Women SS Guards
"People don't like to think that women can be so cruel" (McGuinness).
The Beginning
In the early days of the camp, both prisoners and guards were from Lichtenburg prison. Many of the guards, including chief guard Johanna Langefeld, still believed their "role was to 're-educate prostitutes'" (Helm, 30). It quickly became apparent, however, what was expected of them.
Camp commandant, Max Koegel, established a 'punishment block' where women would be sent for 'crimes,' such as repeated lateness, not making their beds according to the rules, refusing an order, or even 'insulting the Fuhrer.' "Prisoners sentenced to 'aggravated arrest'...were locked in a dark cell with no mattress and no blanket, just a bucket and nothing else" (Helm, 29). Koegal decided who went to the punishment block with no consultation from Langefeld.
Several guards left in those early days because they were unhappy about the conditions. One guard, who came from Lichtenburg, was dismissed for being 'too kind.'
War's Progression
As the war progressed, Ravensbrück became a training camp for women guards. "Some 3,500 women worked as Nazi concentration camp guards, and all of them started out at Ravensbrück. Many later worked in death camps such as Auschwitz-Birkenau or Bergen-Belsen" (McGuinness).
The SS would advertise for "Healthy, female workers between the ages of 20 and 40 wanted for a military site" (McGuinness). Many of the women were poor and had few career choices. "A job at a concentration camp meant higher wages, comfortable accommodation and financial independence" (McGuinness). Many others had been indoctrinated in Nazi youth groups. "They felt they were supporting society by doing something against its enemies" (McGuinness).
Guards were housed in villas "amidst the pine tress looking over the lake. Just a hundred yards or so outside the camp walls, they convenient for the camp, but far enough away to allow a sense of separation after work" (Helm, 30). From their balconies, they could view the forest and the lake. However, from their bedrooms, they would see "chain-gangs of prisoners and the chimneys of the gas chamber" (McGuinness). Years later, a former woman guard would say, "It was the most beautiful time of my life" (McGuinness).
Embodied Brutality/Forced Labor
Guards treated prisoners brutally with beatings, torture, and death. While Langefeld assigned tasks and general rules for the guards, many of them followed Koegel's lead when it came to treatment. "From her office, Langefeld could see the women brought in daily from the sandpit with bleeding legs and arms. And even from her apartment she could hear the women's screams" (Helm, 31).
"They liked it probably because it gave them power. It gave them lots of power over the prisoners. Some prisoners were very badly treated. Beaten." - Selma van de Perre, Ravensbrück survivor (McGuinness)
Gertrud Rabensstein, known at Lichtenburg as 'Iron Gustav,' was particularly brutal. In what she considered a game which she named 'Abdecken' or 'roof falling, "she would tell a prisoner to shovel soil from a massive pile by tunnelling from underneath until the pile started caving in. The prisoner had to keep shovelling till eventually the pile collapsed on her and she was buried alive" (Helm, 33).
Guards yelled and swore at the prisoners as they forced them to work shoveling sand, hauling rocks or sacks of coal, weaving reeds or pulling giant rollers across land for road construction. They would beat them, and kick the ones who passed out. Road construction or working at the onsite factory were the only forced jobs which had a purpose. For instance, shoveling sand from one pile to another, and then back again was pointless and used as a means of degrading and torturing the women.
Kapos
Some prisoners, those who were the toughest and hardened criminals at Lichtenburg, were chosen to be kapos. Kapos were selected to be guards over the other prisoners. Depsite being prisoners themselves, the kapos fell in line with the SS guards, issuing brutal punishments to those under their watch.
Trials
Of the 3,500 women who were SS guards, "only 77 were brought to trial. And very few were actually convicted" (McGuinness).
Ravensbrück guards were prosecuted over the course of twenty years after the war ended with the last trial taking place in 1965-66. They were tried throughout Poland, East Germany, and the Soviet Union. "In 1947 a Polish court found former Ravensbrück camp guard Maria Mandel guilty and sentenced her to death" (United States Holocaust Memorial Museum). East German courts sentenced guards to prison. Guards in the Soviet trials were given prison sentences, however, "most were pardoned or released early in the mid-1950s" (United States Holocaust Memorial Museum). Herte Bothe was one of the guards pardoned after only a few years in prison. In 1999, she recorded an interview right before her death. "She remained unrepentant" - "Did I make a mistake? No. The mistake was that it was a concentration camp, but I had to go to it, otherwise I would have been put into it myself. That was my mistake." (McGuinness).
Guards often gave this as a reason for not leaving their positions. "But it was not true. Records show that some new recruits did leave Ravensbrück as soon as they realised what the job involved. They were allowed to go and did not suffer negative consequences" (McGuinness).
During the trials, media made use embodied rhetoric when it came to the SS guards. Irma Grese was dubbed the "beautiful beast" by the press. "Young, attractive and blonde, she was found guilty of murder and sentenced to death by hanging" (McGuinness).
Johanna Langefeld
Johanna Langefeld's story was different, however. While she was awaiting trial in Krakow, a group of Polish Ravensbrück survivors executed an escape plan for Langefeld. She hid from Polish authorities for ten years before she snuck back into Germany. The story remained secret for over 70 years "because its disclosure meant certain punishment for both the German guards and the Polish prisoners" (pffamerica). Her story is told in a recent documentary, "The Case of Johanna Langefeld."