Irma Grese and Ilse Koch: Sisters of Satan

Irma Grese

Irma Grese was born on 1 October, 1923, in the small rural town of Wrechen in Mecklenburg. Her father, Alfred, was a dairy worker, and if not exactly a reluctant Nazi (he joined the Party in 1937) he was an uncommitted one. Irma, however, had no doubts. She was obsessed with the Party. Bullied at school and not considered particularly bright, Irma found solace in a Nazi ideology that pinpointed others as the target of their hatred; so she neglected her studies to spend more time with the Bund Deutscher Madel (League of German Maidens). This preoccupation only increased following the suicide of her mother, Berta, in 1936.

Against her father’s wishes she left school at 15, with no qualifications and no real prospects, Irma’s life became one of poorly paid, short-term casual work and increased Nazi Party activity. She would appear to have had little interest with men and even less success. Her chances of making a good marriage seemed slight. Her only attempt at self-improvement seems to have been a half-hearted application she made to train as a nurse. Predictably, her application was turned down. She continued to do casual work punctuated by periods of sustained unemployment.

In July, 1942, so she claimed, she was sent against her will by the Labour Exchange to work at Ravensbruck Concentration Camp. If it was against her will then she soon became an enthusiastic participant. So impressed with her were her new employers that in March, 1943, she was transferred to Auschwitz, where she quickly rose to be a senior guard in the SS. Whilst at Auschwitz she became notorious for her brutality and sexual deviancy. She would wander the grounds of the Camp in her SS uniform, wearing heavy boots, carrying a whip, and accompanied by her dogs. In this manner she terrorised the 30,000 mostly Jewish women under her charge. She enjoyed indulging in physical, sexual and emotional torture. She would regularly and arbitrarily beat prisoners and set her, often half-starved dogs on them. She also liked to force prisoners to commit sadistic sexual acts on each other for her personal gratification. If they refused she was not disinclined to shoot them out of hand.

Irma remained at Auschwitz for the duration of the War. As the Allies closed in on the Camp she made no effort to escape or hide. She was finally taken into custody by the British in April, 1945. Pinpointed by prisoners she had abused, she was tried for murder. At her trial she showed no remorse for what she had done and her demeanour was bad-tempered, aggressive and arrogant throughout. Her defence was that she had been forced to work at the camps and that she had merely done as she was told. Found guilty and sentenced to hang she remained defiant to the end. As the noose was being placed around neck she simply said Schnell! She was aged just 22.