Defendenant No.9 E-Book

J.M. Müller

• Herausgeber: BoD - Books on Demand
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Seitenzahl: 218

Beschreibung

Defendant no. 9 was the youngest war criminal to be sentenced to death by hanging in the Bergen-Belsen trial in 1945. She caused a worldwide sensation because the crimes she was accused of, her brutality and cruelty and her sadism towards the prisoners stood in stark contrast to her appearance. She had many names:"Hyena of Auschwitz," "Hell's Angel" or "Queen of Belsen." And her accuser said of her at the trial: "And there is not a single atrocity that took place in this camp for which she was not known to be responsible. She regularly took part in the selection for the gas chamber, punished arbitrarily, and when she came to Belsen, she continued in exactly the same way." In this documentary, we embark on a search for clues in old files and archives and shed light on the 243 days of 1945, from the liberation of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp to the execution of the perpetrators in Hameln. We accompany Grese through the entire trial to the gallows, look at the witness statements, read what the press wrote, discover little to hardly known facts, correct mistakes and immerse ourselves directly in the events when we follow the questioning and cross-examination of defendant no. 9.

Leseprobe

Originally this book was only planned in German language. However, I received several requests written in English as to whether I could translate this book into English. That generally sounded like a very good idea to me. However, I must point out that my English is just improvable! Despite the greatest effort and care, you will definitely encounter typos and inelegant wording here that are not present in the German version. I ask that you treat this with indulgence and hope that you enjoy this documentation.

J.M. Müller, February 27, 2024

75 years after the first Nazi war crimes trial in Germany: A look at old files and archives. Documentation.

Concentration camp guard Irma Grese was the youngest war criminal to be sentenced to death by hanging in the first Bergen-Belsen trial in 1945. She in particular caused a worldwide sensation because the crimes she was accused of, her brutality and cruelty and her sadism towards the prisoners stood in stark contrast to her appearance. She had many names: „Hyena of Auschwitz,“,Angel of Hell“ or „Queen of Belsen.“ And her accuser said of her at the trial: „And there is not a single atrocity that took place in this camp for which she was not known to be responsible. She regularly took part in the selection for the gas chamber, punished arbitrarily, and when she came to Belsen, she continued in exactly the same way.“ In this documentary, we embark on a search for clues in old trial files and archives and shed light on the 243 days of 1945, from the liberation of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp to the execution of the perpetrators in Hameln. We accompany Grese and the other main defendants of the so-called „Belsen gang,“ as the international press liked to call the accused, through the entire trial up to their execution. We look at the witness statements, read what the trial observers wrote, discover little to hardly known facts, correct errors and immerse ourselves directly in the events as we follow the questioning and cross-examination of defendant No. 9.

July 14, 2020, J.M. Müller

Summary

Life data

The liberation of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp

The process preparations

The process

Defendant No. 9 - Irma Grese under cross-examination

The judgment

Execution in Hameln

Final chord

Notes

Life data

Irma (Irmgard Use Ida Grese) was born on October 7, 1923 in Wrechen, a small village in the Mecklenburg province. Her parents were Alfred Anton Albert Grese (*1899) and Berta Wilhelmine Grese, bom Winter (*1904). Irma was the third oldest of five children and had sisters Lieschen (*1921) and Helene (*1926) as well as brothers Alfred (*?) and Otto (*1929). The strict father was in the service of the local landowner and looked after the cattle, driving them to the pastures and milking them. A photograph from 1935 shows little twelve-year-old Irma in her school class. She is smiling and wearing a dress, with her blonde hair tied back in two plaits. The family was not well off, but they suffered no hardship either, and so one can imagine that her childhood in the beautiful Mecklenburg countryside, with its meadows, animals, forests and lakes, was pleasant and tranquil. We have journalist Vincent Evans from the Daily Express to thank for various anecdotes from Irma's childhood days. Evans was in Lüneburg during the Belsen trial and spoke to members of Grese's family who had traveled there from Mecklenburg. He sent a long letter with his findings to his journalist colleague Paul Holt, who published them in the Daily Express on November 16 under the title: „How did Irma Grese get like this?“. We learn there that little Irma loved her little dress and brooch and that she was very sensitive. One day, when her brother Otto cut his lip while playing and it started to bleed, little Irma cried terribly because she couldn't bear to look at it. But there was another, completely different side to her, because she is also said to have been a bossy little child who rigorously oppressed the weak and defenceless little girls around her. Irma's sister Helene later said about her at the trial: „Irma never had the courage to hit herself at school. If someone wanted to start, she always ran away.“ (This sentence from the sister would play a significant role in the course of the trial). In 1936, Berta's mother committed suicide by drinking hydrochloric acid, which was used for cleaning at the time. The reason for this was probably that her husband was having an affair. As she grew older, Irma felt the desire to join the „Bund Deutscher Mädel,“ the female branch of the „Hitler Jugend,“ which girls between the ages of 14 and 18 could join. However, her father had strictly forbidden her to do so. 1939 father Alfred married again, to a widow who brought four children into the marriage. They later had another daughter. From spring to winter 1938, Irma worked in a dairy in Fürstenberg as part of the so-called „Landjahr“, then in a store in Lychen. From 1939, she was employed at the prestigious SS sanatorium in Hohenlychen, which was run by Karl Franz Gebhardt.1 According to her own statements, she worked there as an auxiliary nurse. According to the sanatorium's personnel book, however, she was employed there as a chambermaid.2 In October of the war year 1940, Irma celebrated her birthday at home for the last time. She turned 17 and there was a lovely family party for her. After a lavish dinner, the family sang old German songs and Irma was as happy and cheerful as a little child that evening. That night she sang and danced unstoppably and hugged her family lovingly. About six months later, in March 1941, she was dismissed from her job in Hohenlychen. We don't know why, it was never discussed in the family. This family information also comes from Paul Holt's article. Until June 1942, she worked again in a dairy through the employment agency. On June 1, 1942, she volunteered for service in the SS and was trained as a guard at Ravensbrück concentration camp. In March 1943, Grese was transferred to Auschwitz, where she held various positions. On January 22, 1944, she underwent a syphilis examination at the SS hospital in Auschwitz, but was only diagnosed with angina.

Documents prove that she gave a blood sample on January 22, 1944, which tested positive for syphilis. The so-called Wassermann reaction was used. This is an examination method for detecting antibodies in the serum in syphilis (this method was first published in 1906 by the German immunologist and bacteriologist August Paul von Wassermann). According to the document, further hospital visits followed on the 23rd and 25th. In an interview on June 11, 1990, Auschwitz survivor Magda Blau, bom Hellinger, spoke about Irma Grese. She reported that „The Angel of Death,“ as she called Grese, had a very debauched sex life within the concentration camp and maintained relationships with male and female inmates.

In May 1944, the so-called „Hungarian transports“ arrived. At this time, she was in charge of up to 30,000 female prisoners in the C camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau. In January 1945, she was transferred to the main camp, where she was in charge of two blocks with male labor detachments. On January 19, due to the approaching Red Army, she was evacuated from Auschwitz to the Ravensbrück concentration camp, and in March she reached the Belsen concentration camp with a prisoner transport, where she was deployed as a labor service leader. The camp was liberated by the British army on April 15 and about two days later the remaining guards were arrested on site. On April 23, her friend, SS-Oberscharführer Franz Wolfgang (Hatzi) Hatzinger, died of typhus. On May 17, the prisoners were transferred from Belsen to Celle prison, and on September 13, they were transferred to Lüneburg prison. The trial was conducted against a total of 45 people3, 16 of whom were men belonging to the SS, 16 of whom were women from the so-called SS retinue, as well as 13 functional prisoners. The highest-ranking officers were the SS-Hauptsturm-ffihrer and camp commander of Bergen-Belsen Josef Kramer,4 No. 1, and the SS-Hauptsturmführer and camp doctor Dr. Fritz Klein,5 No. 2. Kramer and the other accused were charged with war crimes in Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen. The trial began in Lüneburg on September 17 in the specially converted gymnasium at Lindenstraße 30. During the course of the trial, Irma Grese, No. 9, aroused far more public interest worldwide than her higher-ranking superiors. This was due to the fact that the accusations made against her, the cruelty, sadism and brutality with which she was said to have treated prisoners, stood in stark contrast to her appealing appearance. One journalist wrote: „... In any case, she is prettier than the other female defendants, and the contrast between the pretty larva and the sinister accusations may have attracted some interest to her ...“6 Finally, on October 16 and 17, Grese, who, like all other employees, had to leave the company, pleaded not guilty, testified before the court and underwent cross-examination. On November 17, she and ten other defendants were sentenced to death. A petition for clemency from her to Field Marshal Montgomery was submitted within 48 hours and rejected on December 7.7 On December 11, the eleven convicts were transferred to Hameln. On December 13, they were executed by hanging and their deaths were postponed to Dated 10.03 am. Grese and twelve other war criminals executed that day were buried in the inner courtyard of the prison and reburied anonymously in the Wehl cemetery in 1954.

The liberation of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp

From 1936 onwards, a military training area was set up in Bergen for the Wehrmacht, and wooden barracks were built on the edge of the area for the deployed workers. From 1939, the Wehrmacht initially used these barracks to intern French and Belgian prisoners of war. After the invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, the camp was enlarged and up to 21,000 prisoners from the Soviet Union were imprisoned there, of whom around 14,000 died, mostly from hunger, cold or disease. In 1943, the SS took over part of the camp and converted it into a detention camp for so-called exchange Jews. These were Jewish prisoners who were to be exchanged for interned Germans abroad. Later, the camp was also used for other groups of prisoners. Sick and unemployable men and women from other concentration camps were housed there, and the camp conditions deteriorated massively. From spring 1945, tens of thousands of prisoners were transferred from concentration camps close to the front to the Bergen-Belsen camp, and the prison conditions were catastrophic. The consequences were hunger, thirst, epidemics, cases of cannibalism and thousands of deaths. Dr. Klein, who was accused at the trial of being involved in selections for the gas chamber, is said to have told his camp commander Josef Kramer in those days that the British would put them up against the wall if they saw what was happening in the camp.7 And after the SS camp crew realized that the British army would soon reach the Belsen concentration camp, the prisoners suddenly noticed some changes. For example, the camp doctor Klein suddenly wore a Red Cross armband and the beatings by the guards became much less frequent. The concentration camp survivor Ada Bimko testified on September 21, 1945 before The military court in Lüneburg was told that two full magazines of medicine, bandages and instruments were suddenly opened, of whose existence nobody had known anything before. The SS guards also began tying white bandages around their arms and a delegation was sent to the British to discuss the handover of the prison camp to the Allies. According to one survivor, the labor service leader Irma Grese, No. 9, tried to ingratiate herself with the prisoners and mingle with them shortly before the camp was liberated (see page 25). Other SS men simply disappeared secretly overnight instead. A British sergeant told8 how he and his tank advanced towards the Belsen concentration camp on April 15. On the road there were warning signs saying ,,Achtung Typhus!“, and about two kilometers from the camp, he came across two soldiers waving a white flag. When they reached the camp, a group of officers were already waiting for them, and a tall soldier in a camouflage jacket introduced himself as camp commander Josef Kramer. It was noticeable that this beefy man had a very high-pitched female voice, which did not suit him at all.81 The camp gate was opened and Kramer accompanied the British inside. On both sides of the camp road, behind barbed wire fences, stood the emaciated prisoners in their striped prisoner suits, known in camp jargon as „zebra clothing“.9 Many could barely stand on their feet, others waved and shouted: „God save the king.“ Suddenly, riots broke out, prisoners with sticks tried to drive other prisoners into the barracks and guards shot into the air when prisoners tried to storm the kitchen. For weeks before the liberation, the prisoners only received turnip soup, and for the last three days nothing at all. Water, if you want to call it drinkable, had not been available for a day and a half. The water supply was catastrophic anyway, the water basins were filthy and there was even a corpse in one of them. That day, the British army discovered several thousand unburied bodies and tens of thousands of terminally ill people. Even in the days after liberation, despite immediate help from doctors and nursing staff, more prisoners died. In total, around 52,000 people died in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp due to the prison conditions. On the night of April 15, some prisoners grabbed Irma Grese, dragged her to the latrine and then pushed her head forcefully into the latrine.10

On April 17, journalist Paul Holt saw Irma Grese for the first time and later reported on it in the November 16 edition of the Daily Express. The journalist was led into a building that had been converted into an improvised prison. Grese was in a small cell with five other SS guards. Grese, Holt reported, wore dark breeches and leaned against the cell wall, breathing deeply and heavily. A young Frenchman in a striped blue and white prisoner's suit was standing in front of the imprisoned women when a group of armed British officers suddenly entered. The Frenchman, who had been imprisoned in the camp as a political prisoner, shouted at the former guards: „Get up!... Stand still!... Not to the lean against the wall!" The officers were astonished when they saw this. And the Frenchman now shouted almost hysterically at the six women: „You're not the masters, the British are the masters of this camp now.“ The officers could hardly believe it when they saw the German women letting the former prisoner tell them what to do, and they obediently stood up straight. As the officers were armed, the female guards probably assumed that they were about to be put up against the wall. And Holt wrote in his article that Grese looked grumpy, but seemed composed at the time. On April 23 and 24, the British made extensive film and sound recordings in the camp. Former prisoners had their say and their tormentors also had to answer questions in front of the camera. The entire horror was recorded on countless rolls of film (in 2014, the documentary „German Concentration Camps Factual Survey“ was released, in which parts of this material can be seen, and which I would like to mention here). Due to the danger of epidemics, the camp was completely burned down by the British on May 21.

Foto: @ Imperial War Museum (BU 9745)

On August 8th this photograph was taken 1945 by the pre-trial prisoners Irma Grese and Josef in the Celle prison yard

The process preparations

A royal decree to Field Marshal Montgomery authorized him to set up military tribunals to try war criminals. The law on which the prosecution was based was international law. Twelve British and one Polish officer, all lawyers, represented the 45 defendants. The court was presided over by Major General Bemey-Picklin. He was assisted by four other judges and an advisor, Judge Stirling, who provided support in legal and procedural matters. The prosecutor was Colonel Backhouse, who was head of the war crimes section of the public prosecutor's office of the Army of the Rhine. The charge was the killing of a British marine who had come to the camp by unknown means, the killing of five other named and a large number of unnamed members of Allied countries. In addition, charges were brought for the mistreatment of members of Allied nations to an extent that can no longer be determined. The killing of German prisoners was not part of the proceedings. The sentence could be death by firing squad or hanging, life imprisonment and confiscation of property. The verdict had to be confirmed by the court master, as the Neue Hannoversche Kurier informed its readers on September 18, 1945.

The trial in Lüneburg was the first war crimes trial on German soil after the end of the Second World War and caused a worldwide sensation (Belsen Trial - Trial against Josef Kramer and 44 others). Reporters from all over the world came to Lüneburg to report on the trial, and shortly before the trial began, it was almost impossible to find a free hotel room in tranquil Lüneburg. The large municipal gymnasium at Lindenstraße 30 was chosen as the venue for the public trial, which offered sufficient space but first had to be extensively remodeled. The existing surrounding gallery was equipped with stands that could hold 400 people. The seats for the judges were on one of the narrow sides and the witness stand on the opposite narrow side. Rows of seats for the defense attorneys, witnesses and journalists were set up along the long sides of the gymnasium, with signs on the pillars reading: „ALL PERSONS WILL STAND WHEN THE COURTS ENTERS." The defendants sat in three long rows one behind the other, their seats, as a well-informed reporter knew, were padded with straw, and behind them they were seated in a row. There were military policemen in the gallery. Due to the structural conditions, there were several pillars between the defendants' seats, which supported the gallery. The floor was covered with gray runners, and on one side there was a large black curtain with a screen. The entrances were separated from each other by wooden boarding, and the defendants' waiting rooms were kept separate. A long closed corridor led from their rooms directly into the courtroom. The courtroom was lit by around 20 floodlights from the Belsen camp. There were toilets and an information desk for the spectators, checkrooms, a storage room for luggage and telephone booths for the reporters. It was to be a public trial to which not only civil servants, experts and witnesses had access, but also the civilian public, who could follow the proceedings after receiving an admission ticket (Lüneburger Post of September 14, 1945). The Lord Mayor and Mayor were literally overrun by hundreds of citizens every day who wanted to apply for an admission ticket. The prison on the market square in Lüneburg, which opened in 1935, was also extensively rebuilt to accommodate the accused. As far as possible, the previous prisoners were relocated and the security measures were drastically increased. For example, the cell doors were fitted with viewing windows so that the defendants could be permanently observed. The Lüneburg prison was considered modern, it was clean, the cell floor was made of linoleum, there was a flush toilet and running water. The prisoners were given good mattresses and blankets in clean overalls. The cell windows were fitted with opaque frosted glass, and daylight could only enter unhindered at the top end. If a prisoner wanted to look out of the window, he would have had to put his chair on the table and climb up. In the morning there was coffee substitute and bread for breakfast. At lunchtime, stew with as much meat as the available rations allowed. In the evening, the prisoners were given soup and bread or bread with cheese and sausage. Tea was also served.

Some publications still state that the defendants were still in prison until would have served their sentences in Celle prison. That is not correct! On the morning of September 13, the defendants, including 19 women, were taken from the court prison in Celle into three large trucks and transferred to Lüneburg prison under heavy armored guard, as reported in the Lüneburger Post of September 14, 1945, and also described by Grese in a poem.

After a brief medical examination, the defendants were allocated to their cells and waited to be tried. The trial was scheduled to run from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. every day and was expected to last two to three weeks. In the end it was two months. One of the main reasons for this was that the trial was conducted in several languages. The trial was conducted in English and translated into German and Polish. The answers, in turn, were translated into English. This resulted in extremely long delays. Not least because there were repeated mistranslations that had to be corrected, but we will come to that later. Every morning and evening, a huge crowd gathered in front of the prison in Lüneburg to catch a glimpse of the defendants.11

Media interest in the 21-year-old Grese grew more and more as the trial progressed. A reporter from the Lüneburger Post wrote on September 14: „This is understandable, because it is all too obvious to ask why a pretty woman with even features could come into Kramer's company and act as the guardian of an abyss, the revelation of which horrified the whole world ... Many prisoners remember her from Auschwitz as the best-looking of the female guards." The course of the trial was clearly structured. After the indictment had been read out, the prosecutor would first question the witnesses. This would be followed by the reading of the written witness statements. After that, the defense experts and witnesses would have their say. The hearing of the accused was the next point, followed by the closing arguments of the prosecution and defense and the final pronouncement of the verdict. We are following the trial from the perspective of defendant no. 9, but in our research we are also constantly looking to the left and right of the courtroom, because we cannot look at the individual without his environment. And in the course of the hearings, we will find again and again that the accused shifted their responsibility to superiors, merely followed orders, talked down their involvement, repeatedly had gaps in their memory, didn't know many things , weren't interested in anything, had no knowledge anyway or weren't present at all. These answers were heard in many subsequent war crimes trials, and we still hear them today. Irma Grese was questioned before the court on October 16 and 17 and confronted with the accusations and witness statements made against her. These statements were presented to the court presented in weeks of hearings. In this documentation, we have therefore limited ourselves as far as possible to the witness statements from the trial relating to Grese. Some of these statements took up to two days, so they are presented here in summarized form. With the exception of a few abbreviations, Grese's testimony is presented here in its entirety.

Fotos: Nazi War Crime Trials at Bergen-Belsen. CWM 19810899-001. George Metcalf Archival Collection. Canadian War Museum

This final list was drawn up at the beginning of September, listing all the defendants

The process

At around nine o'clock on September 17