SS-Gefolge (Women's SS Division)

SS-Gefolge was the designation for the group of female civilian employees of the Schutzstaffel in Nazi Germany.

SS-Gefolge members served the Schutzstaffel in a limited capacity, as the organisation was not formally a part of the SS.

Trainees spent anywhere from one week to six months receiving instruction on disciplinary techniques, subterfuge detection, and escape prevention.

Showing sympathy for prisoners was forbidden, and any Gefolge member suspected of helping them received severe punishment.

SS Gefolge Women were the main guards at female specific concentration camps of Ravensbrück, Auschwitz-Birkenau, Mauthausen, and Bergen-Belsen.

SS-Gefolge members (from left to right: Hildegard Kanbach, Magdalene Kessel, Lisbeth Fritzner, Irene Haschke , Herta Ehlert , Herta Bothe ) being paraded for burying victims at Bergen-Belsen . Photographed by Sergeant Harry Oakes on 17 April 1945, the camp was liberated two days later and the women were arrested on 15 May.