How Irma Grese went from being a troubled teen to becoming one of the most sadistic guards to ever work inside a Nazi concentration camp.
Wikimedia CommonsIrma Grese stands in the courtyard of the prison in Celle, Germany, where she was held for war crimes. August 1945.
From the deranged Dr. 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 beastly is that of Irma Grese. Labeled “the most notorious of the female Nazi war criminals” by the Jewish Virtual Library, Irma Grese committed crimes that were especially brutal even among her Nazi compatriots.
The Early Life Of Irma Grese
Wikimedia Commons21-year-old Irma Grese in August 1945.
Born October 7, 1923, in Wrechen, Germany, Irma Grese was the third of five children. One of Grese’s sisters, Helene, testified that Grese was badly bullied in school and lacked the courage to stand up for herself. Unable to tolerate the torment, Grese dropped out in elementary school.
“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,” Grese testified at her trial.
Then, when Grese was only 13, her mother committed suicide upon discovering that her husband was cheating on her with a local pub owner’s daughter.
Two years later, Grese got a job 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 back to farming to make a living.
Like many Germans in the 1930s and 1940s, Grese was bewitched by Hitler, and at 19, the dropout found herself employment as a guard at the Ravensbruck 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 testified at her trial. Despite her reported hesitation to work at a concentration camp, she thrived in that environment, ultimately becoming one of the most malicious guards in Holocaust history.
Irma Grese Becomes The Hyena of Auschwitz
Wikipedia CommonsAn aerial view of Auschwitz in 1945.
In March 1943, Grese was transferred to Auschwitz, the biggest and most infamous of the Nazi death camps. A loyal, dedicated, and obedient Nazi member, Grese then rapidly ascended to the rank of senior SS supervisor — the second highest rank that could be bestowed upon females in the SS. In March 1945, she was transferred to Bergen Belson.
As part of her supervisor role, Grese oversaw 18,000 female prisoners at Auschwitz. With so much authority, Irma Grese could unleash a torrent of lethal sadism upon her prisoners. Admittedly, it is hard to verify the details of Grese’s abuses. Even Grese’s sister admitted that she shared very little about her role in the camps:
“She 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 a lot 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 nickname, “the Hyena of Auschwitz.”
Public DomainFemale prisoners at Auschwitz line up for roll call.
In her memoir Five Chimneys, Auschwitz survivor Olga Lengyel writes that Grese had many affairs with other Nazis, including Mengele. When it came time to select women for the gas chamber, Lengyel noted that Irma Grese would purposely pick out the beautiful female prisoners due to jealousy and spite.
According to professor Wendy A. Sarti’s research, Grese had a sick fondness for striking women on their breasts and for forcing Jewish girls to be her lookout as she raped inmates. As if this wasn’t enough, Sarti reports that Grese would sick her dog on prisoners, whip them constantly, and kick them with her hobnailed 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 stated during Grese’s trial.
In the same testimony, witnesses claimed to have seen her shoot two girls who tried to run away during a physical examination.
“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,” Ilona Stein, a Hungarian concentration camp survivor, testified.
Shockingly, the Jewish Virtual Library wrote that Grese even had lampshades made from the skin of three dead prisoners.
But as the Allies loosened the Nazis’ stranglehold on Europe, 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 Photo Irma Grese is helped from an army truck as she arrives here for the Belsen trial in 1945.
On April 17, 1945, the British arrested Grese at Bergen Belson, and, along with 45 other Nazis, Grese found herself accused of war crimes.
Between September 17 and November 17, Grese testified at her trial and pleaded not guilty, but the testimony of witnesses and survivors of Grese’s mania got her convicted and sentenced to death. She was one of three female guards sentenced to death.
Wikimedia CommonsIrma Grese (wearing number nine) sits in court during her war crimes trial.
Despite her appeals, Grese’s sentence was upheld. According to Professor Sarti, Grese was heard singing Nazi songs on the morning of her execution, on December 13, 1945. Albert Pierrepoint, the executioner, described the event:
“I walked into the corridor. ‘Irma Grese’, I called. The German guards quickly closed all grilles on twelve of the inspection holes and opened one door. Irma Grese stepped out. ‘Follow me,’ I said in English, and British Army Regimental Sergeant-Major Richard Anthony O’Neil repeated the order in German.
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 center 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, Grese has the distinction of being the youngest woman hanged under British law during the 20th century. Today, she is buried at Zum Friedhof Wehl in Hameln, Germany and will forever be remembered as the one of the most brutal guards in Holocaust history.
After this look at Irma Grese, read up on Ilse Koch, “the bitch of Buchenwald.” Then, see some of the most powerful Holocaust photos ever taken.
