Execution Tales Chapters 51 & 52
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Along with Chapters 51 & 52 I have attached pictures of the hangings of Masha Bruskina & Jenny Wanda Barkmann & Irma Grese in court at her trial. Thought they would add a bit of colour to the factual accounts of the executions
51: World War II: Female Victims of the Nazis
Alyssia turned to WWII for ideas for her own stories starting with the actual fates of women & girls executed by the Nazis. Her first efforts were straightforward recounting of killings carried out by the Germans. She entitled it “Female Victims of the Nazis”
General
There were several reasons for executing young girls in public. In the case of civilians in the occupied territories they were viewed as terrorists by the Germans & the hangings served as a grim example to the local population – if the Germans could hang a teenage girl then they could hang anyone. In the case of concentration camp prisoners it was also a visible deterrent against trying to escape or acts of sabotage. Finally the spectacle provided a morbid entertainment for the soldiers & camp guards
Masha Bruskina
On a nice bright day of the autumn of October 26th 1941 the soldiers & civilians of the German occupied city of Minsk watched two men & a young girl walk down the main street surrounded by German Guards. The two men did not attract the attention of the crowd, this was taken by the young woman walking between them. The girl’s name was Masha Bruskina, a hospital nurse accused of smuggling documents & weapons which had been used to attack a German patrol. Masha was attractive, of medium height, with light brown hair & grey eyes. Her face was heart shaped & delicate, her breasts full & firm.
On the day of her execution she wore her old school uniform, gray blouse & dark skirt with white socks. Around her neck she carried a hand drawn sign written in Russian & German: “We are partisans who shot at German soldiers”. Masha walked steadily, looking forward, conscious of the camera recording the last minutes of her young life. On a side street the soldiers paused & Masha saw the wooden beam behind the open doors of the small factory building. Three nooses were tied to the beam awaiting the necks of the condemned. Masha & the two men were ordered to halt. A German officer climbed on a single stool & tested the ropes by tugging on them & inspecting the slip knots. Satisfied he jumped to the ground & read a short execution order.
He looked at Masha & the young girl stepped forward. The soldiers removed the sign from her neck & escorted her toward one of the stools. Masha looked at the quiet expectant faces of soldiers & civilians & up at the noose. She was scared but tried not to show her fear. Her hands were tied behind her back & she couldn’t climb on the stool without help. One of the soldiers took her by the arm & helped her to step on the stool. The German officer took the rope & started to slip the noose over the girl’s head. Masha heard the clicking of the camera & felt the thin hemp rope slide down & around her neck. The officer slowly & meticulously tightened the noose until the knot nestled at the front side of her neck.
He stepped away & kicked the stool away from under her feet. The drop was very short, less than a foot, & the rope bit into Masha’s neck with deadly force. She felt herself falling & could actually see her feet hanging above the ground. The pain from the rope started to grow, grimacing in agony Masha kicked her legs & feet, her skirt riding up, & that motion caused her body to swing & turn. Strangling slowly Masha jerked violently fighting for breath her face darkening. The soldiers moved closer & watched her agony with morbid curiosity as many of them had never seen a young girl hang before. After five minutes Masha’s struggles ceased & her body hung still her bulging sightless eyes staring out over the crowd
Klava Ostrowski & Nura Ivanova
Klava was born in 1918 & was 24 when she died. She was said to be quite an attractive girl. Klava was a Komsomol member & when the Germans occupied her town of Ostrov in Russia in 1941 she & her friends organised an undercover resistance squad. On November 7th in 1942 Klava & another girl Nura Ivanova along with two men were arrested. After being interrogated all four were sentenced to death. The Germans made a big show of the hangings to intimidate the town’s people. On December 12th 1942 a wooden gallows was erected in the town square of Ostrov & the townsfolk were forced to watch the proceedings. The two men were the first to suffer with Klava & Nura having to watch while awaiting their turn.
Once the men’s bodies hung lifelessly on the gallows the girls were led up the scaffold steps their hands tied behind their backs. Klava shivered against the cold wind as her black skirt fluttered in the breeze as the soldiers lifted her onto a stool beneath the gallows beam. The executioner put the noose around her neck & one of the officers took pictures of her. The stool was taken away & Klava was left suspended by her neck her face distorted by the pain of the rope biting into her neck. As she slowly strangled it looked to the spectators as if she was riding an invisible bicycle as her legs moved rhythmically up & down. After a few minutes all movement stopped & Klava hung still. Nura also wearing a black skirt & white blouse & by now in a state of whimpering terror was then strung up beside her. She too died very hard. All four bodies were left dangling from the gallows for the rest of the day as a grim reminder to the population as a grim reminder of the consequences of resistance
Zoya Kosmodemjanskaja & Vera Voloshina
Zoya Kosmodemjanskaja was a Russian partisan. She was born in on the 14th of September 1923 & belonged to Division 9903 of the NKVD which ran some 400 agents. On the night of November 227th 1941, Zoya together with two comrades, set fire to a building in the village of Petrischtschewo near Moscow. German soldiers quickly caught one of them Wassilij Klubkow. Under interrogation he betrayed Zoya. She was arrested & tortured before being sentenced to hang. Wearing a simple top & a peasant skirt the short haired 18 year old Zoya was executed on November 29th 1941. Round her neck was hung a sign describing the reason for her execution. Just before she was pushed off the platform they had placed under the simple gallows she told the soldiers “You can’t hang all 190 million of us”. She was then hanged. Her body convulsed, legs kicking under the peasant skirt with her face displaying all of the signs of death by slow strangulation. After 10 minutes of struggle she finally hung dead
In the same partisan squad as Zoya was another young woman Vera Voloshina. She was described as a pretty 23 year old blonde. Several days after Zoya’s execution Vera was arrested. After torture Vera was also publicly hanged, in the same manner as Zoya. Unlike Zoya however Vera didn’t go to her death with words of defiance on her lips. She struggled & pleaded for her life as the noose was placed round her neck. It of course didn’t do her any good & she too was executed by “Short drop” slow hanging
Tulle
After D-Day the SS Das Reich Division was travelling up from the South of France to join the battle in Normandy. On the way they were attacked & harassed by the French Resistance. Brigadier General Lammering of Das Reich announced that Tulle would pay in “Blood & ashes” for the killing of German troops. Armoured vehicles smashed their way into the town on the 9th of June & SS troops rounded up some 500 men & women. Lammering initially directed that they should all be publicly executed, but 401 were subsequently released. The remaining 99 men & women were hanged from the balconies of houses & lamposts along the main street as the town’s people were forced to watch.
The victims hanged from the balconies were the more fortunate. The women & girls thrown off with ropes round their necks may have suffered the indignity of their skirts flying up as they fell but at least their screams of terror were cut short as their necks invariably fractured when the ropes cut short their falls. Those hanged from lamposts had their hands tied, were noosed & then simply hoisted up to slowly strangle to death. Lammering, some of his officers & a German woman secretary observed the executions from the terrace of the Café Tivoli, where they sat smoking cigarettes, drinking & taking pictures.
Auschwitz Prisoners
Roza Goldsteien, Ala Bernstein, Regina Saperstein & Estera Wajcblum were four young Polish women being held at Auschwitz. They were arrested interrogated & condemned for the theft of explosives. All four went to the gallows on January 6th 1945. Wearing their striped prison uniform dresses they were led out & made to stand on folding chairs placed under the beam. Once they had been noosed, their hands tied & their death sentences read out to the assembled inmates the chairs were taken away leaving them suspended by their necks The four young women then slowly strangled to death in front of their fellow prisoners. The spectacle was meant as a terrible warning to the other inmates of the price of resistance
22 year old Mala Zimetbaum was a Polish Jew who was interned at Auschwitz. She was the first woman to escape from the camp, but she & a young soldier named Ebek who absconded with her were soon caught & returned to the campz. Both were sentenced to hang in front of the assembled prisoners. Like Roza, Ala, Regina & Estera, Mala, in her prison uniform kicked out her life on the gallows in front of the other inmates
Eva-Marie Buch
Eva-Marie Buch was a 30 year old bookseller who was the most prominent woman involved in the Stauffenberg July 1944 plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler. After the failure of the plan she was quickly arrested by the Gestapo & then sentenced to death by hanging by the People’s Court. On the day of her execution, in her prison skirt, Eva-Marie was taken from her cell in Plotzensee Prison along with seven other condemned male plotters.
The door at the end of the corridor opened on to a courtyard. A few yards further on was the place where they would be put to death. A large curtain concealed the execution chamber. The procession halted, then one corner of the curtain was raised & the executioners appeared. There were three of them all attired in tailcoats, white gloves & top hats. They took delivery of the prisoners & led them to the other side of the curtain, followed by the officials. The chaplain wasn’t allowed to go with them
Inside there was another halt near the door. The president of the court-martial read out the sentences a few yards from the guillotine that rose in the middle of the room. After this the party moved on again past the guillotine; through an open door on their right they could see their coffins lined up in a shed. At the far end of the room the workmen had fashioned four three sided cubicles open at the front separated by sheets of black cloth: attached to a steel rod above them were lengths of rope hanging down into each cubicle.
Each prisoner had to stand on a stool; one of the executioners would slip the noose around the victim’s neck, while another pulled the stool away. This form of death, chosen by Hitler, had appealed to him for two reasons: for its degrading character & the suffering it entailed. Guillotining took a total of eleven seconds whereas the executioners at Plotzensee had been warned by the prison doctor that the bodies must not be cut down for at least twenty minutes, before which time he could not be certain of their deaths.
On Hitler’s orders the hangings were filmed with the camera lingering longest on Eva-Marie’s suffering. As she kicked & struggled Eva-Marie’s knees came up almost to her chest several times exposing her white panties under the prison skirt before she weakened & finally died. Eva-Marie’s hanging took 13 minutes in total. Subsequently it was this part of the filmed recording that proved most popular with those who saw it
Baroness Benita von Falkenhayn & Renate von Natzer
In Berlin decapitation by the axe remained in application until 1938 when the guillotine & hanging were prescribed as the only legal means of execution. One of the last famous executions in this medieval manner were those of the Baroness Benita von Falkenhayn Renate von Natzer who were convicted of spying & beheaded with the axe by the executioner Karl Groepler at the Berlin Plotzensee Prison on February 1935. One after the other they were led shuffling in their prison uniforms & chains to the place of execution, made to kneel & place their heads on the block. They were then decapitated
Martha Marek
While Martha Marek was strictly speaking a victim of the Nazis it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that she thoroughly deserved her fate. The stunningly beautiful 33 year old blonde was convicted in 1938 in Vienna of several cold blooded murders by thallium poisoning including those of two of her own children.
Two months earlier Hitler had crossed into Austria & declared the start of the Greater German Reich. It was a harsh time for justice. Martha denied everything but it didn’t save her. The prosecutor Herr Wotawa declared her to be another Lucrezia Borgia. As the death sentence was pronounced Martha broke down & sobbed.
All her appeals failed & on the cold & rainy morning of December 6th 1938 grim faced Nazi guards gave the Hitler salute as Martha was brought out into the prison yard to die. A hush fell over the yard as her hands were bound & she was made ready. As she knelt, her neck placed upon the block, the executioner raised his axe. At a signal the blade was brought swiftly down & Martha’s severed head dropped neatly into the waiting basket
Cato Bontjes Van Beek
Cato was born in 1921 & grew up in Bremen, the daughter of an artist. In 1942 she joined the “Red Orchestra” spy ring but left after only six weeks because of disagreements within the group. When the German authorities investigated the group, her name was discovered & this was enough evidence on which to arrest her charge her with treason & sentence her to death. Sobbing & pleading her innocence Cato went to the guillotine in the early evening of August the 5th 1943
Mildred Harnack
Midred was born Mildred Fish in Milwaukee USA on September 16th 1902. In 1926 she married Arvid Harnack whom she met while studying literature at Wisconsin University. In 1929 she & her husband moved to Berlin where she was a lecturer at the University. They were often invited receptions at the American Embassy where she met many influential Germans. When the war started Arvid & Mildred supported the resistance movement against the Nazi regime through their friendship with Haro Schulze-Boysen & the “Red Orchestra”.
On September 7th 1942 she was arrested & taken to Gestapo Head Quarters. At her trial in December 1942 she was sentenced to six years in prison for “Helping to prepare high treason & espionage”. On December 21st Hitler rejected the sentence & ordered another trial which took place in January 1943 & resulted in a death sentence. At 6.57 PM February 16th 1943 Mildred Harnack was guillotined, becoming the only American woman to be executed for treason in World War 11 [By September 1943 all fifty one members of the “Red Orchestra” had died, two by suicide, eight on the gallows & forty one beheaded]
Elizabeth & Hannah Gloeden
Elizabeth Gloeden was a 31 year old Berlin housewife who with her sister Hannah & husband helped shelter those who were persecuted by the Nazis, by hiding them for weeks at a time in their flat. All three were arrested by the Gestapo & subjected to torture under interrogation. On November 30th all three were guillotined at two minute intervals
Gertrud Seele
Gertrud was 28 years old at the time of her execution & was a nurse & social worker. She had been born in Berlin & served for a time in the Nazi Labour Corps. She was arrested in 1944 for helping Jews to escape Nazi persecution & for “Defeatist statements designed to undermine the morale of the people”. She was tried before the People’s court in Potsdam & sentenced to death. On the day of her execution January 12th 1945 Gertud was allowed to wear her nurse’s uniform which she had asked to be able to do. She was guillotined at 5.15 PM
Ilse Mitze
In March 1944 an 18 year old girl named Ilse Mich was charged with stealing eight vests, five pairs of panties & thirteen pairs of stockings following a bombing raid on Hagen. In her defence it was said that she had earlier helped to dig out victims. Her employer admitted that that she could be “Difficult” but added that in the main she was “Industrious & respectable”. Hagen’s medical officer however giving evidence dismissed her as “Impudent & mendacious”. Ilse was condemned to death, a sentence which caused even the local security authorities to protest. Nevertheless in May 1944 in Dortmund Prison she was dragged screaming & pleading to the guillotine & her fate proclaimed on wall posters to deter others
Marie-Louise Giraud
Louis Deibler, the last headsman in France to guillotine a woman, became so distraught & emotionally unnerved by the experience that he had resigned his position rather than have to do it again. Jacque Desfourneaux, Deibler’s replacement, was made of stronger stuff & executed five women between 1941 & 1943. All were condemned by Marshall Petain’s Vichy government.
During the war the collaborationist regime passed harsh laws of a puritanical nature to encourage higher moral values & family virtues. Revolutionary equality for all men & women had returned with a vengeance. A new law prohibiting abortion resulted in the beheading of the last of the five women, Marie-Louise Giraud, a back street abortionist who was guillotined in 1943. She did not go to her death quietly, but screaming, fighting & struggling
52: World War II: Concentration Camp Guards
Alyssia then moved on to the fates of female concentration camp guards executed by the allies for war crimes
The Stutthof Guards
In 1946 the Red Army captured the Nazis who had run the infamous Stutthof death camp including five women, Elisabeth Becker, Gerda Steinhof, Wanda Klaff, Erna Beilhardt & Jenny Wanda Barkman, who was known to the camp inmates as “The beautiful angel of death”. At their trial the SS women behaved insolently. During the interruptions they giggled & joked. Barkmann changed her hair do every day & flirted with the guards. However when the public prosecutor asked for capital punishment they all cried & pleaded for their lives to no avail & the five women were sentenced to death by hanging
They five women were executed before a large crowd in 1946 along with a number of men. The gallows were arranged in pairs with two prisoners to be hanged from each. All were to be given a slow hanging with simple slip knot nooses. The victims were first driven to the site on large military trucks hands & feet tied & noosed. They sat as the final preparations were made for their deaths. After all the trucks were in place, their back gates were opened & the war criminals made to stand, whimpering in terror, for the reading of their death warrants. For the executions the prisoners were lifted up on to the chairs & made to stand. Then the hangings began.
Not all the trucks departed at the same time, so that the last hanged were given the sight of their comrades swinging & kicking before their own trucks got underway.
All of the women died hard, swinging backwards & forwards, arms rising up backs hiking up skirts, bound legs trying to kick & stretching, trying in vain to reach the ground, feet twisting & squirming dislodging shoes, necks visibly stretching with the nooses riding high at the back, eyes bulging & tongues protruding. The prisoners remained conscious for a few minutes eventually after 10 minutes their air ran out & the struggling ceased & they hung still at the end of their ropes. Justice had been served
Irma Grese
Irma Grese was a 22 year old SS volunteer, concentration camp guard & sadistic killer & torturer of untold numbers of innocent victims at Auschwitz & Belsen. She had been nicknamed the “Beastess of Belsen” by the British Press, whose readers followed with revulsion the revelations, often by herself, of the activities of this innocent looking blonde butcher. During her trial she appeared in pictures however not as she had hoped as a heroine in a love drama but in the newsreels as her trial progressed. When the President of the court after a trial of 53 days pronounced the verdict “It is the sentence of this court that you suffer death by hanging” the listening free world was satisfied that a small measure of justice had been done.
The beautiful blonde looked the picture of Nordic health when she faced Albert Pierrepoint, the official hangman for the British War Crimes Court, on that cold December morning in 1945. Seconds later her slim neck broken she was dangling like a discarded doll in in the pit below the improvised gallows in Hamelin’s jail in the British zone of occupied Germany.
Elizabeth Lupka
Elisabeth Lupka was born on October 27, 1902 in Klein-Damner in Germany. During WW11 Lupka worked as an SS gurard in Auschwitz. She beat prisoners, including women & children & took part in the selections for the gas chambers. On June 6 1945 Lupka was arrested. In 1948 she was condemned to death in Krakow, Poland. On January 1949 at sunrise at 7.05am the gallows floor disappeared under Elisabeth’s feet. The 46 years old woman was only given a short drop which meant that she was left kicking in the air for a few minutes before hanging still
Ruth Elfriede Hildner
Ruth Eldriede Hildner was a Czech who was conscripted into concentration camp service by her Nazi Masters in 1944 when she was 25. Ruth quickly achieved a reputation for brutality, sadism & murder. Her last posting was to Flossenberg, near Hof, in Germany. In April 1945, as the US Army drew near, the guards evacuated the women forcing them on a death march to another camp in Czechoslovakia. On the way Hildner beat the women with rods & whips causing a number of deaths. In early May & Hildner & the other guards fled the Czech camp. Hildner melted into the hordes of refugees but was recognised & arrested in April 1947. On Friday May 2nd 1947 she was tried & found guilty of war crimes. Hildner was executed on the same day at Prague Central Prison by the Czech method of pole hanging taking several minutes to die. She was 28
Maria Mandel & Therese Rosi Brandel
On the 24th of January 1948 36 year old Maria Mandel & 46 year old Therese Rosi Brandel were prepared for execution. Both women had been guards at Aucschwitz & they had been condemned for their roles in the atrocities that had been perpetrated at the camp.
The hangings commenced at 7.09am with Maria Mandel & four male prisoners. Each prisoner in turn was made to mount a simple step up. When they were noosed the step was removed leaving them suspended slowly strangling to death. The four men were hanged one at a time followed by Maria Mandel. It is reported that it was 15 minutes before they could be declared dead. A second group of five prisoners, all men were hanged at 7.43am with a further five following them at 8.16am.
The final group comprising five men & the other condemned woman, Therese Rosi Brandel went to the gallows at 8.48am. The sequence used in the execution of the group containing Mandel was repeated in the case of Brandel
51: World War II: Female Victims of the Nazis
Alyssia turned to WWII for ideas for her own stories starting with the actual fates of women & girls executed by the Nazis. Her first efforts were straightforward recounting of killings carried out by the Germans. She entitled it “Female Victims of the Nazis”
General
There were several reasons for executing young girls in public. In the case of civilians in the occupied territories they were viewed as terrorists by the Germans & the hangings served as a grim example to the local population – if the Germans could hang a teenage girl then they could hang anyone. In the case of concentration camp prisoners it was also a visible deterrent against trying to escape or acts of sabotage. Finally the spectacle provided a morbid entertainment for the soldiers & camp guards
Masha Bruskina
On a nice bright day of the autumn of October 26th 1941 the soldiers & civilians of the German occupied city of Minsk watched two men & a young girl walk down the main street surrounded by German Guards. The two men did not attract the attention of the crowd, this was taken by the young woman walking between them. The girl’s name was Masha Bruskina, a hospital nurse accused of smuggling documents & weapons which had been used to attack a German patrol. Masha was attractive, of medium height, with light brown hair & grey eyes. Her face was heart shaped & delicate, her breasts full & firm.
On the day of her execution she wore her old school uniform, gray blouse & dark skirt with white socks. Around her neck she carried a hand drawn sign written in Russian & German: “We are partisans who shot at German soldiers”. Masha walked steadily, looking forward, conscious of the camera recording the last minutes of her young life. On a side street the soldiers paused & Masha saw the wooden beam behind the open doors of the small factory building. Three nooses were tied to the beam awaiting the necks of the condemned. Masha & the two men were ordered to halt. A German officer climbed on a single stool & tested the ropes by tugging on them & inspecting the slip knots. Satisfied he jumped to the ground & read a short execution order.
He looked at Masha & the young girl stepped forward. The soldiers removed the sign from her neck & escorted her toward one of the stools. Masha looked at the quiet expectant faces of soldiers & civilians & up at the noose. She was scared but tried not to show her fear. Her hands were tied behind her back & she couldn’t climb on the stool without help. One of the soldiers took her by the arm & helped her to step on the stool. The German officer took the rope & started to slip the noose over the girl’s head. Masha heard the clicking of the camera & felt the thin hemp rope slide down & around her neck. The officer slowly & meticulously tightened the noose until the knot nestled at the front side of her neck.
He stepped away & kicked the stool away from under her feet. The drop was very short, less than a foot, & the rope bit into Masha’s neck with deadly force. She felt herself falling & could actually see her feet hanging above the ground. The pain from the rope started to grow, grimacing in agony Masha kicked her legs & feet, her skirt riding up, & that motion caused her body to swing & turn. Strangling slowly Masha jerked violently fighting for breath her face darkening. The soldiers moved closer & watched her agony with morbid curiosity as many of them had never seen a young girl hang before. After five minutes Masha’s struggles ceased & her body hung still her bulging sightless eyes staring out over the crowd
Klava Ostrowski & Nura Ivanova
Klava was born in 1918 & was 24 when she died. She was said to be quite an attractive girl. Klava was a Komsomol member & when the Germans occupied her town of Ostrov in Russia in 1941 she & her friends organised an undercover resistance squad. On November 7th in 1942 Klava & another girl Nura Ivanova along with two men were arrested. After being interrogated all four were sentenced to death. The Germans made a big show of the hangings to intimidate the town’s people. On December 12th 1942 a wooden gallows was erected in the town square of Ostrov & the townsfolk were forced to watch the proceedings. The two men were the first to suffer with Klava & Nura having to watch while awaiting their turn.
Once the men’s bodies hung lifelessly on the gallows the girls were led up the scaffold steps their hands tied behind their backs. Klava shivered against the cold wind as her black skirt fluttered in the breeze as the soldiers lifted her onto a stool beneath the gallows beam. The executioner put the noose around her neck & one of the officers took pictures of her. The stool was taken away & Klava was left suspended by her neck her face distorted by the pain of the rope biting into her neck. As she slowly strangled it looked to the spectators as if she was riding an invisible bicycle as her legs moved rhythmically up & down. After a few minutes all movement stopped & Klava hung still. Nura also wearing a black skirt & white blouse & by now in a state of whimpering terror was then strung up beside her. She too died very hard. All four bodies were left dangling from the gallows for the rest of the day as a grim reminder to the population as a grim reminder of the consequences of resistance
Zoya Kosmodemjanskaja & Vera Voloshina
Zoya Kosmodemjanskaja was a Russian partisan. She was born in on the 14th of September 1923 & belonged to Division 9903 of the NKVD which ran some 400 agents. On the night of November 227th 1941, Zoya together with two comrades, set fire to a building in the village of Petrischtschewo near Moscow. German soldiers quickly caught one of them Wassilij Klubkow. Under interrogation he betrayed Zoya. She was arrested & tortured before being sentenced to hang. Wearing a simple top & a peasant skirt the short haired 18 year old Zoya was executed on November 29th 1941. Round her neck was hung a sign describing the reason for her execution. Just before she was pushed off the platform they had placed under the simple gallows she told the soldiers “You can’t hang all 190 million of us”. She was then hanged. Her body convulsed, legs kicking under the peasant skirt with her face displaying all of the signs of death by slow strangulation. After 10 minutes of struggle she finally hung dead
In the same partisan squad as Zoya was another young woman Vera Voloshina. She was described as a pretty 23 year old blonde. Several days after Zoya’s execution Vera was arrested. After torture Vera was also publicly hanged, in the same manner as Zoya. Unlike Zoya however Vera didn’t go to her death with words of defiance on her lips. She struggled & pleaded for her life as the noose was placed round her neck. It of course didn’t do her any good & she too was executed by “Short drop” slow hanging
Tulle
After D-Day the SS Das Reich Division was travelling up from the South of France to join the battle in Normandy. On the way they were attacked & harassed by the French Resistance. Brigadier General Lammering of Das Reich announced that Tulle would pay in “Blood & ashes” for the killing of German troops. Armoured vehicles smashed their way into the town on the 9th of June & SS troops rounded up some 500 men & women. Lammering initially directed that they should all be publicly executed, but 401 were subsequently released. The remaining 99 men & women were hanged from the balconies of houses & lamposts along the main street as the town’s people were forced to watch.
The victims hanged from the balconies were the more fortunate. The women & girls thrown off with ropes round their necks may have suffered the indignity of their skirts flying up as they fell but at least their screams of terror were cut short as their necks invariably fractured when the ropes cut short their falls. Those hanged from lamposts had their hands tied, were noosed & then simply hoisted up to slowly strangle to death. Lammering, some of his officers & a German woman secretary observed the executions from the terrace of the Café Tivoli, where they sat smoking cigarettes, drinking & taking pictures.
Auschwitz Prisoners
Roza Goldsteien, Ala Bernstein, Regina Saperstein & Estera Wajcblum were four young Polish women being held at Auschwitz. They were arrested interrogated & condemned for the theft of explosives. All four went to the gallows on January 6th 1945. Wearing their striped prison uniform dresses they were led out & made to stand on folding chairs placed under the beam. Once they had been noosed, their hands tied & their death sentences read out to the assembled inmates the chairs were taken away leaving them suspended by their necks The four young women then slowly strangled to death in front of their fellow prisoners. The spectacle was meant as a terrible warning to the other inmates of the price of resistance
22 year old Mala Zimetbaum was a Polish Jew who was interned at Auschwitz. She was the first woman to escape from the camp, but she & a young soldier named Ebek who absconded with her were soon caught & returned to the campz. Both were sentenced to hang in front of the assembled prisoners. Like Roza, Ala, Regina & Estera, Mala, in her prison uniform kicked out her life on the gallows in front of the other inmates
Eva-Marie Buch
Eva-Marie Buch was a 30 year old bookseller who was the most prominent woman involved in the Stauffenberg July 1944 plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler. After the failure of the plan she was quickly arrested by the Gestapo & then sentenced to death by hanging by the People’s Court. On the day of her execution, in her prison skirt, Eva-Marie was taken from her cell in Plotzensee Prison along with seven other condemned male plotters.
The door at the end of the corridor opened on to a courtyard. A few yards further on was the place where they would be put to death. A large curtain concealed the execution chamber. The procession halted, then one corner of the curtain was raised & the executioners appeared. There were three of them all attired in tailcoats, white gloves & top hats. They took delivery of the prisoners & led them to the other side of the curtain, followed by the officials. The chaplain wasn’t allowed to go with them
Inside there was another halt near the door. The president of the court-martial read out the sentences a few yards from the guillotine that rose in the middle of the room. After this the party moved on again past the guillotine; through an open door on their right they could see their coffins lined up in a shed. At the far end of the room the workmen had fashioned four three sided cubicles open at the front separated by sheets of black cloth: attached to a steel rod above them were lengths of rope hanging down into each cubicle.
Each prisoner had to stand on a stool; one of the executioners would slip the noose around the victim’s neck, while another pulled the stool away. This form of death, chosen by Hitler, had appealed to him for two reasons: for its degrading character & the suffering it entailed. Guillotining took a total of eleven seconds whereas the executioners at Plotzensee had been warned by the prison doctor that the bodies must not be cut down for at least twenty minutes, before which time he could not be certain of their deaths.
On Hitler’s orders the hangings were filmed with the camera lingering longest on Eva-Marie’s suffering. As she kicked & struggled Eva-Marie’s knees came up almost to her chest several times exposing her white panties under the prison skirt before she weakened & finally died. Eva-Marie’s hanging took 13 minutes in total. Subsequently it was this part of the filmed recording that proved most popular with those who saw it
Baroness Benita von Falkenhayn & Renate von Natzer
In Berlin decapitation by the axe remained in application until 1938 when the guillotine & hanging were prescribed as the only legal means of execution. One of the last famous executions in this medieval manner were those of the Baroness Benita von Falkenhayn Renate von Natzer who were convicted of spying & beheaded with the axe by the executioner Karl Groepler at the Berlin Plotzensee Prison on February 1935. One after the other they were led shuffling in their prison uniforms & chains to the place of execution, made to kneel & place their heads on the block. They were then decapitated
Martha Marek
While Martha Marek was strictly speaking a victim of the Nazis it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that she thoroughly deserved her fate. The stunningly beautiful 33 year old blonde was convicted in 1938 in Vienna of several cold blooded murders by thallium poisoning including those of two of her own children.
Two months earlier Hitler had crossed into Austria & declared the start of the Greater German Reich. It was a harsh time for justice. Martha denied everything but it didn’t save her. The prosecutor Herr Wotawa declared her to be another Lucrezia Borgia. As the death sentence was pronounced Martha broke down & sobbed.
All her appeals failed & on the cold & rainy morning of December 6th 1938 grim faced Nazi guards gave the Hitler salute as Martha was brought out into the prison yard to die. A hush fell over the yard as her hands were bound & she was made ready. As she knelt, her neck placed upon the block, the executioner raised his axe. At a signal the blade was brought swiftly down & Martha’s severed head dropped neatly into the waiting basket
Cato Bontjes Van Beek
Cato was born in 1921 & grew up in Bremen, the daughter of an artist. In 1942 she joined the “Red Orchestra” spy ring but left after only six weeks because of disagreements within the group. When the German authorities investigated the group, her name was discovered & this was enough evidence on which to arrest her charge her with treason & sentence her to death. Sobbing & pleading her innocence Cato went to the guillotine in the early evening of August the 5th 1943
Mildred Harnack
Midred was born Mildred Fish in Milwaukee USA on September 16th 1902. In 1926 she married Arvid Harnack whom she met while studying literature at Wisconsin University. In 1929 she & her husband moved to Berlin where she was a lecturer at the University. They were often invited receptions at the American Embassy where she met many influential Germans. When the war started Arvid & Mildred supported the resistance movement against the Nazi regime through their friendship with Haro Schulze-Boysen & the “Red Orchestra”.
On September 7th 1942 she was arrested & taken to Gestapo Head Quarters. At her trial in December 1942 she was sentenced to six years in prison for “Helping to prepare high treason & espionage”. On December 21st Hitler rejected the sentence & ordered another trial which took place in January 1943 & resulted in a death sentence. At 6.57 PM February 16th 1943 Mildred Harnack was guillotined, becoming the only American woman to be executed for treason in World War 11 [By September 1943 all fifty one members of the “Red Orchestra” had died, two by suicide, eight on the gallows & forty one beheaded]
Elizabeth & Hannah Gloeden
Elizabeth Gloeden was a 31 year old Berlin housewife who with her sister Hannah & husband helped shelter those who were persecuted by the Nazis, by hiding them for weeks at a time in their flat. All three were arrested by the Gestapo & subjected to torture under interrogation. On November 30th all three were guillotined at two minute intervals
Gertrud Seele
Gertrud was 28 years old at the time of her execution & was a nurse & social worker. She had been born in Berlin & served for a time in the Nazi Labour Corps. She was arrested in 1944 for helping Jews to escape Nazi persecution & for “Defeatist statements designed to undermine the morale of the people”. She was tried before the People’s court in Potsdam & sentenced to death. On the day of her execution January 12th 1945 Gertud was allowed to wear her nurse’s uniform which she had asked to be able to do. She was guillotined at 5.15 PM
Ilse Mitze
In March 1944 an 18 year old girl named Ilse Mich was charged with stealing eight vests, five pairs of panties & thirteen pairs of stockings following a bombing raid on Hagen. In her defence it was said that she had earlier helped to dig out victims. Her employer admitted that that she could be “Difficult” but added that in the main she was “Industrious & respectable”. Hagen’s medical officer however giving evidence dismissed her as “Impudent & mendacious”. Ilse was condemned to death, a sentence which caused even the local security authorities to protest. Nevertheless in May 1944 in Dortmund Prison she was dragged screaming & pleading to the guillotine & her fate proclaimed on wall posters to deter others
Marie-Louise Giraud
Louis Deibler, the last headsman in France to guillotine a woman, became so distraught & emotionally unnerved by the experience that he had resigned his position rather than have to do it again. Jacque Desfourneaux, Deibler’s replacement, was made of stronger stuff & executed five women between 1941 & 1943. All were condemned by Marshall Petain’s Vichy government.
During the war the collaborationist regime passed harsh laws of a puritanical nature to encourage higher moral values & family virtues. Revolutionary equality for all men & women had returned with a vengeance. A new law prohibiting abortion resulted in the beheading of the last of the five women, Marie-Louise Giraud, a back street abortionist who was guillotined in 1943. She did not go to her death quietly, but screaming, fighting & struggling
52: World War II: Concentration Camp Guards
Alyssia then moved on to the fates of female concentration camp guards executed by the allies for war crimes
The Stutthof Guards
In 1946 the Red Army captured the Nazis who had run the infamous Stutthof death camp including five women, Elisabeth Becker, Gerda Steinhof, Wanda Klaff, Erna Beilhardt & Jenny Wanda Barkman, who was known to the camp inmates as “The beautiful angel of death”. At their trial the SS women behaved insolently. During the interruptions they giggled & joked. Barkmann changed her hair do every day & flirted with the guards. However when the public prosecutor asked for capital punishment they all cried & pleaded for their lives to no avail & the five women were sentenced to death by hanging
They five women were executed before a large crowd in 1946 along with a number of men. The gallows were arranged in pairs with two prisoners to be hanged from each. All were to be given a slow hanging with simple slip knot nooses. The victims were first driven to the site on large military trucks hands & feet tied & noosed. They sat as the final preparations were made for their deaths. After all the trucks were in place, their back gates were opened & the war criminals made to stand, whimpering in terror, for the reading of their death warrants. For the executions the prisoners were lifted up on to the chairs & made to stand. Then the hangings began.
Not all the trucks departed at the same time, so that the last hanged were given the sight of their comrades swinging & kicking before their own trucks got underway.
All of the women died hard, swinging backwards & forwards, arms rising up backs hiking up skirts, bound legs trying to kick & stretching, trying in vain to reach the ground, feet twisting & squirming dislodging shoes, necks visibly stretching with the nooses riding high at the back, eyes bulging & tongues protruding. The prisoners remained conscious for a few minutes eventually after 10 minutes their air ran out & the struggling ceased & they hung still at the end of their ropes. Justice had been served
Irma Grese
Irma Grese was a 22 year old SS volunteer, concentration camp guard & sadistic killer & torturer of untold numbers of innocent victims at Auschwitz & Belsen. She had been nicknamed the “Beastess of Belsen” by the British Press, whose readers followed with revulsion the revelations, often by herself, of the activities of this innocent looking blonde butcher. During her trial she appeared in pictures however not as she had hoped as a heroine in a love drama but in the newsreels as her trial progressed. When the President of the court after a trial of 53 days pronounced the verdict “It is the sentence of this court that you suffer death by hanging” the listening free world was satisfied that a small measure of justice had been done.
The beautiful blonde looked the picture of Nordic health when she faced Albert Pierrepoint, the official hangman for the British War Crimes Court, on that cold December morning in 1945. Seconds later her slim neck broken she was dangling like a discarded doll in in the pit below the improvised gallows in Hamelin’s jail in the British zone of occupied Germany.
Elizabeth Lupka
Elisabeth Lupka was born on October 27, 1902 in Klein-Damner in Germany. During WW11 Lupka worked as an SS gurard in Auschwitz. She beat prisoners, including women & children & took part in the selections for the gas chambers. On June 6 1945 Lupka was arrested. In 1948 she was condemned to death in Krakow, Poland. On January 1949 at sunrise at 7.05am the gallows floor disappeared under Elisabeth’s feet. The 46 years old woman was only given a short drop which meant that she was left kicking in the air for a few minutes before hanging still
Ruth Elfriede Hildner
Ruth Eldriede Hildner was a Czech who was conscripted into concentration camp service by her Nazi Masters in 1944 when she was 25. Ruth quickly achieved a reputation for brutality, sadism & murder. Her last posting was to Flossenberg, near Hof, in Germany. In April 1945, as the US Army drew near, the guards evacuated the women forcing them on a death march to another camp in Czechoslovakia. On the way Hildner beat the women with rods & whips causing a number of deaths. In early May & Hildner & the other guards fled the Czech camp. Hildner melted into the hordes of refugees but was recognised & arrested in April 1947. On Friday May 2nd 1947 she was tried & found guilty of war crimes. Hildner was executed on the same day at Prague Central Prison by the Czech method of pole hanging taking several minutes to die. She was 28
Maria Mandel & Therese Rosi Brandel
On the 24th of January 1948 36 year old Maria Mandel & 46 year old Therese Rosi Brandel were prepared for execution. Both women had been guards at Aucschwitz & they had been condemned for their roles in the atrocities that had been perpetrated at the camp.
The hangings commenced at 7.09am with Maria Mandel & four male prisoners. Each prisoner in turn was made to mount a simple step up. When they were noosed the step was removed leaving them suspended slowly strangling to death. The four men were hanged one at a time followed by Maria Mandel. It is reported that it was 15 minutes before they could be declared dead. A second group of five prisoners, all men were hanged at 7.43am with a further five following them at 8.16am.
The final group comprising five men & the other condemned woman, Therese Rosi Brandel went to the gallows at 8.48am. The sequence used in the execution of the group containing Mandel was repeated in the case of Brandel
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It's a nice account of the facts but it seems it missed the wrapping up factor. How Alyssia reacted to her reading? is she just making a rehearsal and investigation for a paper? or this investigation is aimed to satisfy some hidden pleasures?
Buch was guillotined which brings into question how much of all of this is actually fact or made up…….
The factual parts are 95% accurate of it is factual however on occasion I have used some poetic licence to move on the narrative - as does Alyssia
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Forum > Public / Stories > Execution Tales Chapters 51 & 52