including our colonel, before we were able to take out their nest with an artillery bar- rage. As soon as we arrived at the gates, we were surrounded by hundreds of deportees, all thrilled to see us. We learned later that the French prisoners, under General André Delpeche (later president of all the deportees), had planned a mutiny and the killing of the guards. But by the time we got there, most of the guards had fled. What we found was shocking and horrifying beyond words. We counted 37 carloads of bodies, shipped hastily from other concentration camps. The survivors were in a pitiful state, resembling skeletons; most only weighed 75 or 80 pounds. We wanted to feed them but were warned that a sudden intake of food might kill them. We saw the crematorium, the dreadful barracks and the Schutzstaffel officers’ quarters before being pulled away and sent off toward Munich. Renewing Old Ties After concluding my U.S. Army service, I joined the A RETIRED AMBASSADOR ’ S WARTIME EXPERIENCE WAS ONE OF THE MAIN FACTORS THAT PROPELLED HIM TOWARD THE F OREIGN S ERVICE . B Y A LAN W. L UKENS T Alan W. Lukens, a Foreign Service officer from 1951 to 1987, served in Istanbul, Ankara, Fort de France, Paris (twice), Brazzaville, Bangui, Rabat, Dakar, Nairobi, Copenhagen, Cape Town and Washington, D.C. His final diplomatic assignment, from 1984 to 1987, was as ambas- sador to the Republic of the Congo.