Female guards in Nazi concentration camps



Female guards in Nazi concentration camps


Aufseherin was the position title for a female guard in Nazi concentration camps. Of the 50,000 guards who served in the concentration camps, approximately 5,000 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. In the context of these camps, the German position title of Aufseherin translates to (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 Nazi concentration camps, subcamps, work camps, detention camps and other posts.

Herta Bothe, in Celle awaiting trial, August 1945

Mugshot of Ilse Koch

Mugshot of Bergen-Belsen guard Irma Grese


Hermine Braunsteiner of KZ Majdanek

Maria Mandl of Aufseherin

Recruitment

Female guards were generally from the lower to middle class and had no relevant work experience; their occupational background varied: one source mentions former matrons, hairdressers, tramcar-conductresses, opera singers or retired teachers.

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. Adolescent enrollment in the League of German Girls acted as a vehicle of indoctrination for many of the women.

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.


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