Female guards in Nazi concentration camps

Aufseherin [ˈaʊ̯fˌzeːəʁɪn] was the position title for female guards in Nazi concentration camps during the Holocaust. 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 shortage of male guards. The German title for this position, Aufseherin means (female) overseer or attendant. Later female guards were dispersed to Bolzano (1944–1945), Kaiserwald-Riga (1943–44), Mauthausen (March – May 1945), Stutthof (1942–1945), Vaivara[1] (1943–1944), Vught (1943–1944), and at other Nazi concentration camps, subcamps, work camps, detention camps, etc.

Mugshot of Bergen-Belsen guard Irma Grese

Mugshot of Ilse Koch.

Maria Mandel of Auschwitz

Herta Bothe, in Celle awaiting trial, August 1945

Hermine Braunsteiner of KZ Majdanek

Recruitment

Female guards were generally from the lower to middle class[2] and had no relevant work experience; their occupational background varied: one source mentions former matrons, hairdressers, tramcar-conductresses, opera singers or retired teachers.[3] Volunteers were recruited via advertisements in German newspapers asking for women to show their love for the Reich and join the SS-Gefolge ("SS-Retinue", a Schutzstaffel (SS) support and service organisation for women). Additionally, some were conscripted based on data in their SS files. The League of German Girls acted as a vehicle of indoctrination for many of the women.[4] At one of the post-war hearings, Oberaufseherin Herta Haase-Breitmann-Schmidt, head female overseer, claimed that her female guards were not full-fledged SS women. Consequently, at some tribunals it was disputed whether SS-Helferinnen employed at the camps were official members of the SS, thus leading to conflicting court decisions. Many of them belonged to the Waffen-SS and to the SS-Helferinnen Corps.[5][6]

Supervision levels and ranks

Female guards were collectively known as SS-Helferin (German: "Female SS Helper"). They were never given any positional titles or equivalent ranks of the SS. The supervisory levels within the SS-Helferin were as follows:

1. Chef Oberaufseherin, "Chief Senior Overseer" [Ravensbrück]
2. Lagerführerin, "Camp Leader"
3. Oberaufseherin, "Senior Overseer"
4. Erstaufseherin, "First Guard" [Senior Overseer in some satellite camps]
5. Rapportführerin, "Report Leader"
6. Arbeitsdienstführerin, "Work Recording Leader"
7. Arbeitseinsatzführerin, "Work Input Overseers"
8. Blockführerin, "Block Leader"
9. Kommandoführerin, "Work Squad Leader" [Senior Overseer in some satellite camps]
10. Hundeführerin, "Dog Guide Overseer"
11. Aufseherin, "Overseer"
12. Arrestführerin, "Arrested Overseer"

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, Doerr, openly pursued a sexual relationship with the head female overseer Herta Haase-Breitmann-Schmidt.

Corruption was another aspect of the female guard culture. Ilse Koch, known as "The Witch of Buchenwald", was married to the camp commandant, Karl Koch. Both were rumored to have embezzled millions of Reichmarks, for which 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 the charge. Convicted of war crimes, she was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1951.

One apparent exception to the brutal female overseer prototype was Klara Kunig, a camp guard in 1944 who 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. Her fate has been unknown since February 13, 1945, the date of the allied firebombing of Dresden.[7]

Camps, names and ranks

Jenny-Wanda Barkmann, back row right, at the Stutthof concentration camp war crimes trial between 25 April and 31 May 1946, in Gdańsk

The execution of guards and Polish Kapos of the Stutthof concentration camp on 4 July 1946

Near the end of the war, women were forced from factories in the German Labour Exchange and sent to training centres. Women were also trained on a smaller scale at the camps of Neuengamme;[8] Auschwitz I, II, and III;[9] Flossenbürg (as well as Dresden-Goehle, Holleischen[9] and Zwodau);[10] Gross Rosen (as well as its satellites in Langenbielau,[11] Ober Hohenelbe[12] and Parschnitz); Stutthof,[13] as well as a few at Mauthausen.[14] Most of these women came from the regions around the camps. In 1944, the first female overseers were stationed at the satellite camps belonging to Neuengamme, Dachau,[15] Mauthausen, a very few at Natzweiler-Struthof, and none at the Mittelbau-Dora complex until March 1945.[16]

28 Aufseherinnen served in Vught,[17] none at Buchenwald (except for two brothel Aufseherinnen (summer–November 1943))[18] (possibly others during evacuations), 60 in Bergen-Belsen, one at Dachau overseeing the brothel[19] (possibly others during evacuations), more than 30 in Mauthausen[20] (January 1945–May 1945), none at Dora Mittelbau proper, none at Natzweiler-Struthof proper, 30 at Majdanek,[21] around 200 at Auschwitz and its subcamps,[22] 140 at Sachsenhausen and its subcamps, 158 trained at Neuengamme (over 400 in its satellites), 47 trained at Stutthof (150 in its entire complex of labor camps), compared to 958 who served in Ravensbrück (3,500 were trained there),[23] 561 in the Flossenbürg complex, and over 800 in the Gross Rosen.[24] 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.[25]

• The head overseer at Allendorf was SS-Oberaufseherin/Erstaufseherin Kaethe Hoern (September 1944–March 1945) while her assistant was SS-Stellvertretende Oberaufseherin Hildegard K.;[26] in Auschwitz Oberaufseherin Johanna Langefeld[27] (March 1942–October 1942), Lagerfuehrerin Maria Mandl[22] (October 1942–November 1944), Stellvertetende Oberaufseherin Emma Zimmer[28] (1942–43), Stellvertretende Lagerfuehrerin Margot Dreschel[29] (late 1943–November 1944), Arbeitsdienstfuehrerin Elisabeth Hasse,[30] Oberaufseherin Elisabeth Volkenrath[31] (November 1944–January 1945), and Rapportfuehrerin Irma Grese[32] (1944–of Hungarian Jewish women's compound under Mandl, Dreschel and Hasse), Mandl herself commanded all the SS women within Auschwitz-Birkenau. Grese and Volkenrath were convicted of war crimes and hanged on 13 December 1945; Mandl was hanged on 24 January 1948.
• at Barth Lagerfuehrerin Irmgard Reissner[33] (1944-April 1945), Oberaufseherin Ruth Neudeck,[34] (March 1945–May 1945), Stellvertretende Lagerfuehrerin Gerda Langner,[35] and Kommandoführerin Gertrud Herrmann,[36] in Belzig head female guard was Hedwig Ullrich[37] (Summer 1944–April 1945).
• In Bergen-Belsen the three head overseers were Oberaufseherin Elisabeth Volkenrath[31] (February 1945–April 1945), Rapportführerin Hildegard Gollasch,[38] while Herta Ehlert[39] served an additional deputy wardress and Irma Grese[40] (January/February 1945–April 1945) was Kommandoführerin alongside Juana Bormann.[41] At the Gross-Rosen annex camp at Bernsdorf (Bernartice), Maria Mühl[42] was Kommandofuehrerin under Lagerfuehrerin Else Hawlik,[43] who commanded all of the Trautenau Ring labor camps. At the Gross-Rosen annex camp at Breslau-Hundsfeld (Wroclaw Psie Pole) the Kommandofuehrerin was Emilie Kowa[44] and another high female ranking officer-Margarete Schueller.[45]
• Johanna Wisotzki[46] was Oberaufseherin in Bromberg-Ost (Bydgoszcz East) from June 1944 until January/February 1945 along with Gerda Steinhoff, while Ilse Koch was appointed (unofficially) head female guard at Buchenwald, even though the camp had very few female prisoners. Koch was convicted of war crimes; she committed suicide in Aichach women's prison on 1 September 1967.
• At Christianstadt, a Gross-Rosen satellite in Silesia, Emilie Harms[47] was in charge of the camp; her assistant was Stellvertretende Kommandofuehrerin Lina Pohl.[47] In the Danzig Holm subcamp Stellvertretende Oberaufseherin Gerda Steinhoff[48] was second-in-command of all the female overseers and prisoners (October 1944–December 1944); in the Dora Mittelbau satellite in Gross-Werther, this was handled by Lagerfuhrerin Erna Petermann.[49]
• At the Ravensbrück/Flossenbürg subcamp at Dresden Universelle, Erstaufseherin Ida Guhl[50] and Erstaufseherin Charlotte Hanakam[50] were chief wardresses (1944–April 1945), and in Flossenbürg subcamp at Dresden-Goehle, this rank was given to several women, including Erstaufseherin Gertrud Schaefer[51] and Margarethe de Hueber[51] (1944); Erstaufseherin Gertrud Becker[52] oversaw the Flossenbürg satellite in Hainichen (October 1944–April 1945), Erstaufseherin Dora Lange[53] and later Erstaufseherin Gertrud Weniger[54] (1944–1945) commanded Oederan.
• At the Gross-Rosen subcamp in Gabersdorf, Kommandoführerin Charlotte Ressel[55] was chief, and at the main camp Oberaufseherin Jane Bernigau[56] was chief among all of the subcamps women guard personnel (800); in the Grünberg (Zielona Góra) satellite, Lagerführerin Anna Fiebeg (June 1944–January 1945) served as chief overseer, while Stellvetreende Lagerführerinnen Anna Jahn[57] and Hela Milefski Replacement Camp Overseers, Female.
• At Gräben (Grabina/Strzegom (PL), Kommandofuehrerin Katharina Reimann[58] was head woman guard and Margarete Hentschel[59] was her assistant as a Rapportfuehrerin; in Graeflish-Roehrsdorf, Silesia, Kommandoführerin Gertrud Sauer[60] was in charge of the women's camp; and at the Gruschwitz-Neusalz subcamp of Gross Rosen Helene Obuch (1943–June 1944), then Kommandoführerin Elisabeth Gersch[61] (June 1944–January 1945) was in charge, and at Hamburg-Wandsbek, Oberaufseherin Annemie von der Huelst[62] was in charge, followed by her second-in-command, Kommandoführerin Loni Gutzeit.[63] At Hamburg-Sasel, Kommandofuehrerin Ida Roemer[64] was the head female guard.
• Helmbrechts was a subcamp of Floßenbürg built near Hof, Germany. Originally, Erstaufseherin Martha Dell' Antonia[65] (Summer 1944–?) served there as head female guard over 22 female guards. In late 1944 she was replaced by the Commandant's (Doerr's) mistress, Herta Haase-Breitmann,[66] who was originally a Kommandofuehrerin.
• In Holleischen Anna Schmidt,[9] Dora Lange[9] was senior overseer along with Elfriede Tribus[9]
• Kratzau II in Czechoslovakia were overseen by Kommandofuehrerin Elsa Hennrich[67] while a certain Denner (or Dinner) commanded Kratzau I; Lenzing by Oberaufseherin Margarete Freinberg(er)[68] (November 1944–May 1945).
• Majdanek and Lublin-Alterflughafen camps were headed by Oberaufsherin Else Ehrich[21] (October 1942–June 1944), her immediate assistant, Rapportführerin and Stellvertretende Oberaufseherin Hermine Braunsteiner,[21] and further deputies Else Weber[69] and Elisabeth Knoblich.[70] Knoblich was nicknamed "Halt die Klappe!" ("Shut up!") and Hermine Braunsteiner was deported from the United States to Germany in 1973 and died in 1999.
• At the Mittelsteine concentration camp the head overseer was Kommandoführerin Käthe Jenesch[71] and SS-Aufseherinnen Philomena Locker[72] (reportedly sentenced after the War to seven years' imprisonment), Charlotte Neugebauer,[73] and a Fraulein Schneider,[73] (first name unknown). At Merzdorf Erna Rinke[74] was Chief Overseer (Oberaufseherin).
• In Obernheide, Kommandoführerin Gertrud Heise[75] was chief over seven (known) SS women (September 1944–April 1945), and in Plaszow, Oberaufseherin Elsa Ehrich,[76] Anna Gerwing (as Rapportführerin) and Kommandoführerin Alice Orlowski among another unknown woman.
• Ravensbrück was the central and largest training ground for female guards. The first Oberaufseherin was Margarete Stollberg who organized construction operations at the camp in a very minor capacity until May 1939.[77] Immediately after the camp was opened Johanna Langefeld[77] became SS-Oberaufseherin (May 1939–March 1942) and Emma Zimmer became deputy, SS-Stellvertretende Oberaufseherin (May 1939–October 1942); Maria Mandl also served during this period as an SS-Kommandoführerin (1939–1940)[78] and Ober-Arrestführerin.[77] of the camp bunker (1940–March 1942) while Gertrud Rabestein[79] served as SS-Blockführerin of the Punishment Barrack and SS-Leiterin of the SS-Hundeführerinnen (1939–1941) and Gertrud Ida Schreiter[80] served as an SS-Hundeführerin and SS-Kommandoführerin. After Langefeld was assigned to Auschwitz I during March 1942,[81] Maria Mandl became SS-Oberaufseherin (March 1942–October 1942),[82] followed by Johanna Langefeld, who once again served at Ravensbrück until the summer of 1943.[82] During this period SS-Rapportführerinnen included Else Ehrich (1942)[83] and Margot Dreschel,[84] and Ober-arrestführerin Dorothea Binz, while Erika Boeddeker (1942),[85] Edith Fräde (1942), Sophie Gode,[86] and Wilhelmine Pielen (1942–1943) served as Blockführerinnen and/or Stellvertretende Blockführerinnen. With the creation of Abteilung IIIa, the Labor Department in Ravensbrück, several SS officers were placed in command there, along with SS-Arbeitsdienstführerin Rosel Laurenzen (later married Dürichen)[87] and her assistant, SS-Arbeitseinsatzführerin Gertrud Schöber (later married Steisslinger);[87] during 1943 Laurenzen was relieved from her post and Gertrud Ida Schreiter[88] became SS-Arbeitsdienstführerin. After deputy Leader Emma Zimmer was called to Auschwitz II in October 1942, along with Mandl and Margot Dreschel, Margarete Gallinat became deputy Oberaufseherin under Langefeld.[89] During the summer of 1943, Gallinat was moved as SS-Oberaufseherin to the Vught concentration camp in the Netherlands[90] and Langefeld was arrested by the SS. Camp authorities promoted longtime Aufseherin Anne Klein-Plaubel to Chief Senior Overseer (Chef Oberaufseherin) of Ravensbrck during August 1943, assisted by Stellvertretende Oberaufseherin Dorothea Binz and under them were SS-Scharführerin Christel Jankowsky,[91] SS-Ober-arrestführerin Margarete Mewes, and SS-Blockführerinnen Henny Gottwitz[92] (Block 3) and Ulla Jürß (1943–1944). During March 1944 Wilhelmine Pielen returned to Ravensbrück from Neubrandenburg and became assistant to Leader Binz until her transfer to Konigsberg-Neumark during October 1944.[93] During this time, Arbeitsdienstführerin Gertrud Ida Schreiter (born Kaufmann) was the female Leader of the Labor Department, and her second-in-commands were Arbeitseinsatzführerinnen Greta Bösel (born Müller)[94]–in 1944 and a certain Helevead (or Hollevaed) also served in Department IIIa; additionally, Helene Massar was a Kommandoführerin of the sewing shop at the camp until 1945.[95] In the late autumn of 1944, Auschwitz-Birkenau Aufseherin Luise Brunner was installed as Chef Oberaufseherin at Ravensbrück.[96] Under Brunner was Oberaufseherin Binz,[93] Arbeitsdienstführerin Schreiter, Arbeitsdienstführerin Ilse Vettermann, Stellvertretende Oberaufseherin Else Krippner, SS-Stellvertretende Oberaufseherin Wilhelmine Pielen (after her return from Konigsberg-Neumark in February/March 1945-she replaced Krippner) and Arbeitseinsatzführerinnen Greta Bösel and Hollevaed-were around 144 SS-Aufseherinnen (SS-Overseers), including Report Overseers (Rapportführerinnen) Knack,[97] Olga Nickel[97] (who began service prior to the summer of 1942) and Hildegard Knop.[97] The Kommandoführerinnen during 1944/1945 included Elisabeth Kammer,[98] Emma Lankes,[99] Helene Massar,[100] and Hildegard Z[101] while Blockfuhrerinnen were Ulla Jürß {until autumn 1944}, Ruth Neudeck[102] (summer-autumn 1944), Elfriede Mohnecke (spring 1945), Martha Krüger[103] (of Barrack 23), Rosalie Leimböck (until autumn 1944), Margarete Steigüber,[104] Emmi Steinbeck,[105] and Frieda Wötzel-Drehmann (1944). Else Grabner was also the head of the female Ravensbrück subcamp as Oberaufseherin (Chief Wardress), then Lagerleiterin (Camp Leader).[106] Binz and Boesel were convicted of war crimes and hanged on 2 May 1947.
• Rochlitz was headed by Ertaufseherin Marianne Essmann.[107]
• In St. Lambrecht it was Jane Bernigau (1942–1944), while at Stutthof there was Oberaufseherin Anna Scharbert promoted to chief female overseer after her time in Ravensbruck, Majdanek and Auschwitz, while at Theresienstadt this was given to Hildegard Neumann and Oberaufseherin Elisabeth Schmidt in the 'Small Fortress' camp.[108]
• Erstaufseherin Ruth Closius[109] headed Uckermark along with her assistant, SS-Stellvertretende Oberaufseherin Elfriede Mohnecke[110] (January 1945–March 1945); Oberaufseherin Margarete Gallinat (Maria) (1943–1944) and later Oberaufseherin Gertrud Weiniger[90] (summer–autumn 1944) oversaw Vught, Kommandofehrerin Susanne Hille was head female guard at Unterluess (or Vuterluss) (September 1944–April 1945). Oberaufseherin Fraulein Schneider, and later Anneliese Unger oversaw the Flossenbürg subcamp at Zwodau[111] (June 1944–May 1945).
• Dzierżązna, Łódź Voivodeship SS Aufseherin Sydonia Bayer {b. 12 December 1903–tried 6 September 1945; executed Lodz Poland 12 November 1945][112]
• In researching his maternal German kin, American historian James L. Cabot found that two of his distant relations were overseers - Maria Kleinschmidt, an operative at Neuengamme, and Charlotte Kleinschmidt (née Peters), whose exact camp service is unknown.[113]

Prisoner Olga Lengyel, who in her memoir, Five Chimneys, wrote that selections in the women’s camp were made by SS Aufseherin Elisabeth Hasse and Irma Grese. Other survivors accused Juana Bormann, Elisabeth Volkenrath, Elisabeth Ruppert and Margot Dreschel for the same crimes.[114]

Later events

Ilse Koch at the U.S. Military Tribunal in Dachau, 1947

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 it was commuted to a life sentence, and she was released in 1956. In the early 1990s, at the age of 74, Pietzner 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 only female guard to tell her story to the public has been Herta Bothe, who served as a guard at Ravensbrück in 1942, then at Stutthof, Bromberg-Ost subcamp, and finally in Bergen-Belsen. She received 10 years' imprisonment and was released in the mid-1950s. In a rare interview in 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."[115]

In 2006, 84-year-old San Francisco resident Elfriede Rinkel was deported by the US Justice Department. She had worked at Ravensbrück from June 1944 to April 1945, and had used an SS-trained dog in the camp. She had hidden her secret for more than 60 years from her family, friends and Jewish-German husband Fred. Rinkel immigrated to the US in 1959 seeking a better life and had omitted Ravensbrück from the list of residences supplied on her visa application. In Germany, Rinkel did not face criminal charges as only murder allegations could be tried after that amount of time,[116] although the case continued to be examined until Rinkel's death in 2018.[117]

Notes

1. Petzold, Elfriede, appeared on a November 1, 1947 list of female war criminals held in U.S. custody at Augsburg-Goegingen, Central Komitet, Juridisze Optejlung, Krigsfarbrecher Referat, as a guard in, Grüneberg-Vaivara (Estland).
2. There were, however, some exceptions. At least four overseers were of aristocratic origin: Annemie von der Huelst and Gertrud von Lonski at Neuengamme and Euphemia von Wielen and Ellen Freifrau von Kettler at Ravensbrück. Brown, Daniel Patrick (2002), The Camp Women. The Female Auxiliaries Who Assisted the SS in Running the Nazi Concentration Camp System, pp. 226, 242. Atglen, Pa.: Schiffer Publishing Ltd.; ISBN 0-7643-1444-0
3. Feig, Konnilyn G. (1981). Hitler's Death Camps: The Sanity of Madness. Holmes & Meier. ISBN 0-8419-0676-9.
4. Aroneanu, Eugene (1996). Inside the Concentration Camps: Eyewitness Accounts of Life in Hitler's Death Camps. Greenwood Publishing Group. ISBN 0-275-95446-3.
5. Rachel Century, Das SS-Helferinnenkorps Royal Holloway, University of London.
6. Gerhard Rempel, The SS Female Assistance Corps (in) Hitler's Children: The Hitler Youth and the SS. UNC Press Books, 1989. ISBN 0807842990.
7. Sarti, Wendy Adele Marie (2011). Women and Nazis: Perpetrators of Genocide and Other Crimes During Hitler's Regime, 1933-1945. Academica Press, p. 35
8. "Hamburg-Sasel Aufseherin U. E. undertook training courses in Neuengamme for 10 days during September 1944" (PDF).
9. "AB162.pdf".
10. Hedwig Burkl, an SS-Aufseherin at Holleischen, Plauen, Mehltheuer and Venusberg-Gelenau, began her training at Zwodau on October 5, 1944. KZ Mehltheuer: Lippenstift statt Lebensmittel, Pascal Cziborra, p. 84
11. Leech, Colin Russell. "1st Belsen Trial". www.bergenbelsen.co.uk.
12. Marie Larisch was enlisted by the Lorenz Company during August 1944 and subsequently trained and served at the factory and Gross-Rosen sub-camp in Ober Hohenelbe until April 1945. Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos, 1933–1945, Volume I, Part A, Early Camps, Youth Camps, and Concentration Camps and Subcamps under the SS-Business Administration Main Office (WVHA), United States Holocaust Memorial Museum p. 776
13. According to the 1945 testimony of former Stutthof prisoner Zofia Jackowska, 150 German women from around Danzig were trained at the camp between early August and the middle of November 1944 and following their entry sixty remained in the main camp while the rest were assigned to its subcamps. Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos, 1933–1945, Volume I, Part B, Early Camps, Youth Camps, and Concentration Camps and Subcamps under the SS-Business Administration Main Office (WVHA), United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, p. 1476
14. Elisabeth König went to the Mauthausen concentration camp on January 5, 1945 and was presumably admitted to her duties as an SS-Aufseherin. Im Gefolge der SS: Aufseherinnen des Frauen-KZ Ravensbrück: Begleitband zur Ausstellung, Simone Erpel, p. 177
15. Thea Therese Miesl, married Wallner, was trained at Ravensbrück for four weeks beginning on October 15, 1944 and afterwards assigned to a Dachau sub-camp in Kaufering, Bavaria. Daniel Patrick Brown, The Camp Women: The Female Auxiliaries who Assisted the SS in Running the Nazi Concentration Camp System, p. 177
16. Ausbeutung, Vernichtung, Öffentlichkeit: Neue Studien Zur Nationalsozialistischen Lagerpolitik, p. 38
17. "Eight German women and twenty female Dutch nationals served as SS-Aufseherinnen at the Vught/S Herzogenbusch concentration between May 1943 and September 1944; four of the German women, along with being Aufseherinnen also worked in the Kommandant's headquarters as secretaries" (PDF).
18. Der Buchenwald-Report: Bericht über das Konzentrationslager Buchenwald bei Weimar, edited by David A. Hackett, p. 272
19. Ten female prisoners were selected from Ravensbrück and sent to the Dachau brothel along with one SS-Aufseherin. Four of those women were later selected by SS Dr. Rascher to aid in his medical experiments there. Rascher later wrote to SS Chief Heinrich Himmler: There ensued an enumeration of very curious conditions in the Ravensbrück camp. The conditions described were for the most part confirmed by the three other brothel girls and the woman overseer who accompanied them from Ravensbrück. Bruce L. Danto, John Bruhns, Austin H. Kutscher, The Human Side of Homicide (Westport, CT: Arlington House Publishers, 1978) p. 58
20. Twenty to thirty SS-Aufseherinnen accompanied a transport of over 2,000 women and children from Ravensbrück to Mauthausen during March 1945; most of the prisoners died during the journey or were killed or died shortly after arrival. David Wingeate Pike, Professor of Contemporary History and Politics David Wingeate Pike, Spaniards in the Holocaust: Mauthausen, Horror on the Danube, p. 189
21. Elissa Mailänder, Female SS Guards and Workaday Violence: The Majdanek Concentration Camp
22. Andrew Rawson, Auschwitz: The Nazi Solution, p. 57
23. According to SS-Hauptsturmfuhrer Fritz Suhren, a leading SS officer at Ravensbruck, some 3,500 German women served as SS-Aufseherinnen at one time or another in the camp and/or in its complex of satellite camps. Daniel Patrick Brown, The Beautiful Beast: the Life & Crimes of SS-Aufseherin Irma Grese, p. 3
24. Kz, Dachau (14 February 2014). "Dachau KZ: GROSS-ROSEN CONCENTRATION CAMP - PART 4/6".
25. Daniel Patrick Brown, The Camp Women, The Female Auxiliaries who assisted the SS in Running the Concentration Camp System
26. Kaethe Hoern began her training at Ravensbrück on July 26, 1944 while Hildegard K. became an SS-Aufseherin at the camp during June 1944. Bernd Klewitz, Die Arbeitssklaven der Dynamit Nobel, p. 298
27. Franciszek Piper, Teresa Świebocka, Danuta Czech, Auschwitz: Nazi Death Camp, p. 49
28. Nanda Herbermann, The Blessed Abyss: Inmate #6582 in Ravensbrück Concentration Camp for Women, p. 195
29. Lore Shelley, The Union Kommando in Auschwitz: the Auschwitz Munition Factory through the Eyes of its Former Slave Laborers, p. 365
30. Henry A. Zeiger, The Case Against Adolf Eichmann
31. Leech, Colin Russell. "1st Belsen Trial". www.bergenbelsen.co.uk.
32. Wacław Długoborski, Franciszek Piper, Auschwitz, 1940–1945: The Establishment and Organization of the Camp, p. 286
33. Wolfgang Benz, Barbara Distel, Angelika Königseder, Der Ort des Terrors: Geschichte der nationalsozialistischen, Volume 4, p. 529
34. Helga Radau, Nichts ist vergessen und niemand: aus der Geschichte des Konzentrationslagers in Barth, p. 34
35. Helga Radau, Nichts ist vergessen und niemand: aus der Geschichte des Konzentrationslagers in Barth, p. 27
36. Wolfgang Benz, Barbara Distel, Angelika Königseder, Der Ort des Terrors: Geschichte der nationalsozialistischen ..., Volume 4, p. 529
37. Daniel Patrick Brown, The Camp Women: The Female Auxiliaries who Assisted the SS in Running the Nazi Concentration Camp System
38. Daniel Patrick Brown, The Camp Women: The Female Auxiliaries who Assisted the SS in Running the Nazi Concentration Camp System, p. 90
39. Leech, Colin Russell. "1st Belsen Trial". www.bergenbelsen.co.uk.
40. Leech, Colin Russell. "1st Belsen Trial". www.bergenbelsen.co.uk.
41. Leech, Colin Russell. "1st Belsen Trial". www.bergenbelsen.co.uk.
42. Wolfgang Benz, Barbara Distel, Angelika Königseder, Der Ort des Terrors: Geschichte der nationalsozialistischen Konzentrationslager. Natzweiler, Groß-Rosen, Stutthof, Volume 6, p. 234
43. Wolfgang Benz, Barbara Distel, Angelika Königseder, Der Ort des Terrors: Geschichte der nationalsozialistischen Konzentrationslager. Natzweiler, Groß-Rosen, Stutthof, Volume 6, p. 411
44. Isabell Sprenger, Gross-Rosen: ein Konzentrationslager in Schlesien, p. 271
45. Wolfgang Benz, Barbara Distel, Angelika Königseder, Der Ort des Terrors: Geschichte der nationalsozialistischen Konzentrationslager. Natzweiler, Groß-Rosen, Stutthof, Volume 6, p. 254
46. Daniel Patrick Brown, The Camp Women: The Female Auxiliaries who Assisted the SS in Running the Nazi Concentration Camp System, p. 231
47. Wolfgang Benz, Barbara Distel, Angelika Königseder, Der Ort des Terrors: Geschichte der nationalsozialistischen Konzentrationslager. Natzweiler, Groß-Rosen, Stutthof, Volume 6, p. 271
48. Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos, 1933–1945, Volume I, Part B, Early Camps, Youth Camps, and Concentration Camps and Subcamps under the SS-Business Administration Main Office (WVHA), United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, p. 1440
49. Wolfgang Benz, Barbara Distel, Angelika Königseder, Der Ort des Terrors: Geschichte der nationalsozialistischen ..., Volume 7, p. 308
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52. Wolfgang Benz, Barbara Distel, Angelika Königseder, Der Ort des Terrors: Geschichte der nationalsozialistischen ..., Volume 4, p. 133
53. Pascal Cziborra, Frauen im KZ: Möglichkeiten und Grenzen der historischen Forschung am Beispiel des KZ Flossenbürg und seiner Aussenlager, pp. 87–88
55. Daniel Patrick Brown, The Camp Women: The Female Auxiliaries who Assisted the SS in Running the Nazi Concentration Camp System, p. 195
56. Jane (Gerda) Bernigau was an SS-Aufseherin in Lichtenburg, Ravensbrück, St. Lambrecht/Mauthausen, and Ravensbrück once again before becoming SS-Oberaufseherin at the Gross-Rosen central camp during the summer of 1944 and lastly at the Reichenau subcamp in early 1945 until the spring. Bella Guttermann, A Narrow Bridge to Life
57. Angelika Königseder, Der Ort des Terrors: Geschichte der nationalsozialistischen Konzentrationslager. Natzweiler, Groß-Rosen, Stutthof, Volume 6, p. 328
58. Wolfgang Benz, Barbara Distel, Angelika Königseder, Der Ort des Terrors: Geschichte der nationalsozialistischen Konzentrationslager, Volume 6, p. 320
59. Daniel Patrick Brown, The Camp Women: The Female Auxiliaries who Assisted the SS in Running the Nazi Concentration Camp System, p. 111
60. Leech, Colin Russell. "1st Belsen Trial". www.bergenbelsen.co.uk.
61. Barbara Rylko-Bauer, A Polish Doctor in the Nazi Camps: My Mother's Memories of Imprisonment..., pp. 162–163
62. Daniel Patrick Brown, The Camp Women: The Female Auxiliaries who Assisted the SS in Running the Nazi Concentration Camp System, p.226
63. Daniel Patrick Brown, The Camp Women: The Female Auxiliaries who Assisted the SS in Running the Nazi Concentration Camp System, p. 99
64. Hans Ellger, Zwangsarbeit und weibliche Überlebensstrategien: die Geschichte der Frauenaussenlager des Konzentrationslagers Neuengamme 1944/45, p. 340
65. Daniel Patrick Brown, The Camp Women: The Female Auxiliaries who Assisted the SS in Running the Nazi Concentration Camp System, p. 58
66. "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2015-06-15. Retrieved 2017-05-20.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
67. Wolfgang Benz, Barbara Distel, Angelika Königseder, Der Ort des Terrors: Geschichte der nationalsozialistischen Konzentrationslager, Volume 6, p. 367
68. Daniel Patrick Brown, The Camp Women: The Female Auxiliaries who Assisted the SS in Running the Nazi Concentration Camp System, p. 77
69. While SS-Oberaufseherin Ehrich was on leave from Majdanek/Lublin, Weber filled in as Replacement Senior Overseer. Elissa Mailänder, Female SS Guards and Workaday Violence: The Majdanek Concentration Camp
70. While SS-Rapportfuhrerin/Stellvertretende Oberaufseherin Braunsteiner was on leave from Majdanek/Lublin, Knoblich filled in as Report Overseer. Elissa Mailänder, Female SS Guards and Workaday Violence: The Majdanek Concentration Camp
71. Wolfgang Benz, Barbara Distel, Angelika Königseder, Der Ort des Terrors: Geschichte der nationalsozialistischen Konzentrationslager, Volume 6, p. 393
72. Angelika Königseder, Der Ort des Terrors: Geschichte der nationalsozialistischen Konzentrationslager. Natzweiler, Groß-Rosen, Stutthof, Volume 6, p. 342
73. Jan Kosiński, Niemieckie obozy koncentracyjne i ich filie, p. 313
74. Filie obozu koncentracyjnego Gross-Rosen: informator, p. 53
75. Hartmut Müller, Die Frauen von Obernheide: jüdische Zwangsarbeiterinnen in Bremen 1944/1945
76. Halina Nelken, And Yet, I Am Here!, p. 216
77. Stefan Hördler, Dokumentations-und Gedenkort KZ Lichtenburg: Konzeption einer neuen, p. 132
78. Stefan Hördler, Dokumentations-und Gedenkort KZ Lichtenburg: Konzeption einer neuen, p. 132
79. Helga Schwarz, Gerda Szepansky, und dennoch blühten Blumen: Frauen-KZ Ravensbrück : Dokumente, Berichte, Gedichte und Zeichnungen vom Lageralltag 1939–1945, p. 62
80. Rainer SzczesiakNationalsozialistische Zwangslager im Raum Neubrandenburg, p. 217
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84. Anna Molnar Hegedus, As The Lilacs Bloomed
85. Jack Gaylord Morrison, Ravensbrück: Everyday Life in a Women's Concentration Camp, 1939–45, p. 92
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87. http://www.politische-bildung-brandenburg.de/.../pdf/ravensbrueck.pdf%5B%5D
88. Simone Erpel, Im Gefolge der SS: Aufseherinnen des Frauen-KZ Ravensbrück : Begleitband zur Ausstellung, p. 62
89. She is mentioned in 'Staffs of the German Concentration Camps, No. VII Ravensbrück (Women's Concentration Camp and Uckermark Sub-Camp)' as, 'GALINAT: S.S. woman. Deputy Supervisor since January, 1943. Accused of ill-treatment, causing death of prisoners, torture and murder.'
90. https://pure.uva.nl/ws/files/1269422/92481_08.pdf
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94. Daniel Patrick Brown, The Camp Women, p. 46
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98. Daniel Patrick Brown, The Camp Women, p.133
99. Barbara Degen, "Das Herz schlägt in Ravensbrück": die Gedenkkultur der Frauen, p. 169
100. Bernhard Strebel, Das KZ Ravensbrück: Geschichte eines Lagerkomplexes, p. 205
101. Ulrike Weckel, Edgar Wolfrum, "Bestien" und "Befehlsempfänger": Frauen und Männer in NS-Prozessen nach 1945, p. 127
102. Bernhard Strebel, Das KZ Ravensbrück: Geschichte eines Lagerkomplexes p. 469
103. Pia Gerber, Erwerbsbeteiligung von deutschen und ausländischen Frauen 1933–1945 in Deutschland: Entwicklungslinien und Aspekte politischer Steuerung der Frauenerwerbstätigkeit im Nationalsozialismus, p. 44
104. Daniel Patrick Brown, The Camp Women, p. 220
105. ‘STEINBECK, Emmi,’ was referenced as, ‘Wardress of Block 21 or 22. Very cruel.’ United Nations War Crimes Commission (UNWCC), Staffs of the German Concentration Camps (Officials Mentioned in UNWCC Records) No. VII Ravensbrück (Women's Concentration Camp and Uckermarck Sub-Camp)
106. Female guards in Nazi concentration camps, fold3.com; accessed 22 December 22, 2014.
107. https://kz-rochlitz.jimdo.com/die-täter/
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109. Simone Erpel, Zwischen Vernichtung und Befreiung: das Frauen-Konzentrationslager Ravensbrück in der letzten Kriegsphase
110. Kathrin Kompisch, Täterinnen: Frauen im Nationalsozialismus, p. 188
111. Norbert Aas, Sinti und Roma im KZ Flossenbürg und in seinen Aussenlagern Wolkenburg und Zwodau, p. 58
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See also

• SS-Totenkopfverbände#Concentration camp personnel

References

• Aroneanu, Eugene, ed. Inside the Concentration Camps Trans. Thomas Whissen. New York: Praeger, 1996.
• Brown, Daniel Patrick, The Camp Women. The Female Auxiliaries Who Assisted the SS in Running the Nazi Concentration Camp System. Atglen, Pa.: Schiffer Publishing Ltd., 2002. ISBN 0-7643-1444-0
• Hart, Kitty. Return to Auschwitz: The Remarkable Story of a Girl Who Survived the Holocaust. New York: Atheneum, 1983.
• G. Álvarez, Mónica. "Guardianas Nazis. El lado femenino del mal" (Spanish). Madrid: Grupo Edaf, 2012. ISBN 978-84-414-3240-6
• Mailänder, Elissa & Patricia Szobar, eds. Female SS Guards and Workaday Violence: The Majdanek Concentration Camp, 1942-1944. East Lansing, MI: Michigan State University Press, 2015.

External links

• Article on female Nazi war criminals