Henning Linden
Brigadier General, U.S. Army

Henning Linden was born on 3 September 1892 in Mound, MN.

Linden graduated from the University of Minnesota and joined the U.S. Army as a Second Lieutenant in 1918. He commanded a company of the 33rd Infantry Regiment in Panama during World War I, and afterwards served in several command and staff assignments of increasing rank and responsibility.

At the start of World War II, he was commander of the 53rd Infantry Regiment in the Aleutian Islands as the U.S. retook them from Japan. In 1944, he was promoted to Brigadier General as Assistant Division Commander of the 42nd (Rainbow) Infantry Division. He commanded its three infantry regiments as "Task Force Linden" which arrived in Marseilles, France, that fall, deployed in an attempt to prevent two German armies in Alsace from breaking out, and successfully defended along a 30-mile front. At the end of January 1945, the rest of the Division arrived in France, and as part of the Seventh Army the 42nd penetrated German defenses in the Hardt Mountains, crossed the "Siegfried Line," bridged the Rhine River, and captured the cities of Wurzburg, Schweinfurt, Furth and Donauworth. On 29 April, Brigadier General Linden and a 42nd Division detachment liberated the Dachau concentration camp in Bavaria, Germany, generating international headlines by freeing more than 30,000 Jews and political prisoners.

"Report on Surrender of Dachau Concentration Camp"

On 29 April 1945, KZ Dachau was surrendered to the U.S. Army by SS-Sturmscharführer Heinrich Wicker. A vivid description of the surrender appears in Brig. Gen. Henning Linden's official Report on Surrender of Dachau Concentration Camp:

"As we moved down along the west side of the concentration camp and approached the southwest corner, three people approached down the road under a flag of truce. We met these people about 75 yards north of the southwest entrance to the camp. These three people were a Swiss Red Cross representative and two SS troopers who said they were the camp commander and assistant camp commander and that they had come into the camp on the night of the 28th to take over from the regular camp personnel for the purpose of turning the camp over to the advancing Americans. The Swiss Red Cross representative acted as interpreter and stated that there were about 100 SS guards in the camp who had their arms stacked except for the people in the tower. He said he had given instructions that there would be no shots fired and it would take about 50 men to relieve the guards, as there were 42,000 half-crazed prisoners of war in the camp, many of them typhus infected. He asked if I were an officer of the American army, to which I replied, "Yes, I am Assistant Division Commander of the 42d Division and will accept the surrender of the camp in the name of the Rainbow Division for the American army."

After World War II, he served in occupied Austria and was Chief of the Army's Military Arts Department until he retired in 1952.

Medals and Awards

Silver Star Medal
Legion of Merit with Bronze Oak Leaf Cluster
Bronze Star Medal with Bronze Oak Leaf Cluster
Army Commendation Medal with Bronze Oak Leaf Cluster
World War I Victory Medal
American Defense Service Medal
Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal
European-African-Middle Eastern Campaign Medal with 3 Bronze Stars
World War II Victory Medal
Army of Occupation Medal

Foreign Medals and Awards

Croix de Guerre (France)
Order of Leopold II (Belgium)

Death and Burial

Brigadier General Henning Linden died on 15 March 1984 in McLean, VA. He is buried at Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, VA.