Irma Grese

Infobox Military Person
name=Irma Grese


caption=
born= 7 October 1923
died=13 December 1945
placeofbirth=Wrechen, Pasewalk, Germany
placeofdeath=Hamelin, Germany
nickname="The Beautiful Beast"
allegiance=flag|Nazi Germany
branch=
serviceyears= 1942–1945
rank= "SS-Helferin"
unit=Ravensbrück
Auschwitz
Bergen-Belsen
battles=World War II

Irma Grese (born October 7, 1923 at Wrechen near Pasewalk, Mecklenburg – died December 13, 1945 in Hameln) was employed at the Nazi concentration camps of Ravensbrück, Auschwitz; and was a warden of the woman's section of Bergen-Belsen. [The Times; "The Belsen trial"; 18 September 1945; pg6] [ Wendy A. Maier; " [http://www.oakton.edu/user/~wmaier/Aufseherinnen%20Irma%20Grese.pdfIrma Grese: The Angel of Death] "]

Background

Irma Grese was born to Alfred Grese, a dairy worker and a member of the Nazi Party from 1937, and Berta Grese. Irma Grese had four siblings. In 1936, her mother committed suicide.

Grese left school in 1938 at the age of fifteen, due to a combination of a poor scholastic aptitude, being bullied by classmates, and a fanatical preoccupation with the League of German Girls ("Bund Deutscher Mädel"), a Nazi female youth organization, of which her father disapproved. Among other casual jobs, she worked as an assistant nurse in the sanatorium of the SS for two years and unsuccessfully tried to find an apprenticeship as a nurse, after which she worked as dairy helper.

Quoted below is Irma Grese's testimony, under direct examination, about her background:

:"I was born on 7th October, 1923. 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. When I was 15 I went to a hospital in Hohenluchen, where I stayed for two years. I tried to become a nurse but the Labour Exchange would not allow that and sent me to work in a dairy in Fürstenburg. 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. I stayed there until March, 1943, when I went to Birkenau Camp in Auschwitz. I remained in Auschwitz until January, 1945."

Having completed her training in March 1943, Grese was transferred as a female guard to Auschwitz and by the end of that year was "Senior Supervisor", the second highest ranking woman at the camp, in charge of around 30,000 Jewish female prisoners. [ [http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/tm_objectid=16393907&method=full&siteid=94762&headline=nazi-she-devils-name_page.html The Mirror] , "Nazi She Devils", November 21, 2005 ]

In January 1945, Grese briefly returned to Ravensbrück before ending her wartime career at Bergen-Belsen as a "Work Service Manager" from March to April, being captured by the British April 17, 1945, together with other SS personnel who did not flee.

War crimes

Grese was among the 44 people accused of war crimes at the Belsen Trial. She was tried over the first period of the trials (September 17 to November 17, 1945) and was represented by Major L. Cranfield.

The trials were conducted under British military law in Lüneburg, and the charges derived from the Geneva Convention of 1929 regarding the treatment of prisoners. The accusations against her centred on her ill-treatment and murder of those imprisoned at the camps, including setting dogs on inmates, shootings and sadistic beatings with a whip.

Survivors provided detailed testimony of murders, tortures, cruelties and sexual excesses engaged in by Grese during her years at Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen. They testified to acts of sadism, beatings and arbitrary shooting of prisoners, savaging of prisoners by her trained and allegedly half starved dogs, and to her selecting prisoners for the gas chambers. After a fifty-three day trial, Grese was sentenced to hang.

Grese was reported to have habitually worn heavy boots and carried a whip and a pistol. Witnesses testified that she used both physical and emotional methods to torture the camp's inmates and enjoyed shooting prisoners in cold blood. They also claimed that she beat some women to death and whipped others using a plaited whip. [ [http://www.vex.net/~nizkor/hweb/camps/bergen-belsen/belsen-trial-05.html Excerpts from The Belsen Trial (5/5) ] ]

Execution

Grese and ten others (eight men and two other women; Juana Bormann and Elisabeth Volkenrath) were convicted for crimes against humanity in both Auschwitz and Belsen and then sentenced to death. As the verdicts were read, Grese was the only prisoner to remain defiant; [ The Times "Verdicts In The Belsen Trial" 17 November 1945; pg4] her subsequent appeal was rejected.

On Thursday, December 13, 1945, in Hameln Jail, Grese was led to the gallows. The women were hanged singly first and then the men in pairs. [The Times; "Belsen Gang Hanged"; 15 Dec 1945] Regimental Sergeant-Major O'Neill assisted the noted British executioner, Albert Pierrepoint -

::"... we climbed the stairs to the cells where the condemned were waiting. A German officer at the door leading to the corridor flung open the door and we filed past the row of faces and into the execution chamber. The officers stood at attention. Brigadier Paton-Walsh stood with his wristwatch raised. He gave me the signal, and a sigh of released breath was audible in the chamber, 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 in English, and 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 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'. The drop crashed down, and the doctor followed me into the pit and pronounced her dead. After twenty minutes the body was taken down and placed in a coffin ready for burial." [cite book |title=Executioner |last=Pierrepoint |first=Albert |authorlink=Albert Pierrepoint |year=1974 |publisher=Harrap |isbn=0245520708]

Irma Grese is the youngest woman to die judicially under English law in the 20th century.

ee also

* Ilse Koch, nicknamed "The Witch of Buchenwald".

External links

* [http://www.ess.uwe.ac.uk/WCC/belsen5.htm The Belsen Trial] , "Law-Reports of Trials of War Criminals, The United Nations War Crimes Commission, Volume II, London, HMSO, 1947", retrieved on 22 December 2006.
*
* [http://max.mmvi.de/ssfrauen/irmagrese.htm SS-Frauen am Galgen] (German), "max.mmvi.de", retrieved on 22 December, 2006.
* [http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/6142/irma.html Irma Grese] , " [http://www.richard.clark32.btinternet.co.uk/contents.html|Capital Punishment U.K.] ", retrieved on 22 December 22, 2006.
* [http://www.scrapbookpages.com/BergenBelsen/BergenBelsen08.html Women guards in Bergen-Belsen] , "Scrapbookpages.com", retrieved on December 22, 2006.
* [http://www.auschwitz.dk/Women/Grese.htm Irma Grese] , "Auschwitz.dk", retrieved on December 22, 2006.
* [http://www.pbs.org/auschwitz/about/transcripts_4.html Auschwitz: Inside The Nazi State; Corruption: Episode 4] , "PBS.org", retrieved on December 22, 2006.
* [http://www.nizkor.org/hweb/camps/bergen-belsen/belsen-trial-05.html Excerpts from The Belsen Trial - Part 5 of 5: Testimony of and concerning Irma Grese] ,"The Nizkor Project", retrieved on December 22, 2006.

References

Persondata
NAME = Grese, Irma
ALTERNATIVE NAMES =
SHORT DESCRIPTION = German concentration camp guard
DATE OF BIRTH = 7 October 1923
PLACE OF BIRTH = Wrechen, Pasewalk, Germany
DATE OF DEATH = 13 December 1945
PLACE OF DEATH = Hamelin, Germany