Female guards in Nazi concentration camps

Consequently, at some tribunals it was disputed whether SS-Helferinnen employed at the camps were official members of the SS, thus leading to conflicting court decisions.

At the relatively small Helmbrechts subcamp near Hof, Germany, the camp commandant, Wilhelm Dörr, openly pursued a sexual relationship with the head female overseer Herta Haase-Breitmann-Schmidt.

Both were rumored to have embezzled millions of Reichsmark, for which Karl Koch was convicted and executed by the Nazis a few weeks before Buchenwald was liberated by the U.S. Army; however, Ilse was cleared of the charge.

One apparent exception to the brutal female overseer prototype was Klara Kunig, a camp guard in 1944 who served at Ravensbrück and its subcamp at Dresden-Universelle.

Women were also trained on a smaller scale at the camps of Neuengamme;[11] Auschwitz I, II, and III; Flossenbürg (as well as Dresden-Goehle, Holleischen and Zwodau);[12] Gross Rosen (as well as its satellites in Langenbielau,[13] Ober Hohenelbe[14] and Parschnitz); Stutthof,[15] as well as a few at Mauthausen.

In 1944, the first female overseers were stationed at the satellite camps belonging to Neuengamme, Dachau,[17] Mauthausen, a very few at Natzweiler-Struthof, and none at the Mittelbau-Dora complex until March 1945.

[18] Twenty-eight Aufseherinnen served in Vught,[19] some at Buchenwald,[20] 60 in Bergen-Belsen, one at Dachau overseeing the brothel,[21] more than 30 in Mauthausen[22] (January 1945–May 1945), 30 at Majdanek,[23] around 200 at Auschwitz and its subcamps,[24] 140 at Sachsenhausen and its subcamps, 158 trained at Neuengamme, 47 trained at Stutthof, compared to 958 who served in Ravensbrück,[25] 561 in the Flossenbürg complex, and over 800 in the Gross Rosen.

[27] Prisoner Olga Lengyel, who in her memoir, Five Chimneys, wrote that selections in the women’s camp were made by SS Aufseherin Elisabeth Hasse and Irma Grese.

Rinkel immigrated to the US in 1959 seeking a better life, and had omitted Ravensbrück from the list of residences supplied on her visa application.

In Germany, Rinkel did not face criminal charges, with the expiry of the statute of limitations meaning that only murder allegations could be tried after such a length of time.