Often, the public thinks that the murders by the Nazis during the Holocaust only started after World War II began. However, in fact, it began in April 1933, only ten weeks after Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany.
It is sad enough that young men lost their lives on April 12, 1933; it is even more tragic to think that one of them, and in fact the very first to be killed, wasn’t even supposed to have been in Germany at the time.
Arthur Kahn, a 21-year-old Jewish German medical student, had enrolled at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland. He had returned to Germany to retrieve his student records from the University of Würzburg.
Arthur Kahn, together with Ernst Goldmann, Rudolf Benario, and Erwin Kahn(not related), had been arrested around March 22, 1933, for being members of the communist party and were sent to Dachau. Although Arthur Kahn had no Communist affiliation, he had been at one point involved in an anti-Nazi organization.
Upon arrival in Dachau, the men were identified as Jews and tortured. On April 12, a group of drunken SS officers handed the four young men shovels. They made them march to the outskirts of the camp, where the officers executed them. The first one shot was Arthur Kahn, making him the first Holocaust victim, according to historian Timothy Ryback. Goldman and Benario immediately followed and died. Erwin Kahn was also shot but died from his injuries four days later in a nearby hospital. He did get a chance to make a statement disputing that the four men had tried to escape, for that was the reason given for the executions.
Postwar investigation established that Robert Erspenmüller, the camp’s deputy commander, and two other SS guards, Hans Burner and Max Schmidt, committed the murders.
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Sources
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/dday-veterans-brother-was_b_5440492
https://nationalinterest.org/feature/dachau-the-first-days-the-holocaust-12682
The National Interest
Schreibdasauf.info
The New Republic
History of Sorts 
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