Ravensbruck Concentration Camp was an all female camp established inside of the Third
Reich.
Many of the worst female guards of the camps were trained here under evil overseer Maria
Mandel who personally made sure these women knew how to inflict violent beatings and instil
a reign of terror.
But many of the female guards were later sentenced to death and were executed for their involvement
in the mass murder and selections at camps such as Bergen-Belsen and Auschwitz.
What shocked many of the allied soldiers after the war was the age of some of the women as
many were in their twenties when they went to their deaths at the gallows.
But there were a number of older women, including one lady who served inside many different
camps, but she was known for her evil and disgusting treatment and comments towards
other prisoners.
Emma Zimmer was later executed at Hamelin Prison, and the 60 year old was hanged by
British executioner Albert Pierrepoint.
But what did she do, and why was she so evil?
Join us today as we look at her, and remember to support our channel please make sure to
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Emma Zimmer was born on the 14th August 1888, in Hassmersheim in Baden-Wurttemberg.
Her father was a pharmacist, and little is known about her life prior to Hitler’s rise
to power in Germany.
However in 1939 she became a guard at the Lichtenburg concentration camp.
This camp specifically was one of the first to be built by the Nazis and was opened inside
a Renaissance Castle, and it held around 2000 male prisoners from 1933 to 1937, and then
from 1937 to 1939 it held female prisoners.
It was later closed when Ravensbruck was opened, and all female camp which replaced Lichtenburg
as the main camp for Female prisoners.
It became rather overcrowded and the conditions at the camp were poor with disease and starvation
being common there, even before the Second World War broke out.
Whilst at Lichtenburg, in 1938 Emma Zimmer became a guard and she also rose to the position
as the assistant camp leader where she served under Johanna Langefeld.
Langefeld herself would be known for her brutality and she was involved in the selection processes
at Ravensbruck in which many women were murdered inside of the Action T4 program.
But working alongside Langefeld, Emma Zimmer then transferred across to Ravensbruck herself,
and she also became the assistant chief leader there which was rather senior.
Heinrich Himmler had ordered the construction of Ravensbruck and it was specifically stated
that it would hold exclusively female prisoners.
When the camp’s first women were transferred, 900 women from Lichtenburg arrived along with
guards such as Emma Zimmer.
As the months rolled on and the Second World War began, the capacity of the camp had already
exceeded and even by summer 1941 earlier on in the conflict, the rations at Ravsnsbruck
were reduced from what they should have been.
During it’s time in operation, between 1939 and 1945 around 132,000 female prisoners passed
through the camp system there, and it’s believed that around 50,000 died from disease,
starvation and overwork.
Around 2,200 were murdered inside of the gas chambers also there.
At Ravensbruck Emma Zimmer was one of the most senior guards and was regarded as one
of the first chief women officers, and she also got involved in the selections there
with prisoners being then sent to the Bernberg Euthanasia Centre near to Berlin.
She was known at Ravensbruck for being virulent and sadistic and she was hated by the women
prisoners.
When Zimmer came to Ravensbruck, she was already rather old in terms of the other guards that
were there, but then she was transferred again but this time she would be sent to Auschwitz
II.
In October 1942 she became the assistant camp leader at Auschwitz II Birkenau, which was
the main extermination element of the camp.
Each day thousands of people were being transported to Auschwitz, and were being selected to go
straight to their deaths as soon as they arrived there.
Emma Zimmer was involved in the selections, and she would sent many women and children
to their deaths inside the gas chambers when they arrived.
She was also feared at Auschwitz, and one prisoner told of her threats after the war.
At a post war trial that sought to deal with a number of war criminals and former concentration
camp staff, the prisoner in question mentioned Zimmer and she stated, ‘Our supervisor was
an old and mean SS woman called Emma Zimmer.
She was vicious and dangerous and frightening us constantly with threats, proclaiming in
a sadistic voice, ‘I will report you and then you will go away, you know where?
Just one way up the chimney.
We hated her and were scared of her.’
With this, it was clear that she knew what was happening at the camps and she knew the
death and destruction that was happening at Auschwitz.
On the 1st June 1943, one month before she turned 55, she was granted permission to stay
on as a member of staff and as a female overseer at Ravensbruck.
At the time it was believed she was too old to perform her duty, but because of her reputation
and experience she was allowed to stay on at the camps.
She was later also awarded the War Merit Cross Second Class without swords for her involvement
at the camps, but later after the war had come to an end she was brought to trial.
Emma Zimmer stood in front of the judges at the Seventh Ravensbruck Trial, a series of
trials that aimed to deal with the former members of staff and guards of Ravensbruck.
Many people who stood trial were later sentenced to death for their involvements in crimes
against humanity, and in total 38 defendants were tried, with 21 of them being women.
20 of the defendants were given death sentences, and one of them was Emma Zimmer.
At her trial, there was a large degree of evidence brought forward about her and her
crimes, and the courtroom heard of the fear that she instilled into prisoners.
They also heard how she was involved in selecting inmates for the gas chambers, and also mistreatment
of inmates of an Allied nationality.
Alongside Ida Scheriter, a Labour department warden, Emma Zimmer was sentenced to death
and was then executed on the 20th September 1948, 3 years after the war had come to an
end.
She was transferred to Hamelin Prison, where a large number of Nazi War criminals were
executed by the British executioner Albert Pierrepoint on gallows that had been created
there.
She was kept in her cell, but then before Pierrepoint met with her to measure her and
weigh her before he then calculate the drop needed to kill her instantly.
He used the long drop method to execute hundreds of Nazi war criminals, and he was rather reliable
at doing this, preferring to instantly snap the necks of the condemned rather than strangling
them to death.
On the day of her execution, she made her way into the condemned cells and was led by
Pierrepoint and his assistant.
He then placed a hood over her head, and then the noose over her head, before she was shuffled
over a chalk X that Pierrepoint had drawn on the floor.
As soon as she was secured and the noose was checked, he pushed the lever and Emma Zimmer
a woman who had inflicted so much terror onto prisoners was instantly executed.
She was 60 years old when she was killed.
Emma Zimmer was just one of a number of female concentration camp guards who were executed
after the Second World War.
Women such as Irma Grese, Elisabeth Volkenrath and Maria Mandel were sentenced to death for
their crimes, but Emma Zimmer is not the most well known war criminal.
It was clear in her threats that she knew about the deadly nature of the concentration
camps, and she ultimately terrorised prisoners with her threat.
Her words of, ‘I will report you, and you will go away, you know where?
Just one way up the Chimney,’ was a horrific remark which struck fear into the hearts of
prisoners.
She was truly evil, and the Crone of Auschwitz met her end at the gallows.
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