Irma Grese was one of the cruelest female war criminals during the Holocaust, and she was executed for her crimes in 1945 at the age of 22.
Wikimedia CommonsIrma Grese in the courtyard of the prison in Celle, Germany, where she was held for war crimes. August 1945.
From the deranged doctor Josef Mengele to the cruel propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels, the names of Adolf Hitler’s Nazi henchmen — and henchwomen — have become synonymous with evil.
Of all the savage figures to emerge from Nazi Germany, one of the most infamous is Irma Grese. Labeled “the most notorious of the female Nazi war criminals” by the Jewish Virtual Library, the concentration camp guard committed crimes that were especially brutal, even among her fellow Nazis.
Hanged for her crimes on December 13, 1945, Irma Grese was the youngest Nazi war criminal to be executed in the months after World War II.
The Early Life Of Irma Grese
Wikimedia CommonsIrma Grese, known as “the Beautiful Beast” and “the Blond Angel of Hell,” pictured in August 1945.
Born on October 7, 1923, in Wrechen, Germany, Irma Grese was the third of five children. One of Grese’s sisters, Helene, testified that Grese lacked the courage to stand up for herself when she was a young girl. Purportedly a victim of severe bullying in school, Grese dropped out early on.
“In 1938, I left the elementary school and worked for six months on agricultural jobs at a farm, after which I worked in a shop in Luchen for six months,” Irma Grese testified at her war crimes trial.
Then, when Grese was 12 or 13, her mother died by suicide upon discovering that her husband was cheating on her with a pub owner’s daughter.
A couple of years later, Grese started working at a hospital in Hohenluchen. According to her, she wanted to get a job as a nurse, but due to her lack of education, she was rejected and forced to return to farming.
Like many Germans in the 1930s and 1940s, Grese eventually became bewitched by Adolf Hitler, and by age 18, the school dropout found herself employment at the Ravensbrück concentration camp for female prisoners.
“In July 1942, I tried again to become a nurse, but the Labour Exchange sent me to Ravensbrück concentration camp, although I protested against it,” Grese claimed at her trial. Despite her alleged hesitation to work at a concentration camp, she apparently thrived in that environment, ultimately becoming one of the most malicious guards during the Holocaust.
Irma Grese Becomes The “Hyena Of Auschwitz”
Wikimedia CommonsAn aerial view of Auschwitz.
In March 1943, Irma Grese was transferred to Auschwitz, the biggest and most infamous of the Nazi death camps. A loyal, dedicated, and obedient Nazi member, Grese rapidly ascended to the rank of Senior SS-Supervisor — and she was the second-highest-ranking female guard at the camp. By March 1945, she had been transferred to the Bergen-Belsen camp.
At Auschwitz, Grese oversaw 18,000 female prisoners at one point. With so much authority, Irma Grese could unleash a torrent of lethal sadism upon the inmates, which reportedly included physical, emotional, and even sexual abuse. Admittedly, it is difficult to verify the specific details of Grese’s violence. Grese’s sister said she shared little about her role in the camps.
As Helene put it during her sister’s trial: “[Irma] told us she was supervising the prisoners working inside the compound, and she had to see that they were doing their work well and that they did not escape. We asked her: ‘What do the prisoners get for food, and why have they been sent to a concentration camp?’ and she answered that she was not allowed to talk to the prisoners and did not know what sort of food they got.”
Scholars like Wendy Lower also point out that some of what has been written about female Nazis is clouded by sexism and stereotypes. However, testimonies from concentration camp survivors lead many to believe that Grese deserved her infamous nickname, the “Hyena of Auschwitz.”
Public DomainFemale prisoners at Auschwitz lining up for roll call.
In the memoir Five Chimneys, Auschwitz survivor Olga Lengyel writes that Grese had many affairs with other Nazis, including Josef Mengele. When it came time to select women for the gas chamber, Lengyel noted that Grese would purposely pick out the beautiful prisoners out of jealousy and spite.
According to professor Wendy A. Sarti’s research, Grese had a disturbing fondness for striking imprisoned women on their breasts and for forcing young Jewish girls to be her lookout as she raped inmates. Sarti also reported that Grese would sic her dog on prisoners, whip them constantly, and kick them with her jackboots until there was blood.
“I have seen Grese [beat prisoners] in Auschwitz, and about a fortnight before the British troops liberated Belsen, I saw her beat a girl in the camp. She had a pistol, but she was using a riding-crop. The beatings were very severe,” Polish concentration camp survivor Daniel Szafran testified.
Szafran also claimed to have seen Irma Grese shoot two girls who attempted to run away during a selection for the gas chamber.
“In Camp A, Block 9, Blockälteste Ria and Hoessler and Dr. Enna, the prison doctor, made a selection for the gas chamber, and two selected girls jumped out of the window and Grese approached them as they were lying on the ground and shot them twice,” Szafran remembered.
Ilona Stein, a Hungarian concentration camp survivor, testified, “I was working in the kitchen at Birkenau when I saw a woman, whose daughter was in an [adjoining] camp, go to the dividing wire in order to speak to her daughter. Grese, who was passing on a bicycle, immediately got off, took off her leather belt and beat the woman with it. She also beat her on the face and head with her fists, and when the woman fell to the ground she trampled on her. The woman’s face became swollen and blue.”
But as the Allies loosened the Nazis’ stranglehold on Europe during World War II, Grese went from destroying people’s lives to trying to save her own.
The Trial And Execution Of A Female Nazi
Smith Archive/Alamy Stock PhotoIrma Grese is helped from an army truck as she arrives for the Belsen trial in 1945.
Irma Grese was arrested during the liberation of the Bergen-Belsen camp by British forces in April 1945. She soon found herself accused of war crimes.
Grese pleaded not guilty at her trial, but the testimonies of witnesses and survivors ultimately got her convicted and sentenced to death. She was one of three female guards at Bergen-Belsen who would be executed.
Wikimedia CommonsIrma Grese (wearing number nine) sits in court during her war crimes trial.
Despite her appeals, Grese’s sentence was upheld. Grese was purportedly heard singing Nazi songs shortly before her execution, on December 13, 1945. Albert Pierrepoint, the executioner, described her hanging:
“I walked into the corridor. ‘Irma Grese,’ I called. The German guards quickly closed all grills on twelve of the inspection holes and opened one door. Irma Grese stepped out. The cell was far too small for me to go inside, and I had to pinion her in the corridor. ‘Follow me,’ I said…
At 9.34 a.m. she walked into the execution chamber, gazed for a moment at the officials standing round it, then walked on to the centre of the trap, where I had made a chalk mark.
She stood on this mark very firmly, and as I placed the white cap over her head she said in her languid voice, ‘Schnell.’ (‘Quickly.’) The drop crashed down, and the doctor followed me into the pit and pronounced her dead.”
At just 22 years old, Irma Grese became the youngest woman ever hanged under British law in the 20th century. Today, Grese is buried at Zum Friedhof Wehl in Hameln, Germany — and she will forever be remembered as one of the most brutal guards in the history of the Holocaust.
After this look at concentration camp guard Irma Grese, read up on another notorious female Nazi, Ilse Koch, “the Bitch of Buchenwald.” Then, see some disturbing photos of “normal” life in Nazi Germany.
