Before the war, they worked as clerks or nurses. There was no indication that they would soon prove to be more ruthless than many men. Only when they climbed the career ladder in Auschwitz, Ravensbrück or Majdanek showed their true nature - depraved and unfathomable. How far have they gone in their cruelty?
What could a German woman who earned too little or not at all during World War II? How could a person who did not have the necessary education, talent or intellect advance his "career"? She could become SS-Aufseherin , an assistant, that is, a supervisor in one of the German concentration and extermination camps.
There, women were paid several times more than when they held the customs of the post. But also much more was required of them. And they performed their "professional duties" without blinking an eye - and often even went beyond them, doing evil, if only for the sake of fantasy. Which of the guards showed the greatest beastliness?
Irma Grese - Beautiful Beast
Born in 1923, Irma Grese has become one of the most recognizable female fans. Perhaps because her appearance completely did not match her behavior. The prisoners of Auchwitz-Birkenau gave her a perfectly fitting nickname - The Beautiful Beast. One of them, Gisella Perl, spoke of the overseer:
She was one of the most beautiful women I have ever seen. Her body was perfect, her face read and angelic, eyes blue and merry, the most innocent eyes imaginable. And it was Irma Grese who was the most depraved, cruel and sophisticated in her cruelty that I have ever met .
"She was the most depraved, cruel and sophisticated in her cruelty that I have ever met," said one of the prisoners of Irma Grese,
Grese quickly dropped out of school. She wanted to become a nurse, but knowledge was not enough to pass the exams. In the summer of 1942, she was trained at Ravensbrück, and later, at her own request, she was sent to work in Auschwitz-Birkenau. There, she first became a telephone operator, and then a supervisor in the women's camp. She looked after the working prisoners, and when they were too slow in carrying out their duties, she let a dog on them.
After promotion, she looked after the Jewish women in camp C. She participated with Josef Mengele in some selections. She unscrupulously killed people she chose. Beautifully dressed - in a uniform sewn for her by one of the prisoners - she exuded not only the scent of perfume around her, but also the specter of terror.
Witnesses to her exploits later said that Grese loved to beat women with whips and to kick them. She was experiencing an almost erotic bliss at the time . She had sexual relations with both SS men, prisoners and female prisoners - she was bisexual and used her position by subjugating whoever she wanted to herself.
After the end of the war, she never pleaded guilty, but the evidence of her crimes was devastating. On December 13, 1945, she was executed in Hamelin by the British executioner Albert Pierrepoint. She was only 22 at the time. Today it doesn't even have its own grave - it was liquidated after it became a place of pilgrimage for neo-Nazis.
Hermine Braunsteiner - Kobyła from Ravensbrück and Majdanek
Braunsteiner, like Grese, tried to become a nurse before the war. However, she did not manage to get into the appropriate school. She applied to work in Ravensbrück in 1939. She stayed in the camp structures until the end of the war:she spent the years 1942-1944 in Majdanek, then returned to her previous position at the central women's center.
Everyone who came into contact with her remembered her as one of the cruelest and most violent caretakers. Her nickname, Kobyła, was not accidental. The ranger was tall and had a lot of strength, which she used to ... literally trampling the prisoners to death. Steel-shod boots helped her. The trampling mare did not deny itself the "pleasure" of whipping the inmates, hitting them in the face or throwing children to the gas chambers onto the trailers. Apparently, she threw one of them so hard that she died right away.
So how is it possible that a lot of post-war photos of the happy Braunsteiner are circulating on the web? He poses with a dog in his arms, small tigers, in beautiful natural circumstances. This elegantly dressed woman in cocktail dresses and pearls is exactly the same person who beat women to death in wild tantrums during World War II.
The ruthless murderer was sentenced to just 3 years in prison - no one linked the crimes committed during her service in Ravensbrück with her person. She could easily marry her American fiancé who, incidentally, did not know about her past and, as Hermine Ryan, go with him to the States .
The new name and citizenship did not save her from prison. It was discovered in the mid-1960s by Simon Wiesenthal, the famous Nazi hunter. In the 1970s, during the third trial of the Majdanek crew, they were brought before a German court. In 1981, she was sentenced to life imprisonment, but she spent the last three years of her life at large due to poor health.
Ilse Koch - Ilse-Lampażur
Ilse Koch, born in 1906, had many nicknames. She was called the Commander, the Bitch and the Witch of Buchenwald. Before becoming one, she practiced as an accountant and worked as a secretary. In 1932 she joined the NSDAP, where she met Karl Koch - an SS officer, who later became her husband. The couple moved to Buchenwald and had three thanks. Ilse gave birth to a fourth child later to avoid being sentenced for war crimes. It was not her husband's son - it is known that Komandorowa was not faithful.
Ilse Koch was not convicted of her crimes until a few years after the war.
Betrayal, however, was one of her lightest offenses. Ilse turned out to be capable of almost unimaginable bestialities. She was fascinated by the tattoos on the skin of prisoners who were subject to her. She examined their skin closely, and those who had interesting images on their bodies were quickly killed. Their skin covered with ink was cut out, and the commandant's psychopathic wife had them sew gloves, handbags, photo album covers and even lampshades (hence her nickname "Ilse-Abażur").
What seems cruel and disgusting to us was the greatest fascination for her. She was as practical in this respect as Ed Gein, a serial killer who made lampshades out of skinned women.
Ilse was able to condemn prisoners to death for any reason. Usually it just depended on her mood for the day. Often the lives of inmates came to an end, because they dared to look at Wilczyca at all. She was also more sexually wild than Irma Grese. She cheated on her husband with SS men and participated in orgies in which their wives also took part. She also forced prisoners into group relations that she watched - or even joined them.
After the war, the Koch family were first arrested for embezzling money. However, nothing was proven to them. It was not until the Buchenwald trial in Dachau that the woman was accused of contributing to the deaths of about 50,000 prisoners . She was sentenced to life imprisonment. It was then that she became pregnant for the fourth time to protect herself from imprisonment. She never saw her youngest son, but was released for a while. In 1951 she was sentenced to life imprisonment again. In fact, she spent the rest of her life in prison - until September 1, 1967, when she hung herself on the sheets in her cell.
Maria Mandl - The Beast from Auschwitz
Born in 1912, Maria Mandl openly admitted during the trial of her criminal activities that her main motivation was money. She also stated that if it weren't for the war, she would most likely become a nurse. She told the assembled judges that she did not know what really happened behind the gates of the German camps before. However, when she was sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau and became the head of the women's camp, she knew exactly what to do.
Maria Mandl was called the Beast of Auschwitz.
Her conduct was one of the cruelest that could be encountered during World War II and was of the nature of a mass crime. It sent around 500,000 people to their deaths, signing documents directing them to the gas chambers. Someone may say that she was just a cog in the machine and she didn't kill anyone personally. But that was not the case at all - whenever she had the opportunity, she killed women (including pregnant ones) and children .
There is a known story of Mandl throwing out a newborn child to certain death. The baby was lying in front of the barrack, where it died in unusual suffering, eaten by rats. In Brzezinka, on the orders of the overseer, terrifying things were done - children were drowned and burned alive in furnaces.
She herself tortured a mentally ill woman to death. Moreover, the Beast - as the prisoners called it - not only designated those sentenced to death, but also those used for experiments. Usually it was also fatal, only after being tortured in laboratories ...
Like the famous Dr. Mengele, this overseer chose persons for whom she was more indulgent. Since she was a music lover, she founded the "Mädchenorchester von Auschwitz" women's orchestra and created conditions for its members better than those of the camp. This display of "mercy" did not save her when it came to trial. Even her father refused to shelter her after the war, and after the trial she was sentenced to death . It was performed on January 24, 1948 in the Montelupich prison in Krakow.
Johanna Bormann - Woman with Dogs
Johanna Bormann, born in 1893, was dedicated to religion before becoming an SS overseer, working as a missionary. She is the oldest of the aforementioned female fans:she was 46 when the war broke out. During the trial, like Mandl, she justified the choice of this particular occupation on financial issues. In 1939, it was moved to the newly opened Ravensbrück, and later to Auschwitz, where it was labeled "Women with Dogs".
All because she was accompanied by inseparable German Shepherds. She pissed them on prisoners whenever the opportunity arose . There is a woman's message that the petite overseer with a sad face once became so upset by the too slow work of a prisoner that she sent her dog on her. The said female witness was hit in the face so hard that she lost two teeth.
In the camp conditions, contamination of the wound inflicted by the dog was enough to prevent the victim from surviving. It also happened that prisoners died right away from their injuries.
Like many other Nazis, the guardian was furious for quite no reason. She has beaten up several women just because they lit a fire without her permission . She also tortured hungry female prisoners for stealing vegetables. In every camp where she served, she scared people. The more so because it was she, together with Dr. Klein, who chose the prisoners to be gassed.
Bormann was sentenced to death. She was hanged on the same day as her superior Irma Grese on December 1, 1945.
Bormann used every excuse to mistreat prisoners and female prisoners.
When you learn about all the crimes committed by German female supervisors, it is hard to accept that some of them escaped punishment or spent only a dozen or so years behind bars. In 1945, the Germans in a panic destroyed documentation that would testify against them, and in the post-war turmoil it was easy to escape.
Not only Hermine Braunsteiner spent many years at large. It was similar with Hildegard Lächert ("Bloody Brigid"), Jane Gerda Bernigau and Hertha Bothe. The last of them, in an interview she gave in 2009, said that her "work" was not a mistake - otherwise she would have become a prisoner of the camp herself ...
Inspiration:
The article was inspired by the novel by Magda Knedler My friends from Ravensbr ück inspired by testimonies of female prisoners, a story about a friendship that is stronger than the walls of the camp and stronger than the brutal strikes of the guards.
Check where to buy "My friends from Ravensbrück":