SS-Gefolge was the designation for the group of female civilian employees of the Schutzstaffel in Nazi Germany. SS-Gefolge members served the Schutzstaffel in a limited capacity, as the organisation was not formally a part of the SS. Members of the Gefolge worked in the Nazi concentration camps as guards and nurses. [1]
During the early stages of the war the Gefolge was primarily staffed by volunteers, but as the war progressed, more women were conscripted or recruited from wartime factories with the false promise of high pay and easier working conditions. [2]
Most Gefolge recruits trained at Ravensbrück. Trainees spent anywhere from one week to six months receiving instruction on disciplinary techniques, subterfuge detection, and escape prevention. Showing sympathy for prisoners was forbidden, and any Gefolge member suspected of helping them received severe punishment. [3]
By mid-January 1945, around 3,500 women were on guard duty in the concentration camps, along with around 37,000 men. Based on the sparse literature on this subject, approximately 10% of the concentration camp guards were women. Besides 8,000 SS men, about 200 female guards were on duty in the Auschwitz concentration camp between May 1940 and January 1945. SS Gefolge Women were the main guards at female specific concentration camps of Ravensbrück, Auschwitz-Birkenau, Mauthausen, and Bergen-Belsen. [2] Male SS members were not permitted to enter the female camps. [4]
Irmgard Ilse Ida Grese was a Nazi concentration camp guard at Ravensbrück and Auschwitz, and served as warden of the women's section of Bergen-Belsen. She was a volunteer member of the SS.
Aufseherin was the position title for a female guard in Nazi concentration camps. Of the 50,000 guards who served in the concentration camps, training records indicate that approximately 3,500 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, Stutthof (1942–1945), Vaivara (1943–1944), Vught (1943–1944), and at Nazi concentration camps, subcamps, work camps, detention camps and other posts.
Maria Mandl was an Austrian SS-Helferin and a war criminal known for her role in the Holocaust as a top-ranking official at the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp, where she is believed to have been directly complicit in the deaths of over 500,000 prisoners. She was executed for war crimes.
Margot Elisabeth Dreschel, also spelled Drechsel, Drechsler or Drexler, was an SS-Aufseherin at Nazi concentration camps during World War II. For her role in the Holocaust, she was sentenced to death and hanged.
Elisabeth Volkenrath was a German supervisor at several Nazi concentration camps during World War II.
The Belsen trials were a series of several trials that the Allied occupation forces conducted against former officials and functionaries of Nazi Germany after the end of World War II. British Army and civilian personnel ran the trials and staffed the prosecution and judges.
Herta Bothe was a German concentration camp guard during World War II. She was imprisoned for war crimes after the defeat of Nazi Germany, and was subsequently released early from prison on 22 December 1951.
Johanna Bormann ; 10 September 1893 – 13 December 1945) was a German prison guard at several Nazi concentration camps from 1938. She was executed as a war criminal at Hamelin after a court trial in 1945.
Dorothea "Theodora" Binz was a Nazi German officer and supervisor at Ravensbrück concentration camp during the Holocaust. She was known as one of the most brutal, ruthless and sadistic overseers and in the Nazi system. She was executed for war crimes on 2 May 1947.
Gerda "Jane" Bernigau was an SS Oberaufseherin in Nazi concentration camps before and during World War II.
Herta Ehlert was a female guard at many Nazi concentration camps during the Holocaust.
Johanna Langefeld was a Nazi German guard and supervisor at three Nazi concentration camps: Lichtenburg, Ravensbrück, and Auschwitz. She was arrested and imprisoned for her role in the Holocaust, but she escaped prison and was never tried.
The Hamburg Ravensbrück trials were seven trials for war crimes during the Holocaust against camp officials from the Ravensbrück concentration camp that the British authorities held in their occupation zone in Germany in Hamburg after the end of World War II. These trials were heard before a military tribunal; the three to five judges at these trials were British officers, assisted by a lawyer. The defendants included concentration camp personnel of all levels: SS officers, camp doctors, male guards, female guards (Aufseherinnen), and a few former prisoner-functionaries who had tortured or mistreated other inmates. In total, 38 defendants were tried in these seven trials; 21 of the defendants were women. One of the defendants died during the trial. Twenty of the defendants received death sentences. One defendant was reprieved while two others committed suicide before they could be executed. The remaining 17 death sentences relating to these trials were carried out on the gallows at Hamelin Prison by British hangman Albert Pierrepoint.
Elisabeth Lupka was a Nazi female guard at two prison camps during World War II.
Emma Anna Maria Zimmer was a female overseer at the Lichtenburg concentration camp, the Ravensbrück concentration camp and the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination/concentration camp for several years during the Second World War.
Lotte Toberentz, born Maria Charlotte Toberentz was the head overseer of the Uckermark concentration camp for girls, a subcamp of Ravensbrück concentration camp, in its early years. From December 1944 to April 1945 she was Lagerführerin of the Ravensbrück concentration camp.
Ravensbrück was a Nazi concentration camp exclusively for women from 1939 to 1945, located in northern Germany, 90 km (56 mi) north of Berlin at a site near the village of Ravensbrück. The camp memorial's estimated figure of 132,000 women who were in the camp during the war includes about 48,500 from Poland, 28,000 from the Soviet Union, almost 24,000 from Germany and Austria, nearly 8,000 from France, almost 2,000 from Belgium, and thousands from other countries including a few from the United Kingdom and the United States. More than 20,000 of the total were Jewish More than 80 percent were political prisoners. Many prisoners were employed as slave laborers by Siemens & Halske. From 1942 to 1945, the Nazis undertook medical experiments on Ravensbrück prisoners to test the effectiveness of sulfonamides.
Luise Brunner was a German concentration camp guard in Auschwitz II and the chief oberaufseherin of Ravensbrück concentration camp from December 1944 to April 1945.
Gertrud Elli Heise was a female guard and later, SS overseer at several concentration camps during the Second World War. Heise was born in Berlin, Germany. She was tried for war crimes in 1946.
Hamelin Prison, also known as the Stockhof, was a prison and penitentiary in Hamelin. The penal institution, which had a predecessor since 1698, existed from 1827 to 1980. It was located between the old town and the river Weser. The listed prison buildings are now used as a hotel.