Irma Grese

Lore & Background

Irma Grese was born in Wrechen, a rural village, to Alfred Anton Albert Grese and Berta Wilhelmine Winter. She was the third of five children. She left school at fourteen, worked at a dairy factory and as a retail clerk, then became an apprentice aide at the Hohenlychen Sanatorium, where she was mentored by Karl Gebhardt. She was let go in 1941 for not meeting expectations, and Gebhardt gave her contact information for a colleague at Ravensbrück concentration camp. At Birkenau, she worked as a telephone operator before being assigned to oversee a Strafkommando. Survivors testified that she committed violent acts including using a rubber truncheon, pistol, and whip, sending prisoners to gas chambers during selections, and ordering strenuous punitive exercises. Claims about her sexual relations with SS personnel and prisoners were made by survivors, including that she had affairs with Josef Mengele and Josef Kramer, and that her interactions with imprisoned Jewish women were sadistic. She remained at Birkenau until January 1945, then transferred briefly back to Ravensbrück before her final assignment to Bergen-Belsen in early March 1945. At Bergen-Belsen, Grese served as Arbeitsdienstführerin and Rapportführerin for three-and-a-half weeks. She opposed a planned transfer because she wanted to stay with her lover, Oberscharführer Franz Wolfgang Hatzinger. She repeated torturous acts at Bergen-Belsen, including forcing prisoners to perform strenuous exercises. She was captured after the Allied occupation and tried at the Belsen trial, where she was found guilty of war crimes and sentenced to death. She was hanged on 13 December 1945.

Reader's Guide

Irma Grese's significance lies in her role as a female Nazi concentration camp guard who committed extreme atrocities, and in her status as the youngest woman judicially executed under British law in the twentieth century. Her case illustrates the participation of women in the Nazi camp system and the brutality that could be inflicted by individuals in positions of authority. The conflicting accounts of her upbringing—her father's religious conservatism versus her own embrace of Nazi ideology—highlight the complex personal motivations behind such service. Survivor testimonies, though disputed in some details (such as the duration of her command of a punishment detail), consistently describe her as sadistic and violent. Her execution at age 22 underscores the severity of her crimes as judged by the Allied tribunal. The legacy of Irma Grese remains a subject of historical study, particularly regarding the psychology of perpetrators and the role of gender in the Holocaust. Her notoriety as the 'Hyena of Auschwitz' and 'Beast of Belsen' persists in popular memory, though historians caution against sensationalism, focusing instead on the documented evidence of her actions and the legal proceedings that followed.

Did You Know?

• Irma Grese was the third of five children.
• She was hanged on 13 December 1945 at age 22, making her the youngest woman judicially executed under British law in the twentieth century.
• At Bergen-Belsen, she opposed a planned transfer because she wanted to stay with her lover, Oberscharführer Franz Wolfgang Hatzinger.