Irma Ilse Ida Grese[a] (7 October 1923 – 13 December 1945) was a Nazi concentration camp Helferin at Ravensbrück, Auschwitz II-Birkenau, and Bergen-Belsen.

Following the Allied occupation of Nazi Germany in April 1945, Grese was found guilty of war crimes involving the torture and murder of Jewish prisoners at the Belsen trial and sentenced to death by hanging.

[6] Alfred worked as a senior milker at the Wrechen Manor House [de], a small dairy farm with two farmhands and a few cows that provided a modest income for the Grese family.

In late 1935, she attempted suicide by ingesting hydrochloric acid after discovering Alfred's affair with the daughter of the local pub owner.

While Irma stated in 1943 that he was "very religious and conservative and did not believe in Nazism",[9] Alfred enjoyed drinking but he was not an alcoholic, had not physically abused his children, and had joined the Nazi Party in 1937 and become an Ortsgruppenleiter, though he was not an extremist.

[12] Grese was hired the following year as an apprentice aide to an assistant nurse at the Hohenlychen Sanatorium, where SS personnel received treatment.

[20] In May 1944, Grese was given the authority to oversee "Camp C", which consisted of thirty-one huts and held approximately 30,000 Jewish women from Poland and Hungary.

Survivor Abraham Glinowieski stated in his testimony that Grese sent both sick and healthy Hungarian Jews to the gas chambers during selection.

[24] Survivor Olga Lengyel made numerous claims about Grese's sexual relations with SS personnel and both male and female Jewish prisoners whilst at Birkenau.

[26] Survivor Lengyel stated in her memoir that Grese had "favorite" prisoners who she would treat as slaves for a period of time until she became bored, at which point she would send the women to the gas chambers.

[29] Grese remained at Birkenau's "Camp C" until her brief transfer back to Ravensbrück on 18 January 1945, when all personnel were ordered to move westward due to the advance of Soviet forces.

[31] She was vehemently opposed to the transfer, however, because she wanted to stay with her new lover Oberscharführer Franz Wolfgang Hatzinger, a married man fourteen years older whom Grese affectionately referred to as "Hatchi".

[26][32][b] During the Belsen trial, Aufseherin Johanna Bormann testified that Grese and Hatzinger "were very close and regularly sneaked off secretly to have sex".

Grese and a number of other high-ranking SS officers chose to remain at the camp while Lagerführer Kramer issued the official call to surrender.

[40] Grese's only moment of vulnerability came when her sister Helene gave character witness testimony, recounting the volatile interaction between Irma and their father in 1943, which caused her to break down sobbing.

The original, dated and timed witnessed statements of the returned death warrants record that Grese was the second to be executed at 10:03,[45] whereas Volkenrath was the first at 09:34, and Bormann at 10:38.

To prevent people from turning Grese, and the rest of the men and women executed that day, into martyrs, the President of the Court ordered that her body and all the others, be buried in the courtyard of Hamelin Prison rather than the cemetery.