Irma Grese

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Irma Grese (1945)

Irmgard Ilse Ida Grese (* 7. October 1923 in Wrechen ; † 13. December 1945 in Hameln ) was a German camp guard in the concentration camps Ravensbrück , Auschwitz-Birkenau and Bergen-Belsen .

Life

Irma Grese, whose father farmer in Wrechen in Mecklenburg-Strelitz was, had four siblings - her mother committed 1936 suicide . Grese finished elementary school in 1938 and then completed a country year with the Reich Labor Service .

After doing some odd jobs , she was a nurse's assistant in the SS sanatorium Hohenlychen for two years and subsequently applied several times for training as a nurse without success. After working in a dairy in Fürstenberg , she became a guard in the Ravensbrück concentration camp in late summer 1942 . After a while there she was already supervising smaller work details. Grese, who was still visiting her family regularly at that time, fell out with her father because of her work in the concentration camp and did not return to her parents' house afterwards. In March 1943 she was transferred to the Auschwitz-Birkenau II (Birkenau) concentration camp , where she first performed telephone service for a block leader and then headed a road construction and garden detachment. From May 1944 she was employed in the women's camp in Auschwitz-Birkenau and supervised up to 30,000 female prisoners . At the end of 1944, she was responsible for two blocks with male prisoners in the main camp . During the evacuation of the Auschwitz concentration camp on January 18, 1945, Grese led a prisoner transport to the Ravensbrück concentration camp. From there she directed an evacuation transport to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp at the beginning of March 1945 , where she worked as a labor service leader.

Arrest and the Bergen-Belsen trial

Irma Grese and Josef Kramer in the prison yard in Celle in August 1945

On April 15, 1945, the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp was liberated by British troops who found over 10,000 dead and around 60,000 survivors there. Grese was arrested on April 17th and obliged, along with the remaining camp personnel, to remove all corpses and bury them in mass graves . On May 17th, Grese was taken to Celle prison, where she stayed until November 17th.

Grese was one of the 44 defendants in the Bergen-Belsen trial (MTV-Halle Lüneburg), which was heard from September 17 to November 17, 1945 under British military law. The defendants were charged with "violating the laws and customs of war". During the trial, Grese was accused of mistreating Allied prisoners and ordering shootings. Like all the other female guards employed in the National Socialist concentration camps, the accused was a member of the SS auxiliary staff .

Irma Grese was in the focus of the international press during the trial due to her appearance and young age. Her brutality, which earned her the name "Hyena of Auschwitz", was not only confirmed by testimony, but also by herself:

“I thought again and would like to add that in fact I didn't just hit inmates with the hand. In Auschwitz, some female guards had whips for about a week, which were made in the camp workshops. I used one of these to beat prisoners several times until the use of whips was banned. Guns were never carried or used by a guard. "

Grese that had "not guilty" pleaded, was in the process due to both Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen committed crimes on 17 November 1945 death by hanging convicted. Ten other death sentences were passed , including two other women ( Johanna Bormann and Elisabeth Volkenrath ). An appeal was denied. Grese was hanged on December 13, 1945 at the age of 22 in Hameln penitentiary by the English executioner Albert Pierrepoint . She was the youngest woman to be executed under British jurisdiction in the 20th century .

literature

Web links

Commons : Irma Grese  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Irma Ilse Ida Grese
  2. ↑ The date of birth follows Ernst Klee: Das Personenlexikon zum Third Reich. Who was what before and after 1945. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2007. An earlier edition of the same lexicon (2003) deviates (erroneously?) Mentions March 7, 1923 as her date of birth.
  3. ↑ Second affidavit Greses on June 14, 1945 in: Claudia Taake: Accused: SS women in court Oldenburg University 1998, p 55f.
personal data
SURNAME Grese, Irma
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Grese, Irmgard Ilse Ida (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German concentration camp guard in Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen
DATE OF BIRTH October 7, 1923
PLACE OF BIRTH Waking
DATE OF DEATH December 13, 1945
Place of death Hamelin