Female guards in Nazi concentration camps

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Of the 55,000 guards who served in Nazi concentration camps, about 3,700 were women.* In 1942, the first female guards arrived at Auschwitz and Majdanek from Ravensbrück. The year after, the Nazis began conscripting women because of a guard shortage.

The German title for this position, Aufseherin (plural Aufseherinnen), means female overseer or attendant.

Contents

[edit] Recruitment

Female guards were generally low class to middle class and had no work experience; their professional background varied: one source[1] mentions former matrons, hairdressers, street car ticket takers, opera singers, or retired teachers. Volunteers were recruited by ads in German newspapers asking for women to show their love for the Reich and join the SS-Gefolge ("SS- Retinue" an SS support and service organisation for women). Additionally, some were conscripted based on data in their SS files. The Hitler Youth acted as a vehicle of indoctrination for many of the women[2]. One head female overseer, Helga Hegel, referred to her female guards as "SS" women at a post-war hearing. She placed the SS in quotes because the women were not official members of the SS, but many of them belonged to the Waffen-SS. In fact, fewer than twenty women ever served as true SS members, mostly because Schutzstaffel membership was indeed closed to women. The relatively low number of female guards who belonged to the Allgemeine-SS or SS-Gefolge served in the camps. Other women, such as Therese Brandl and Irmtraut Sell, belonged to the Totenkopf ("Death's Head") units.

At first, women were trained at Lichtenburg (1938). (Some sources say that some women were trained in 1936 at Sachsenhausen, including Ilse Koch, but no record of this has ever been found.) After 1939, women were trained at Ravensbrück camp near Berlin. When the war broke out, the Nazis built other camps in Poland, France, the Netherlands, Belgium as well as other countries they occupied. The training of the female guards was similar to that of their male counterparts: The women attended classes which ranged from four weeks to half a year, headed by the head wardresses - however, near the end of the war little, if any, training was given to fresh recruits. Sources cite former SS member Hertha Ehlert, who served at Ravensbruck, Majdanek, Lublin, Auschwitz, and Bergen Belsen, as describing her training as "physically and emotionally demanding" when questioned at the Belsen Trial. According to her, the trainees were told about the corruption of the Weimar Republic, how to punish prisoners, and how to look out for sabotage and work slowdowns. The same sources claim Dorothea Binz, head training overseer at Ravensbruck after 1942, trained her female students in the finer points of "malicious pleasure" (Schadenfreude or sadism). One survivor at a camp stated after the war that the Germans brought a group of fifty women to the camp to undergo training in 1944. The women were then separated and brought before the inmates. Each woman was then told to beat a prisoner. Of the fifty women, only three had asked for a reason, and one had refused. The last was subsequently imprisoned.[3]

[edit] Advancement

Female guards were collectively known by the rank of SS-Helferin ("Helper") and could hold positional titles equivalent to regular SS ranks. Such positions were known as Rapportführerin ("Report Leader"), Erstaufseherin ("First Guard"), Lagerführerin ("Camp Leader" [high position]) or Oberaufseherin ("Senior Overseer"). The highest position ever attained by a woman was Chef Oberaufseherin ("Chief Senior Overseer") (see Luise Brunner or Anna Klein). In the Nazi command structure, no female guard could ever give orders to a male one since, by design, the rank of SS-Helferin was below all male SS ranks and women were not recognized as regular SS members but only auxiliaries.

No German Concentration Camp ever was run by a female commandant. Ravensbrück, the only camp reserved for female inmates, was run mainly by male SS troopers, aided by a minority of female assistants.

[edit] Daily life

Relations between SS men and female guards are said to have existed in many of the camps, and Heinrich Himmler had told the SS men to regard the female guards as equals and comrades. At the relatively small Helmbrechts subcamp near Hof, Germany, the camp commandant was openly romantic with the head female overseer Helga Hegel.

Corruption was another aspect of the female guard culture. Ilse Koch, known as "the witch (sometimes bitch) of Buchenwald", was the chief female guard at the Buchenwald camp, and at the same time married to the camp commandant, Karl Koch. Both were rumoured to have embezzled millions of Reichmarks, for which crookedness Karl Koch was convicted and executed by the Nazis a few weeks before Buchenwald was liberated by the U.S. Army; however, Ilse was cleared of guilt. On a side note, some sources speculate that she had the witnesses in Buchenwald murdered.

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Despite a reputation for brutality, there were certainly kind ones as well. Klara Kunig became a camp guard in the middle of 1944 and served at Ravensbruck and its subcamp at Dresden-Universelle. The head wardress at the camp pointed out that she was too polite and too kind towards the inmates, resulting in her subsequent dismissal from camp duty in January 1945. At Auschwitz Birkenau, one Aufseherin was found guilty of aiding inmates illegally, and the chief overseer ordered her punished: her fellow guards were forced to give her twenty-five lashes.[citation needed]

[edit] Camps, names, and ranks

Near the end of the war, women were forced from factories in the German Labor Exchange and sent to training centers. Women were also trained on a smaller scale at the camps of Neuengamme; Auschwitz I, II, III and IV; Plaszow; Flossenbürg; Gross Rosen; Vught and Stutthof as well as in few in Dachau, a few in Mauthausen and a few women were trained in Buchenwald and their subcamps. Most of these women came from the regions around the camp. In 1944 the first female overseers were stationed at Neuengamme, Dachau, Mauthausen, a very, very few at Natzweiler Struthof, and even fewer at Dora Mittelbau (one is known). Between seven and twenty Aufseherinnen served in Vught, twenty-four SS women trained at Buchenwald (three at a time), thirty-four in Bergen Belsen, nineteen at Dachau, twenty in Mauthausen, three in Dora Mittelbau, seven at Natzweiler-Struthof, twenty at Majdanek, 200 at Auschwitz and its subcamps, 140 at Sachsenhausen, 158 at Neuengamme, forty-seven at Stutthof compared to 958 who served in Ravensbrück (2,000 were trained there), 561 in Flossenbürg, and 541 at Gross Rosen. Many female supervisors were trained and/or worked at subcamps in Germany, Poland, and a few in eastern France, a few in Austria, and a few in some camps in Czechoslovakia.

  • Head overseer at Allendorf was Kaethe Hoern (September 1944-March 1945) and Johanna Seiss (?-?); in Auschwitz Johanna Langefeld (March 1942-October 1942), Maria Mandel (October 1942-November 1944), Margot Dreschel (?-November 1944), Irma Grese (1944), and Elisabeth Volkenrath (November 1944-January 1945). Maria herself commanded all the 'SS' women within Auschwitz-Birkenau.
  • At Barth Ruth Closius (March 1945-May 1945), in Belzig head female guard was Hedwig Ullrich (Summer 1944-April 1945).
  • In Bergen Belsen the two head overseers were Irma Grese (January/February 1945-April 1945) and Elisabeth Volkenrath (February 1945-April 1945) while Herta Ehlert served as deputy wardress.
  • Lagerführerin Kuegler served as head of Bolkenhain subcamp in 1942 and 1943.
  • Johanna Wisotzki was Oberaufseherin in Bromberg-Ost (Bydgoszcz East) from June 1944 until March 1945, while Ilse Koch was appointed head female guard at Buchenwald.
  • In the Danzig Langfuhr subcamp Gerda Steinhoff commanded all the female overseers and prisoners (October 1944-December 1944), in Dora Mittelbau, this was handled by Erna Petermann.
  • At the Ravensbrück subcamp at Dresden Universelle, Charlotte Hanakam was chief wardress (1944-April 1945), and in Flossenbürg, this rank was given to three women at four different times; Margarethe de Hueber (April 1939-1944), Gertrud Becker (October 1944-?), Dora Lange, and Gertrud Weniger (1944-?).
  • In the Graslitz auxiliary camp, Marianne Essmann was promoted head guard, at Gross Rosen, Jane Bernigau, in Gruenberg, Anna Fiebeg (June 1944-January 1945) served as chief Oberaufseherin, while Anna Jahn and Hela Milefski served as Second Lagerleiterinnen (Replacement Camp Overseers).
  • At Gruschwitz-Neusalz subcamp of Gross Rosen Helene Obuch (1943-June 1944), then Elisabeth Gersch (June 1944-January 1945) was in charge, at Hamburg-Wandsbek, Annemie von der Huelst.
  • The Hanau subcamp in Germany was overseen by chief overseer Lydia Neudert.
  • Helmbrechts was a subcamp of Flossenbürg built near Hof, Germany. Originally, Martha Dell' Antonia (Summer 1944-?) served there as head female guard over twenty-two female guards. In late 1944 she was replaced by the commandant's (Doerr's) lover, Helga Hegel.
  • In Holleischen Dora Lange.
  • The tiny subcamp at Kochstadt Emma was head woman guard; Kratzau II in Czechoslovakia was overseen by Gertrud Becker, Lenzing by Lagerführerin Schmidt and Oberaufseherin Margarete Freinberger (November 1944-May 1945).
  • Majdanek was headed by Elsa Erik (October 1942-June 1944), her immediate assistant Else Weber, and assisted by deputy wardresses Hermine Braunsteiner, Redeli, Ellert and Elisabeth Knoblich.
  • A woman named "Anna" commanded the Nurnberg-Siemens subsidiary camp-an extension of Flossenbuerg.
  • At Oberalstadt, Irmgard Hofmann was Lagerführerin.
  • In Obernheide, Gertrud Heise was chief over seven (known) SS women (September 1944-April 1945), at Oederan, Dora Lange, and in Plaszow, Alice Orlowski among another unknown woman.
  • Ravensbrück was the training ground for female guards. Chief wardresses there were Anne Zimmer (May 1939-May 1941), Maria Mandel (March 1942-October 1942), Johanna Langefeld (May 1941-March 1942/October 1942-1943), Greta Boesel (1944-April 1945), Erna Rose (1944-April 1945), while Dorothea Binz served as their assistant from August 1943 until the camps liberation in April 1945.
  • Rochlitz was headed by Marianne Essmann, Sachsenhausen by Ilse Koch and later by Hilde Schlusser and Anna Klein.
  • In St. Lambrecht it was Jane Bernigau (1944/January 1945), while at Stutthof generals promoted Johanna Wisotzki and Gerda Steinhoff to chief female overseers, while at Theresienstadt this was given to Hildegard Neumann.
  • Ruth Closius headed Uckermark (January 1945-March 1945), Margarete Gallinat (Maria) oversaw Vught (?-June 1944), Susanne Hille was head female guard at Unterluess (or Vueterluss) (September 1944-April 1945), and Hilde Hahn oversaw the Flossenbürg subcamp at Zwodau from June 1944 until May 1945..

[edit] From the post-war until today

The "SS" women, as they have been called, were generally strong, stout and healthy. In 1944 as German losses mounted on both fronts, Reich Minister Albert Speer ordered Germany to attain "Mobilization for Total War." Thousands of women were forcibly recruited from factories and sent to many of the larger concentration camps to be trained. One survivor described how a group of fifty of them were led in and one by one they were told to hit an inmate. She went on to state that out of the fifty women, only three women asked the reason why and only one refused to do it, which caused her to be thrown into the camp herself. She went on to say that they soon got "into the swing of things, which they have been warming up their entire lives for."

As the Allies liberated the camps, SS women were generally still in active service. Many were captured in or near the camps of Ravensbruck, Bergen Belsen, Gross Rosen, Flossenburg, Salzwedel, Neustadt-Glewe, Neuengamme, and Stutthof. After the war many SS women were held at the internment camp at Recklinghausen, Germany or in the former concentration camp at Dachau. There between 500 and 1,000 women were held while the US Army investigated their crimes and camp service. The majority of them were released because male SS were the top priority. Many of the women held there were high ranking leaders of the Hitler Youth, or the League of German Girls, while other women served in concentration camps; Salzwedel, Essen, Ravensbruck, etc.

Many SS men and SS women were executed by the Soviets when they liberated the camps, while others were sent to the gulags. Only a few SS women were tried for their crimes compared to male SS. Most female wardresses were tried at the Auschwitz Trial, in four of the seven Ravensbrück Trials, at the first Stutthof Trial, and in the second and Third Majdanek Trials and from the small Hamburg-Sasel camp. At that trial all forty-eight SS men and women were tried.

[edit] Female guards tried today

Not tried but deported by the US Justice Department was 84-year-old San Francisco resident Elfriede Lina Rinkel, who hid a terrible secret for more than 60 years from her family, friends and Jewish German husband Fred. Mrs Rinkel fled to the US after the Second World War seeking a better life.

The last trial of a female overseer was held in 1996. Former Aufseherin Luise Danz, who served as overseer in January 1943 at Plaszow, then at Majdanek, Auschwitz-Birkenau and at the Ravensbrück subcamp at Malchow as Oberaufseherin, was tried at the first Auschwitz Trial and sentenced to life imprisonment in 1947. In 1956, she was released for good behavior. In 1996, she was once again tried for the murder of a young woman in Malchow at the end of the war. As of 2005, her sentence had not been pronounced.

In 1996, a story broke in Germany about Margot Pietzner (married name Kunz), a former Aufseherin from Ravensbruck, the Belzig subcamp and a subcamp at Wittenberg. She was originally sentenced to death by a Soviet court but had it commuted to a life sentence and was released in 1956. In the early 1990's at the age of seventy-four Margot was awarded the title "Stalinist victim" and given 64,350 Deutsche Marks (32,902 Euros). Many historians argued that she had lied and did not deserve the money. She had in fact served time in a German prison, which was overseen by the Soviets, but she was imprisoned because she had served brutally in the ranks of three concentration camps. Pietzner currently lives in a small town in northern Germany.

The majority of the former women guards are over the age of 75, if they are still alive. Only one of them told her story to the public, Herta Bothe. Bothe, still alive (as of 2005) at the age of 84, served as a guard at Ravensbrück in 1942, then at Stutthof, Bromberg-Ost (Bromine East) subcamp, and finally in Bergen-Belsen. She received ten years' imprisonment, and was released in the mid-1950s. In an interview from 2004, Bothe was asked if she regretted being a guard in a concentration camp. Her response was, "What do you mean? ...I made a mistake, no... The mistake was that it was a concentration camp, but I had to go to it - otherwise I would have been put into it myself, that was my mistake."[4]

[edit] Notes

  • ^ The Sanity of Madness Inside Hitler's Concentration Camps
  • ^ The Sanity of Madness Inside Hitler's Concentration Camps
  • ^ Inside The Concentration Camps
  • ^ unknown website (upcoming)
  • ^ Return to Auschwitz by Kitty Hart
  • ^ Inside The Concentration Camps
  • ^ Hitler's Holocaust Mini-series

[edit] References

  • Template:Note12This number was figured from Ravensbrueck commandant Suhren's total of 3,500 who were trained at the camp while he served as commandant; files at the Stutthof (Szutowo, Poland) memorial and archives; overseers named by survivors or in postwar trials-such as Erna Pfannstiel-Wallisch, Elisabeth Hasse, Lucie Halata, Ria Mullenders, Gertrud Miland, Suze Arts, etc; The 156 women who were trained at Neuengamme and assigned to its sub-camps between September 1944 and April 1945.
  • Aroneanu, Eugene, ed. Inside the Concentration Camps Trans. Thomas Whissen. Praeger, 1996.
  • Brown, Daniel Patrick. The Camp Women The SS Auxiliaries who Assisted the SS in Running the Nazi Concentration Camp System. Schiffer Publishing, 2002, ISBN 0-7643-1444-0
  • Hart, Kitty. Return to Auschwitz: The Remarkable Story of a Girl Who Survived the Holocaust. Atheneum, 1983.