The PUBLIC Executions Of The FEMALE Guards Of Bergen-Belsen

The PUBLIC Executions Of The FEMALE Guards Of Bergen-Belsen

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Why did she volunteer? Better pay.

That’s it.

She wanted more money.

At Ravensbrück, Elisabeth received training how to maintain discipline, how to punish prisoners, how to become hardened to suffering.

She learned quickly.

In March 1942, she transferred to Auschwitz-Birkenau, the largest extermination camp in the Nazi system.

At Auschwitz, Elisabeth met SS-Rottenführer Heinz Volkenrath, who worked as a Blockführer, a block leader.

They married in 1943.

Elisabeth was promoted rapidly.

By November 1944, she was Oberaufseherin, head female overseer for all women’s sections at Auschwitz.

This wasn’t an administrative role.

It meant supervising selections, choosing who lived, who died, who went to forced labor, who went to the gas chambers.

When survivors testified that Volkenrath participated in these selections regularly, standing at the ramp as trains arrived, pointing left or right, life or death.

She claimed later she was only present to keep order, that she didn’t know what selections were for.

A ridiculous lie.

Everyone at Auschwitz knew what the selections meant.

The British court asked her directly if she seriously believed they would buy that story.

She stuck to her answer anyway.

In January 1945, with Soviet forces approaching, Auschwitz was evacuated.

Elisabeth transferred to Bergen-Belsen, becoming Oberaufseherin there in February 1945.

Bergen-Belsen wasn’t designed as an extermination camp initially.

It was a transit and exchange camp.

But by early 1945, it became a dumping ground for prisoners evacuated from camps in the east.

The population exploded.

Its 30,000 prisoners became 60,000.

Food supplies collapsed.

Sanitation disappeared.

Typhus swept through the camp.

Thousands died daily, and Elisabeth Volkenrath was in charge of maintaining order among the women.

Survivors described her as cold, brutal, calculating.

She beat women with her hands, kicked them with boots.

When asked about this at trial, she admitted to slapping faces to maintain discipline.

“Just slaps,” she said, as if that made it acceptable, as if slaps explained the deaths.

Now, Irma Grese, born October 7th, 1923 in Riemssen, a small village in Mecklenburg.

Her father was a farmer.

Her mother committed suicide when Irma was 13, drinking hydrochloric acid.

The family was dysfunctional, abusive.

Irma left home at 15, worked at a dairy farm.

In 1942, at age 18, she applied to work at Ravensbrück concentration camp.

She’d heard about the work from a friend of her father called Gebhardt, a Nazi Party doctor who ran the Hohenlychen Sanatorium where Irma had briefly worked.

Gebhardt suggested she apply to Ravensbrück.

She did.

They told her to come back when she turned 18.

In July 1942, she returned and entered training.

3 weeks later, she was an Aufseherin, a guard with power over life and death.

Irma distinguished herself quickly, not for competence, but for cruelty.

She beat prisoners with her hands, kicked them with heavy boots, used a plaited whip and a pistol.

Witnesses described her roaming through barracks looking for victims.

She’d select women arbitrarily and beat them until they collapsed, sometimes until they died.

She was transferred to Auschwitz-Birkenau in March 1943.

With the at Auschwitz, her brutality escalated.

Survivors testified she killed at least 30 people per day.

She participated in selections, beating women who tried to escape the lines.

She had affairs with female prisoners, including block leaders.

When she grew bored with them, she’d send them to be killed.

In May 1944, at age 20, Irma was promoted to Oberaufseherin of Camp C at Birkenau, overseeing 30,000 Jewish women from Poland and Hungary.

Power corrupted her completely.

In January 1945, Irma briefly returned to Ravensbrück as Soviet forces approached.

Then in early March 1945, she was assigned to Bergen-Belsen.

She served there for only 3 and 1/2 weeks before liberation.

But in those weeks, survivors remember her, the beautiful blonde with the whip, the one who smiled while she beat you, the one who showed no mercy.

Well, British forces arrested her on April 17th, 1945.

They’d heard descriptions of a strikingly beautiful SS guard.

When they found Irma, she matched perfectly.

She was temporarily imprisoned with other female guards at a Wehrmacht Panzer Training Academy near Belsen.

She remained arrogant, unrepentant.

An English journalist interviewed her with a French survivor present.

Irma showed no remorse, no shame, nothing.

Then there’s Johanna Bormann, the oldest of the three.

Born September 10th, 1893 in Birkenfelde, East Prussia.

Raised Catholic.

She’d briefly pursued missionary work before joining the camps.

She claimed at trial that she joined the auxiliary SS on March 1st, 1938, as a civilian employee to earn more money.

Her first posting was Lichtenburg concentration camp in Saxony, working in the kitchens under Oberaufseherin Jane Bernigau.

Well, when Lichtenburg closed and prisoners transferred to Ravensbrück in May 1939, Johanna went with them.

She became an Aufseherin, an overseer.

In March 1942, she transferred to Auschwitz-Birkenau.

At Auschwitz, Johanna earned a horrific reputation.

She had a large German Shepherd that she’d set on prisoners.

Survivors called her the woman with the dogs.

She’d unleash the dog on helpless women, let it tear into them, maul them, sometimes kill them.

Court testimony documented murders she committed personally, both at Auschwitz and later at Bergen-Belsen.

In January 1945, she returned briefly to Ravensbrück, then was assigned to Bergen-Belsen in March 1945.

When British forces arrived, they found her packing a suitcase with stolen jewelry and money, preparing to flee.

September 17th, 1945.

The Belsen trial begins in Lüneburg, Germany, well, in the British occupation zone.

Officially called the Trial of Josef Kramer and 44 others.

45 defendants sit in a large dock, each wearing a number on their chest.

The trial is held at number 30 Lindenstraße in a gymnasium.

Court President Major General H.

M.

P.

Berney Ficklin presides with five other officers.

Four military lawyers handle prosecution.

Each defendant has counsel.

Over 100 journalists from Germany and abroad pack the courtroom.

This is the first major war crimes trial focusing exclusively on concentration camp operations.

The world is watching.

The prosecution presents two charges.

Count one, crimes committed at Bergen-Belsen.

Count two, crimes committed at Auschwitz.

Since many defendants worked at both camps, the court tries them for all crimes committed at both locations.

This is unprecedented.

It establishes that guards can be held accountable wherever they served.

The evidence is overwhelming.

Over 100 witnesses testify.

Survivors describe daily horrors in excruciating detail.

A Polish woman describes Irma Grese selecting her friend for beating.

The friend didn’t work fast enough.

Irma beat her with a plaited whip until she lost consciousness.

The woman died three days later.

A Hungarian survivor describes Elisabeth Volkenrath at the Auschwitz ramp.

Trains arrived carrying thousands of Hungarian Jews in summer 1944.

Elisabeth stood there calmly, pointing left or right.

Left meant gas chambers.

Right meant forced labor, which usually meant death anyway, just slower.

The survivor watched Elisabeth send her entire family left.

Her mother, her sisters, her young nieces.

They all walked to their deaths within hours while Elisabeth moved to the next transport.

A French prisoner testifies about Johanna Bormann and her German Shepherd.

Johanna would walk through the camp with the dog on a leash.

When she saw a prisoner she didn’t like, or sometimes for no reason at all, she’d unleash the animal.

The dog would attack, bite, tear at flesh.

Johanna would watch, sometimes laughing.

Sometimes she’d call the dog off.

Sometimes she wouldn’t.

The witness saw at least three women killed this way.

Mauled to death while Johanna stood by.

These aren’t abstractions.

These are specific crimes with specific victims.

The prosecution names them, documents them, proves them.

The defense argues they were following orders.

That camp rules required strict discipline.

That they didn’t know about the gas chambers.

It didn’t understand what selections meant.

That they only maintained order as instructed.

Elisabeth Volkenrath testifies in her own defense.

She admits to supervisory positions at Ravensbruck, Auschwitz, and Bergen-Belsen.

But she denies selecting prisoners for gas chambers.

She claims she only attended selections to keep order.

That she didn’t beat women prisoners, only slapped faces when necessary for discipline.

She tells the court it was really awful in the camps, but awful for the guards, too.

They were punished just like the prisoners if they didn’t follow rules.

The prosecutor asked her directly, “Do you seriously expect this court to believe you didn’t know what those selections were for? That you stood at the ramp in Auschwitz pointing people left and right without knowing what it meant?” Elisabeth sticks to her answer.

She didn’t know.

The court doesn’t buy it.

Everyone at Auschwitz knew.

The smell of burning bodies filled the air constantly.

The crematorium chimneys smoked day and night.

She knew.

She participated willingly.

She had choices.

She chose cruelty.

Irma Grese remains defiant throughout the trial.

She dresses carefully, concerns herself with her appearance.

A fellow defendant later says Irma worried more about how she looked than the charges against her.

When witnesses describe her atrocities, she shows no emotion.

Cool, aloof, arrogant.

She sits in the dock with number nine on her chest, listening to testimony about women she beat to death, and her face remains blank.

No remorse.

No guilt.

No humanity.

One witness describes Irma kicking a pregnant woman in the stomach repeatedly until she miscarried.

Irma shows no reaction.

Meanwhile, another describes Irma shooting a prisoner who moved too slowly.

Nothing.

The prosecution builds an overwhelming case.

This isn’t about following orders.

It’s about sadism.

About women who volunteered for positions of power and abused that power to torture and kill.

About choosing cruelty when other choices existed.

November 16th, 1945.

Verdicts are delivered.

31 defendants are found guilty on one or both counts.

14 are acquitted.

19 receive prison sentences ranging from one year to life.

11 are sentenced to death by hanging.

Among them, Josef Kramer, the Beast of Belsen.

Dr.

Fritz Klein, the camp doctor who decided who lived and died.

And three women.

Irma Grese, Elisabeth Volkenrath, and Johanna Bormann.

As verdicts are read, Irma is the only prisoner to remain defiant.

While Elisabeth looks nervous, but accepts her sentence.

Johanna leaves the court as if in a dream.

Two of the three decline to appeal.

Elisabeth Volkenrath and Johanna Bormann don’t even try to fight the sentence.

They know it’s over.

Nine of the 11 condemned, including Irma Grese, appeal to Field Marshal Montgomery for clemency.

On December 7th, 1945, all appeals are rejected.

Death warrants are signed.

On December 8th, all 11 condemned prisoners are transferred from Luneburg prison to Hameln jail.

They’re housed in tiny cells along a corridor with the execution chamber at one end.

They can hear work being done.

The Royal Engineers constructing a gallows.

A special gallows designed to execute prisoners in pairs.

For the women, though, they’ll hang individually.

British law requires a female prison official to witness female executions.

Miss Wilson, Deputy Governor of Strangeways Prison, arrives to fulfill this duty.

December 13th, 1945.

Execution day.

The method is long drop hanging, the British standard.

Designed to break the neck instantly, causing quick death.

The hangman is Albert Pierrepoint, Britain’s most experienced executioner.

He’s responsible for executing numerous Nazi war criminals.

He’s precise, efficient, professional.

The night before, Pierrepoint weighs and measures each condemned prisoner to calculate the correct drop length.

Too short and they strangle slowly.

Too long and the head can be torn off.

It must be exact.

Elisabeth Volkenrath weighs 151 lb.

Drop calculated at 7 ft 5 in.

Irma Grese, despite accounts of her beauty, is described by Pierrepoint as composed but tense.

Johanna Bormann weighs only 101 lb.

She’s old, haggard, limping, trembling as she’s weighed.

Drop calculated at 8 ft 8 in.

The executions are scheduled at half-hour intervals.

Elisabeth Volkenrath at 9:34 am Irma Grese at 10:03 am Johanna Bormann at 10:38 am Then the men will be hanged in pairs.

All 13 executions completed by 4:17 pm The cells are close to the execution chamber.

Each condemned prisoner hears the hangings before theirs.

Footsteps, commands, the trapdoor opening, the drop, the snap of the rope, then silence.

Then half an hour of dread before their turn.

This is deliberate.

Part of the punishment.

Waiting.

Knowing.

Hearing.

Elisabeth Volkenrath is first.

At 9:34 am, she’s led from her cell.

She walks the short corridor to the execution chamber.

Pierrepoint is waiting with his assistant, Regimental Sergeant Major O’Neil.

British officers stand at attention.

Brigadier Paton-Walsh watches with his wrist raised, timing everything.

Elisabeth is positioned on the trapdoor.

White hood placed over her head.

Noose around her neck.

Adjusted carefully.

Pierrepoint pulls the lever.

The trapdoor opens.

Elisabeth drops 7 ft 5 in.

Her neck breaks.

Death is instant.

Official time, 9:34 am Her body is left hanging for regulation time, then lowered.

Medical officer confirms death.

The body is removed.

Half an hour later, 10:03 am Irma Grese’s turn.

She’s heard Elisabeth’s execution.

Witnesses later report Irma was sobbing in her cell before being let out.

But some accounts contradict this.

They say she remained defiant to the end.

When Pierrepoint approaches, she smiles at him.

She shows no fear.

Or maybe it’s bravado masking terror.

As she stands on the trapdoor, hood about to be placed, she speaks one word in German.

Schnell.

Quick.

Her final word.

Get it over with.

Or maybe it’s an order, as if she still has authority.

Pierrepoint pulls the lever.

Irma Grese drops.

Her neck breaks.

She’s 22 years old.

The youngest woman executed under English law in the 20th century.

Dead at 10:03 am Another half hour, 10:38 am Johanna Bormann’s turn.

Pierrepoint later describes her in his autobiography.

She limps down the corridor, old and haggard, about 5 ft tall, weighing just 101 lb, trembling uncontrollably.

In German, she says, “I have my feelings.

” As if anyone cares.

As if her feelings matter after what she did.

She’s positioned on the trap.

The drop is 8 ft 8 in because she weighs so little.

The lever is pulled.

Johanna Bormann falls.

Her neck snaps.

Dead at 10:38 am She’s 52 years old.

Three women executed in just over an hour.

Then the men.

Josef Kramer and the others are hanged in pairs throughout the afternoon.

By 4:17 pm, all 13 executions are complete.

The bodies are buried in unmarked graves in the courtyard of Hameln prison.

Later, they’re reburied at Stadtfriedhof am Bahl Cemetery in Hameln.

No ceremony, no mourners, no memorials.

The British authorities make a deliberate decision.

>> [snorts] >> No public executions, no press present, no spectators.

This is policy.

Britain abolished public executions in the mid-19th century, viewing them as destabilizing spectacles that encouraged disorder and sympathy for the condemned.

By 1945, British legal culture emphasizes restraint, procedure, institutional authority.

These hangings are carried out quietly, professionally, final.

But questions remain.

What turned these women into monsters? Elizabeth Volkenrath was an unskilled laborer who wanted better pay.

Ruth Closius, another guard sentenced to death in later trials, dreamed of becoming a nurse but left school too early and became a saleswoman.

Irma Grese worked at a dairy farm.

Before the camps, these were ordinary women living ordinary lives.

They weren’t Nazi Party members.

Less than 5% of female guards formally joined the party, unlike male SS guards who were ardent believers in Nazi ideology.

These women volunteered not for ideology, but for money, status, escape from poverty.

Once in the camps, they were trained to become hardened, to punish severely, and to view prisoners as subhuman.

The system transformed them.

Or maybe it just revealed what was already there.

Maybe the capacity for cruelty exists in everyone, waiting for permission, for power, for opportunity.

Maybe Elizabeth, Irma, and Johanna weren’t special.

Maybe they were just ordinary people given extraordinary power over helpless victims.

And they chose to abuse that power again and again and again.

Survivor testimony is clear.

These weren’t women reluctantly following orders.

They enjoyed it.

Irma smiled while beating prisoners.

Elizabeth showed no mercy during selections.

Johanna laughed as her dog mauled women.

They had choices every single day.

They chose cruelty.

They chose violence.

They chose murder.

So when British justice caught them, when they stood trial, when they were sentenced to death, was it enough? Does hanging three women balance 60,000 dead at Bergen-Belsen? Does it account for the million murdered at Auschwitz? The answer is no.

Nothing balances that scale.

But it’s something.

It’s accountability.

It’s the world saying, “We saw what you did, and you will pay.

” Albert Pierrepoint, the hangman, later wrote in his autobiography that the death penalty solves nothing, that it doesn’t deter crime or bring back the dead, that he came to oppose capital punishment, despite executing hundreds.

Maybe he’s right.

Maybe hanging Irma Grese so didn’t resurrect the women she beat to death.

Maybe executing Elizabeth Volkenrath didn’t save those she sent to gas chambers.

Maybe killing Johanna Bormann didn’t heal the women her dog mauled.

But it ended them.

It stopped them from ever hurting anyone again.

And it sent a message.

You can’t hide behind uniforms or orders or claims of ignorance.

You will be found.

You will be tried.

You will face justice.

Even if you’re a woman.

Even if you’re young and beautiful.

Even if you claim you were just following orders.

The executions of December 13th, 1945, mark the first time the world saw female concentration camp guards held accountable.

It shattered assumptions.

People expected Nazi criminals to be men, brutal, violent men.

The idea that young women could administer terror disturbed the public imagination in ways few perpetrators had.

How do we reconcile femininity with brutality? Beauty with sadism? The answer is we can’t.

We want evil to look monstrous.

We want it to be obvious, recognizable, other.

But Irma Grese looked like a movie star.

Elizabeth Volkenrath looked like a hairdresser.

And Johanna Bormann looked like someone’s grandmother.

Evil doesn’t announce itself.

It wears ordinary faces and commits extraordinary crimes.