On the 4th July 1946, in front of a crowd of around 20,000 people on a huge gallows,
the former guards of stutthof concentration camp were executed.
The gallows were so big that everyone around could see, and amongst the condemned were
a number of women who were considered evil.
These were former guards of Stutthof, a camp where around 65,000 people were slaughtered
during the Second World War.
It became one of a the deadliest concentration camps, and the conditions there were shocking
and terrible and the violence of the guards that worked there was shocking.
But one woman and female guard who was brought to trial but was not condemned to death was
Erna Beilhardt a woman who could have been taken to the gallows, but following her training
she had a realisation as to the evil that was being committed inside of Stutthof.
Because of this she remains the only example of an SS guard who refused to serve at Stutthof
despite being given the training to do so.
Erna Beilhardt’s story is one which was interesting, but what is the story of the
female guard of stutthof that refused to execute and torture?
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Erna Beilhardt was born on the 7th February 1907, and she was born near to Danzig, the
city where Stutthof was found.
Her father died when she was just a young girl, but her mother was well connected as
she was descended from a well known family of Swiss cheesemakers.
Her mother cared for the family on her own, but finances were an issue for the family
even as the First World War came to an end.
Erna Beilhardt had graduated from school but she then went to East Prussia and she found
work in farming.
But in 1927 at the age of 20 Erna moved to Danzig and she lived in a house with her sister
and her mother, and her mother then opened up a dairy warehouse there.
But following the move to the city, Erna Beilhardt went back to school and she then worked as
a housekeeper in an apartment.
But during this time, she also helped her family run their stores but she also became
involved in the German Red Cross.
But strangely, Erna Beilhardt then joined the Nazi Party in 1933.
This was the same year that Hitler became a chancellor and then began to tighten his
grip over the German nation.
But Erna did this as she thought it would be a way that she could progress her career,
but she was attracted to the politics of the Nazi party like so many people were.
The levels of her devotion to the Nazi cause are questionable, but as the Second World
War erupted across Europe she would undertake further medical training and she then joined
the NSV, which was the Welfare program established by the Nazis.
At this point she got to work with children who had been made orphans by the war, and
Beilhardt found this work rewarding, however at some point she was then recommended to
go and find work inside of Stutthof Concentration Camp, which was nearby.
It’s not known who recommended her for this line of work, but it could have been a Nazi
official or one of her colleagues.
They would have recommended her for service as a female guard as at the time there was
a call for women to come and work inside of the concentration camp in Gdansk.
The SS were looking for local women to serve and with this a number of women would go to
work inside of the camp.
Stutthof as a site was known for being brutal, and it was established following the outbreak
of the Second World War and many Nazi officials began to arrest and send polish prisoners
there.
It began life as a civil internment campo before it operated years later as a concentration
camp.
Stutthof expanded to a huge scale, and the expansion was at a huge scale and many female
guards worked there.
Some of these would later be executed for their crimes.
There was a huge number of prisoners sent to Stutthof, and many came from countries
all around Europe.
But the conditions of the camp were very harsh, and dozens of thousands of prisoners died
from starvation and disease.
Typhus epidemics swept through the camp in different years, and those prisoners deemed
too sick to work would be sent to the small gas chamber that was found in the camp.
Executions were carried out at Stutthof in different ways, many were shot on a firing
range and gassings also took place.
But gallows could also be found and prisoners would be hanged at roll call for breaking
rules which would terrorise inmates.
But inside of the infirmary there were many other nurses who would slaughter injecting
patients with phenol injections to the heart.
But when Erna Beilhardt arrived at Stutthof, despite being from a medical background she
would train as an auxiliary guard.
She stayed at the central Stutthof site from the 18th September 1944 until the 11th October
1944, and she would then attend a training program to become an overseer for 6 weeks.
Following this she was then moved to a sub camp.
But as many of the other female overseers developed reputations for being brutal and
evil, Erna Beilhardt’s time as a concentration camp guard was rather strange.
She would complete the regular duties expected of a supervisor, for example taking roll calls
and directing prisoners to work, and encouraging them to be productive.
But she would not at this time violently beat or kill any prisoners.
It’s known that she did not do this, and whilst at Stutthof she became rather disgusted
and distrubed in watching the antics of other SS guards and female overseers.
She saw them kill and abuse with their bare hands, and because of this Erna Beilhardt
then decided to resign her position.
But on the 20th January 1945, she would accompany an evacuation of prisoners to Konigsberg,
but then she would go back into the Red Cross and she would nurse German injured soldiers.
However her brief work inside of Stutthof would come back to haunt her.
On the 14th July 1945, Beilhardt was arrested by the Soviet soldiers, and following investigation
she would then be brought to the First stutthof trials.
These took place between the 25th April and the 31st May 1946.
She was accused of mistreating concentration camp prisoners.
But what shocked the courtroom was that she would speak openly about her support for Hitler
and the Nazis, but she would then claim that the work that was happening inside of the
concentration camps was wrong and would turn her stomach.
She said, ‘"I liked the idea of our leader that the whole world would apply to us, that
we stand victorious over all countries...
I have been in the NSDAP since 1933.”
But she then also said, ‘"I did not like this work very much, because they tormented
people too much, which I couldn't look at.”
She told the court room that she voluntarily resigned from her position and that she did
not like watching the others slaughter prisoners with their bare hands.
But there was also no witnesses that testified that Erna Beilhardt had killed or attacked
with her own hands, and because of this she was not sentenced for crimes against humanity.
If she had been found guilty of this, then she would have been executed alongside the
other guards of Stutthof.
But instead she would be tried and convicted of other crimes that included being a member
of the Nazi Party and also the SS.
This made her the only female SS guard from Stutthof to be convicted by a Polish court
and who avoided execution.
Because of this she was then held in a Polish prison for some time, and she completed her
sentence in May 1951 after she received five years imprisonment.
But she was then released on the 21st December 1951, and she would live until 1999 when she
died at the age of around 91 or 92.
Erna Beilhardt was a guard who troubled the polish authorities after the war.
She was a woman who was honest in her devotions to Hitler and the Nazi party, and she would
praise them during her trial.
However she was a woman who deemed the evils of the concentration camps to be too far,
and she did not want to participate in the brutality of the camps.
She would not be executed on the gallows like the other female guards of Stutthof were,
but she was sentenced to a number of years imprisonment.
The sight of the other female guards who were taken to the gallows would for those who witnessed
the executions of the stutthof guards be justification for the evils that occurred at the camp.
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