Female guards in Nazi concentration camps

The Aufseherinnen were female guards in Nazi concentration camps during the Holocaust. Of the 55,000 guards who served in Nazi concentration camps, about 3,700 were women. In 1942, the first female guards arrived at Auschwitz and Majdanek from Ravensbrück. The year after, the Nazis began conscripting women because of a guard shortage. The German title for this position, Aufseherin (plural Aufseherinnen) means female overseer or attendant. Later female guards were dispersed to Bolzano (1944–45), Kaiserwald-Riga (1943-44), Mauthausen (March–May 1945), Neue Bremm (1943–44), Stutthof (1942–45), Vaivara (1943–44), Vught (1943–44), and at other Nazi concentration camps, subcamps, work camps, detention camps, etc.

Female guards were generally from the lower to middle class and had no relevant work experience; their professional background varied: one source mentions former matrons, hairdressers, tramcar-conductresses, opera singers or retired teachers. Volunteers were recruited by ads in German newspapers asking for women to show their love for the Reich and join the SS-Gefolge ("SS-Retinue", an SS support and service organisation for women). Additionally, some were conscripted based on data in their SS files. The League of German Girls acted as a vehicle of indoctrination for many of the women. At one of the post-war hearings, Oberaufseherin Herta Haase-Breitmann-Schmidt, head female overseer, claimed that her female guards were not full-fledged SS women. 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. Many of them belonged to the Waffen-SS and to the SS-Helferinnen Corps. Some female guards who served in the camps belonged to the Allgemeine-SS or the SS-Gefolge. Other women, such as Therese Brandl and Irmtraut Sell, belonged to the Totenkopf ("skull") units.

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