Women Nazi SS Camp Guards, Cruelty, Sadism: Ordinary Women, SS Torturers, Ravensbruck Exhibit

[appalachiablue]

Last edited Fri Feb 5, 2021, 10:19 PM - Edit history (5)

-'A Guide To Female Nazi Guards.' Auschwitz, Camp Hierarchy, Nazi, SS. Holocaust Matters.

A point of fascination for many people and historians alike has been the role of women in the Holocaust, specifically female members of the SS and the Nazi party. Due to the stereotyping of women throughout history, many have been utterly shocked by the actions of female Nazi guards because, other than the actions being unspeakable, they were simply female. This, of course, is a pretty outdated view as evil has no gender and it is perfectly plausible for the perpetrators to be male or female. Nevertheless, in this guide, we will be shedding light on some of the most notorious female Nazi guards and what role they played in the Holocaust.

Background: Female Nazi Guards tended to be from lower to middle-class backgrounds and usually had no relevant work experience under their belt upon recruitment. It was also common for their professional backgrounds to heavily vary since there were no requirements other than simply being willing to carry out orders. There was a feeder organisation known as The League of German Girls which acted as a means of indoctrination of young women to then push them into wanting to become part of the SS. It has been documented that the SS men were told by Himmler to regard any female SS members as their equals and their comrades.



- Irma Grese, SS guard at concentration camps Auschwitz & Ravensbruck; warden at Bergen- Belsen women's section.

Irma Ida Ilse Grese was an SS guard serving at the concentration camps of Auschwitz and Ravensbrück. She also served as a warden on the women’s section of Bergen-Belsen. After the liberation of the camps, Grese was convicted of crimes involving murder and ill-treatment of prisoners and was consequently sentenced to death at the age of 22 during the Belsen trial. She was famous for being the youngest woman to die under British Law in the 20th Century. Grese is particularly notorious for her sexual violence against inmates and her frequent sexual relationships with other SS guards – she was regarded as a nymphomaniac. One of her lovers was none only than Josef Mengele, Angel of Death. She was part of the gas chamber selection and often chose women based on whether she believed them to be more beautiful than she was.

Grese had a thing for personal-grooming, expensive custom clothing and the overuse of perfume – which was believed to be a deliberate act of sadism against them female inmates who obviously had nothing.




- Maria Mandl, 'The Beast', SS guard at Auschwitz concentration camp.

Maria Mandl was an Austrian SS guard working at Auschwitz, where she is believed to have been responsible for over 500,000 deaths of female inmates. At the start of her career, Mandl oversaw things like daily roll calls as well as punishments such as beatings. She later progressed to being the top Female ranked guard with full control and say over the female Auschwitz camps and female subcamps. Mandl earned herself the nickname “The Beast” after she was regularly known for partaking in the selection for the gas chambers and other forms of mass murder. Mandl created the Women’s Orchestra of Auschwitz which was for the purposes of accompanying executions, selections, transportations and daily roll call. According to a Holocaust survivor, Lucia Adelsberger, the female inmates were made to march in time to the music, even after coming back exhausted from forced labour.

For her crimes against humanity, Mandl was executed at the age of 36.




- Herta Bothe, 'The Sadist of Stutthof,' guard at Ravensbruck-Stutthof & Bergen-Belsen. Recorded to be 6' 3" tall.

Herta Bothe was a Nazi concentration camp guard at Ravensbrück-stutthof and Bergen-Belsen. She was recorded to have been 6ft 3 and known as the “Sadist of Stutthof” due to her merciless beatings of female prisoners. At the age of 24, she accompanied a death march of women from central Poland to Bergen-Belsen...

- Read More, https://www.holocaustmatters.org/a-guide-to-female-nazi-guards/
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- Female guards at Ravensbruck; German shepherds were used as guard dogs. c. 1940.
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-'Nazi Ravensbrück camp: How ordinary women became SS torturers.' BBC News, Jan. 18, 2021.

"Healthy, female workers between the ages of 20 and 40 wanted for a military site," reads the job advertisement from a 1944 German newspaper. Good wages and free board, accommodation and clothing are promised. What is not mentioned is that the clothing is an SS uniform. And that the "military site" is Ravensbrück concentration camp for women. Today the flimsy wooden barracks for the prisoners are long gone. All that remains is an eerily empty, rocky field, about 80km (50 miles) north of Berlin. But still standing are eight solidly built, attractive villas with wooden shutters and balconies. They are a 1940s Nazi version of medieval German cottages. That is where the female guards lived, some with their children. From the balconies they could overlook a forest and a pretty lake.

But from their bedrooms they would have also seen chain-gangs of prisoners and the chimneys of the gas chamber.

"It was the most beautiful time of my life," said one former female guard, decades later.




- View of Ravensbruck in 1945.

"A lot of visitors coming to the memorial ask about these women. There are not so many questions about men working in this field," says Andrea Genest, director of the memorial museum at Ravensbrück, as she shows me where the women lived. "People don't like to think that women can be so cruel." Many of the young women came from poorer families, left school early and had few career opportunities. A job at a concentration camp meant higher wages, comfortable accommodation and financial independence. "It was more attractive than working in a factory," says Dr Genest.

Many had been indoctrinated early in Nazi youth groups and believed in Hitler's ideology. "They felt they were supporting society by doing something against its enemies," she said.




- Guard Johanna Langefeld with her son and another guard's daughter.

..The scenes look innocent - until you notice the SS insignia on the women's clothes, and you remember that those same Alsatian dogs were used to torment people in the concentration camps. Some 3,500 women worked as Nazi concentration camp guards, and all of them started out at Ravensbrück. Many later worked in death camps such as Auschwitz-Birkenau or Bergen-Belsen...https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-55661782




- Prisoners, Liberation of Ravensbruck, March 30, 1945.

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- Auschwitz camp Nazi SS officers and women guards enjoy time at a staff resort, 1942.
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*EXHIBIT, 'GERMANY, In the SS' Service: Female guards at Germany's Ravensbrück concentration camp. An exhibition in the memorial at Ravensbrück offers a disturbing look at life under the Nazis in the all-female camp.' DW, Aug. 8, 2020.
https://www.dw.com/en/ravensbr%C3%BCck-female-concentration-camp-guards/a-54517319
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- The execution of guards and Polish kapos of Stutthof concentration camp, July 4, 1946.

- Stutthof concentration camp, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stutthof_concentration_camp

- Female Guards In Nazi Concentration Camps, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Female_guards_in_Nazi_concentration_camps
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- VIDEOS:

- (4 mins.). 'How Ordinary Women Became SS Torturers in Nazi Camps,' exhibit, interview, historian from Tel Aviv.

- (28 mins.). 'SS Women: Female Nazi Concentration Camp Guards.' Mark Felton Productions, Jan. 2021.

[hlthe2b]

1. Given Q is overwhelmingly female (supposedly) & they are celebrating a high level execution tonight

(their latest prediction) that has already come & gone... I can believe the sadism trait is present in some women. Truly horrific and depressing.

Link to tweet

[Irish_Dem]

2. Evil has no gender.

[llashram]

3. and to think

we have our very own people like this professing their loyalty to trump. MTG is someone as described here.