The viciousness with which the Nazi party subjugated Europe in the early 20th century can never be overstated.
Led by Adolf Hitler and his hate-fuelled ideology of fascistic racial purity, the regime committed countless atrocities for years, the effects of which are still felt today.
But while the fuhrer was known for assembling a notoriously sadistic band of male lieutenants including Heinrich Himmler, Martin Bormann and Hans Frank, history tells us that women in the Third Reich played a key role in the sickening war crimes.
Just yesterday, a 99-year-old Nazi known as the ‘Secretary of Evil’ failed in her bid to overturn a conviction for being an accessory to over 10,000 murders at the infamous Stutthof concentration camp.
Irmgard Furchner joins a long line of women infamous for the cruelty they inflicted upon their victims.
From a nymphomaniac ‘hyena’ who took sexual pleasure from watching women undergo surgery with no anaesthetic, to the ‘Red Witch’ who carefully selected prisoners to kill in order to turn their skin into ornaments, MailOnline takes a look at the cruellest women to thrive in the Third Reich.
Irmgard Furchner (pictured) was known as the ‘Secretary of Evil for her role at the infamous Stutthof concentration camp
Irma Grese (left), known as the Hyena of Auschwitz and Ilse Koch (right), known as the Red Witch of Buchenwald
History tells us that women in the Third Reich played a key role in the sickening war crimes . Pictured: Herta Bothe (left) known as the Sadist of Stutthof and Hermine Braunsteiner (right), known as the Stomping Mare
Irma Grese, the Hyena of Auschwitz
At just 22 years old, Irma Grese, the Hyena of Auschwitz, became the youngest woman to be executed under British law in the 20th century.
Her horrific crimes certainly fit the punishment.
Known by one female prisoner at Auschwitz-Birkenau, where she was a guard, as ‘the most depraved, cruel, imaginative pervert I ever came across’, Grese committed countless sadistic acts in the pursuit of furthering the Nazi cause during her short career as a member of the Women’s SS Division.
But despite her age, she quickly rose through the ranks, becoming an SS Oberaufseherin, or Chief Overseer. She was given command over 30,000 women prisoners in Auschwitz-Birkenau’s camp BII/c.
Prisoners at Auschwitz-Birkenau knew her for wearing heavy boots and carrying a whip and pistol, vicious tools she used liberally to kick, beat and shoot concentration camp prisoners for minor infractions.
Grese was said to have derived near-sexual pleasure from watching prisoners in agony.
At just 22 years old, Irma Grese, the Hyena of Auschwitz, (pictured) became the youngest woman to be executed under British law in the 20th century
One prisoner said Grese, number 9, was ‘the most depraved, cruel, imaginative pervert I ever came across’
Grese was said to have derived near-sexual pleasure from watching prisoners in agony
Main entrance of Auschwitz II
Gisella Perl, a trained doctor who was a prisoner at Auschwitz-Birkenau, recalled after the Second World War that the Hyena would often watch medical operations, which were almost always performed without anaesthesia.
Perl said: ‘Irma Grese invariably arrived to watch the operation, kicking the victim if her screams interfered with her pleasure and giving herself completely to the orgasmic spasms which shook her entire body and made saliva run down from the corner of her mouth.
‘Irma Grese was enjoying the sight of this human suffering. Her tense body swung back and forth in a revealing, rhythmical motion. Her cheeks were flushed and her wide-open eyes had the rigid, staring look of complete sexual paroxysm.
‘She did this on multiple occasions so she could relive this sadistic moment repeatedly. She always came to watch the operations of these women whose breasts had been slashed open and had become infected with the lice and dirt which pervaded the women’s camp.’
Grese’s perversions didn’t end there – she is rumoured to have been sleeping with Nazi doctor Josef Mengele, as well as Josef Kramer, the commandant of Birkenau and later Bergen-Belsen.
Irma Grese is rumoured to have been sleeping with Nazi doctor Josef Mengele
Survivors recalled that Irma Grese killed at least 30 people a day
Following legal proceedings at the Belsen Trials, she was sentenced to death by hanging
A view of barbed wire fence and surveillance towers at the former Nazi death camp Auschwitz Birkenau
Claims were made after the way that she took part in deciding who would live or die alongside Mengele.
Survivors recalled that she killed at least 30 people a day.
Her time at Bergen-Belsen, another concentration camp which she transferred to after her time at Auschwitz-Birkenau, was marked by even deeper sadism.
At Belsen, she was known for making prisoners kneel for hours at a time, severely straining their muscles.
She also made them hold heavy rocks over their heads, punishing them if they did not stand up straight.
Prisoners were also made to stand upright in snow, ice and rain between 3am and 9am. Failure to do so properly would result in severe beatings.
Following her arrest by British forces at the end of the war, she nonchalantly said of her war crimes: ‘It was our duty to exterminate anti-social elements so that Germany’s future would be assured.’
Following legal proceedings at the Belsen Trials, she was sentenced to death by hanging.
For a woman known for her perverse attraction to prolonged violence and suffering, this was the last thing she wanted for her own execution, which was carried out by the infamous hangman Albert Pierrepoint in December 1945.
Pierrepoint, known as Britain’s last hangman, was seemingly left stunned by how she approached her own death, writing in his autobiography: ‘She walked into the execution chamber, gazed for a moment at the officials standing around it, then walked 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 a languid voice, “Schnell”.’
Herta Bothe, the Sadist of Stutthof
At 6ft 3in, Herta Bothe, the ‘ruthless overseer’ of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, towered above nearly everyone when she was arrested by Allies troops who liberated the northern German camp on April 15 1945.
Even more striking was the fact that, despite her height, she looked like a common civilian. While others wore night-black jackboots, she wore ordinary shoes.
But her civilian clothing belied the horrific truth of the sick cruelty she was capable of.
During the Belsen trials, a camp survivor said she saw Bothe beat an 18-year-old girl to death for daring to eat food scraps from the kitchen.
Another prisoner told war crime prosecutors that he saw her shoot two people for no reason at all.
Despite her arbitrary cruelty, she was only given a prison sentence of 10 years for using pistols against prisoners.
During the Belsen trials, a camp survivor said she saw Bothe (pictured, right) beat an 18-year-old girl to death for daring to eat food scraps from the kitchen
This undated photo from 1945 shows the Nazi concentration camp Stutthof in Sztutowo, Poland
German Nazi party official and head of the SS, Heinrich Himmler, center, visits the Nazi concentration camp Stutthof in Sztutowo, Poland Nov. 23, 1941
On top of this, she was released from prison early and was allowed to live out her days in relative peace.
Living under the same Lange, she was able to lead a quiet live for another half century.
Bothe was unrepentant of her war crimes. In a 1999 interview, less than a year before she died at the age of 79, she unashamedly said:
‘Did I make a mistake? No. The mistake was that it was a concentration camp, but I had to go to it, otherwise I would have been put into it myself. That was my mistake.’
Ilse Koch, the Red Witch of Buchenwald
Nine days after American soldiers liberated the Buchenwald concentration camp in April 1945, United Press correspondent Ann Stringer filed a story that sickened the world.
In her own words, she saw a lampshade ‘two feet in diameter, about eighteen inches high and made of five panels … made from the skin from a man’s chest.
‘Along side were book bindings, bookmarkers, and other ornamental pieces—all made from human skin, too. I saw them today. I could see the pores and the tiny unquestionably human skin lines.’
The sickening ornaments belonged to llse Koch, wife of SS officer Karl Koch.
As the wife of a high-ranking Nazi official, she was afforded rights and powers that few had.
And as a Nazi with a proclivity for power, she abused these to no end.
he sickening ornaments belonged to llse Koch (pictured)
As the wife of a high-ranking Nazi official, she was afforded rights and powers that few had
A barbed wire fence encloses the memorial site of the former Nazi concentration camp Buchenwald near Weimar, eastern Germany
One prisoner, a ‘Dutch engineer’ who spent time in Buchenwald, said Koch ‘would have prisoners with tattoos on them line up shirtless. Then she would pick a pretty design or mark she particularly liked.
‘That prisoner would be executed and his skin made into an ornament.’
Testimonies were even more detailed at her war crimes trial.
Kurt Froboess, a prisoner at Buchenwald from 1937 until liberation, told the American military tribunal in Dachau: ‘It was a hot day. Some prisoners were working without a shirt. Mrs. Koch arrived on a horse.
‘There was a comrade there—his first name was Jean, he was either French or Belgian—and he was known throughout camp for his excellent tattoos from head to toe.
‘On his chest he had an exceptionally well-tattooed sailboat with four masts. Even today I can see it before my eyes very clearly. Mrs. Koch rode over. She took his number down. Jean was called to the gate at evening formation. We didn’t see him anymore.’
For her part, Koch vigorously denied ever owning ornaments made of human skin
She experienced severe delusions while at Aichach women’s prison, and believed that survivors of concentration camps would abuse her in her cell
Steles with the engravings ‘Buchenwald’ and ‘Majdanek’ that are part of the memorial dedicated to the murdered Sinti and Roma are pictured at the memorial site of the former Nazi concentration camp Buchenwald
Though there were many other testimonials that spoke to Koch’s love of ornaments made of human skin, no physical evidence of this was ever produced at an official trial.
For her part, Koch vigorously denied ever owning ornaments made of human skin.
She claimed during the Dachau trial that the first time she had even heard of lampshades was when ‘I read about it in Life magazine.’
Following years of legal wrangling, with her war crimes case being passed between military and civilian courts, she was eventually sentenced to a life sentence with no change of parole.
In a written judgement, judges at a West German court found she had consciously suppressed ‘any feeling of compassion and pity she had as a woman.’
She instead gave ‘free rein to her pursuit of power and prestige, her arrogance and her selfishness.’
The court noted that Koch had a ‘stubborn and irresponsible denial’ and refused to acknowledge the ‘slightest admission of guilt.’
But it appears that the guilt of her crimes eventually broke her.
She experienced severe delusions while at Aichach women’s prison, and believed that survivors of concentration camps would abuse her in her cell.
In her suicide note, which she wrote to her estranged son Uwe, she said: ‘There is no other way. Death for me is a release.’
Hermine Braunsteiner, the Stomping Mare
Prisoners of the Majdanek concentration camp quickly learned to fear the shine coming off Hermine Braunsteiner’s black jackboots.
She was equally happy using the polished mid-calf boots, studded with steel, to kick out a stool underneath a young girl to hang her to death as she was stomping old women to death.
Equally adept with her hands as she was with her feet, she was also known for whipping at least two women to death and grabbing children by their hair before tossing them in the back of vans to take them to gas chambers.
One French doctor, trapped at Majdanek, said of Braunsteiner: ‘I watched her administer twenty-five lashes with a riding crop to a young Russian girl suspected of having tried sabotage.
‘Her back was full of lashes, but I was not allowed to treat her immediately.’
Her cruelty was legendary, even by Nazi standards. For her sick work she was given the War Merit Cross, 2nd class, in 1943.
Prisoners of the Majdanek concentration camp quickly learned to fear the shine coming off Hermine Braunsteiner’s (pictured, centre) black jackboots
Her cruelty was legendary, even by Nazi standards
View of guard towers, fence, and crematorium chimney at Majdanek
But her loyalty to the party wavered at the end of the Second World War.
Ahead of Majdanek’s liberation by the Soviet Red Army im May 1945, she fled the camp before returning to her native Vienna.
A year later, she was arrested by Austrian police and handed over to British authorities.
Though she was convicted of crimes against human dignity for her abuse at Ravensbrück, where she spent some years working as a guard, she was acquitted of her war crimes in Majdanek, which included murder, as there weren’t any witnesses who were willing to take the stand.
As a result, she received just three years in prison, and had all of her property confiscated.
Destitute, she worked low-end jobs at hotels and restaurants until she met her future husband, American man Russell Ryan, while he was on holiday in Austria.
The pair married in October 1958, and she entered the US in 1969, settling down in Queens, New York, after becoming a US citizen in 1963.
Upon realising that the jig was up, she reportedly said: ‘My God, I knew this would happen. You’ve come’
Following a series of trials, she was given a life sentence for her crimes
After her identity was revealed, the US worked to revoke her citizenship as she had failed to disclose her war crimes convictions
Red Army soldiers examining the ovens of the burned-down New Crematorium at Majdanek
In New York, she was known locally as a friendly housewife with a penchant for cleanliness.
But her unearned marital bliss would not last.
A famed Nazi hunter managed to track down her route from Austria to New York, and informed the New York Times that there was a Nazi living quietly in the city.
The Gray Lady sent a junior reporter to track her down.
Upon realising that the jig was up, she reportedly said: ‘My God, I knew this would happen. You’ve come.’
After her identity was revealed, the US worked to revoke her citizenship as she had failed to disclose her war crimes convictions.
Though she initially managed to avoid extradition back to Germany, she was forced back to West Germany after its government accused her of being jointly responsible for the deaths of 200,000 people.
Following a series of trials, she was given a life sentence for her crimes, but was later released from prison following complications of diabetes.
Irmgard Furchner, the Secretary of Evil
99-year-old Irmgard Furchner has spent her whole life denying the horrific war crimes crimes she was complicit in at the tender ages of 18 and 19.
As the secretary to the SS commander of the infamous Stutthof concentration camp, she was convicted of being an accessory to over 10,000 murders.
At a federal court hearing in Leipzig last month, the Nazi’s lawyers tried to cast doubt over whether she could really be considered an accessory to the atrocities committed at the camp, and whether she had been fully aware of what was going on.
She was tried in a juvenile court as she was 18 and 19 at the time of the alleged crimes, and the court couldn’t establish beyond a doubt her ‘maturity of mind’ then.
But the court ruled that Furchner ‘knew and, through her work as a stenographer in the commandant’s office of the Stutthof concentration camp from June 1, 1943, to April 1, 1945, deliberately supported the fact that 10,505 prisoners were cruelly killed by gassings, by hostile conditions in the camp,’ by transportation to the Auschwitz death camp and by being sent on death marches at the end of the war.
99-year-old Irmgard Furchner (pictured) has spent her whole life denying the horrific war crimes crimes she was complicit in at the tender ages of 18 and 19
As the secretary to the SS commander of the infamous Stutthof concentration camp, she was convicted of being an accessory to over 10,000 murders
Furchner’s guilt appears to still be weighing on her even decades later.
In September 2021, she was detained for several days by Germany police after she tried running away at the start of her trial.
Furchner ran away from her care home in Norderstedt, northern Germany, and tried to take a taxi to the city’s railway station, but did not make it far.
She was held for five days, with the start of the trial being delayed thanks to her attempted escape.
While she reportedly remained silent through much of her trial, she said toward the end: ‘I’m sorry for everything that happened. I regret that I was in Stutthof at the time. I can’t say anything else.’
One of the women was Maria Mandl, a senior SS guard in Auschwitz from October 1942 to October 1944 who was nicknamed ‘The Beast’ by prisoners
Female guards at the SS holiday camp in the town of Porąbka
SS women arriving at an SS holiday camp in the town of Porąbka in what was then German occupied Poland
Maria Mandl, The Beast
Maria Mandl, a senior SS guard in Auschwitz from October 1942 to October 1944 was nicknamed ‘The Beast’ by prisoners.
Born in 1912 the daughter of a shoemaker, she first started work in a Nazi concentration camp in Lichtenburg Germany in 1938 before being transferred to the camp for women in Ravensbruk, also in Germany.
In 1942 she was sent to Auschwitz where she became infamous for her sadism and sending ‘an estimated half a million women and children to their deaths in the gas chambers.’
After Auschwitz was liberated in January 1945, Mandl fled into the mountains of southern Bavaria.
Mandl was later caught and arrested by the US military in August 1945 and held at Dachau Prison.
She was then handed over to Poland in November 1946 and later sentenced by a Kracow courtroom, as part of the Auschwitz trial, to death by hanging. Mandl was hanged on 24 January 1948, aged 36.
SS women arriving at an SS holiday camp in what was then German occupied Poland
Among the women featured in the project is Emma Zimmer (left), who worked as a female SS guard at three concentration camps. She was later sentenced to death by hanging by the British military tribunal. Another female SS guard who was sentenced to death was Therese Brandl (right), who worked at three concentration camps between 1940 and 1945
Emma Zimmer
Emma Zimmer, who worked as a female SS guard at three concentration camps and was later awarded the War Merit Cross Second Class without Swords for her long-time service for the SS.
Born on August 14, 1888, in Haßmersheim, she started work as a guard from December 1937, initially in Lichtenberg concentration camp and from May 1939 in Ravensbrück concentration camp for women.
At the beginning of October 1942, she was delegated to Auschwitz concentration camp, where she stayed until December 1943.
In September 1943, she was awarded the War Merit Cross Second Class without Swords for her long-time service for the SS.
But later that year, due to her age, health problems and alcohol abuse at work she terminated her career as a female SS guard in concentration camps.
She was later detained by US military forced in the spring of 1945 and deported to internment camp number 77 in Ludwigsburg.
Subsequently, she was handed over to British authorities. She was sentenced to death by hanging by the British military tribunal in the 6th Ravensbrück Trial. The sentence was carried out in September 1948.
Therese Brandl
Therese Brandl worked at three concentration camps between 1940 and 1945.
Brandl, born on February 1, 1909 in the Bavarian town Staudach, worked at Ravensbrück concentration camp for women from September 1940 to March 1942.
Later she was delegated to Auschwitz concentration camp, where she stayed until the end of 1944 working as SS Report Leader and supervised the prisoners working in the Rajsko subcamp.
In December 1944, she was delegated at her own request to work in the subcamp Mühldorf.
After the war, she was sentenced to death by hanging in the trial against 40 former members of the staff of Auschwitz concentration camp. The sentence was carried out in January 1948.
