- While Nazi ideology depicted German mothers
as national heroes,
single women and working women
were often treated as second-class citizens.
But as the second world war progressed
the Nazis started allowing women to join the German army
in order to deploy more men to the front lines.
For many women, the lure of a stable well-paid job
and upward mobility
was enough to heed the Nazi party's call.
One of these women, SS Officer Maria Mandl,
went above the call of duty
and rose to the highest position a woman could hold.
Described as beautiful yet ruthless,
Maria Mandl wielded art as a method of torture
and earned herself the nickname, The Beast.
(dramatic music)
The daughter of a Shoemaker and stay at-home-mother,
Maria Mandl grew up in a small town in Austria.
As was common in the early 20th century,
women had few opportunities to advance or enjoy a career.
Marriage and family were priorities.
When the Nazi party took power
it became even harder for women to get jobs,
and the only work that could be found was largely unskilled
and with very low pay.
For a classical music lover like Maria,
a sophisticated empowered life
could only be found outside of her hometown.
In the early 1930s, Mandl traveled to Switzerland
and worked as a chef.
Just 15 months later she returned to her hometown,
moved back in with her family,
a decision likely out of her control
given her status as an unmarried woman.
In 1937 at age 25,
Mandl finally found work again as a postmistress
but only five months in,
she was abruptly fired.
Left with little, Mandl moved to her uncles in Munich
and worked as a live-in housekeeper.
It was there either from her uncles insistence
or from a newspaper advertisement
that Mandl learned about the hiring
of female concentration camp workers.
In 1938, persuaded by the Nazi's promotion of the camp work
as a high paying physically effortless advantageous career
for women, Maria Mandl joined the Nazi ranks.
Mandl's first assignment was at Lichtenberg.
One of the earliest concentration camps,
and the first used exclusively for female prisoners.
Undergoing a strenuous application process
and working alongside 50 other women,
Mandl was singled out
for her superlatively inhumane treatment of prisoners.
Holocaust survivor Lena Haag
recalled how Mandl stripped them naked,
tied them to a wooden post,
and then beat them mercilessly.
Professor Brown argued that the ability to gain control
often served as the chief motivator
for this level of brutality.
Mandl saw her violent methods rewarded,
which only increased her wicked treatment of prisoners.
She was selected to open another women-only camp,
Ravensbruck, where she quickly rose in ranks
from Aufseherin, an overseer,
to Oberaufseherin or senior overseer.
With this promotion Mandl was now meant to delegate tasks.
However, she preferred to still be hands on.
She battered pregnant women in the stomach
to ensure the deaths of their unborn children.
Threw newborns to rats to be eaten
and burned infants alive.
One prisoner mentioned
that Mandl dressed a child "in fine clothing,
parading it around like a puppet."
This little child was always by Mandl's side
holding her hand
but as was the case with all of Mandl's victims,
Mandl grew bored with a child
and threw them into the gas chamber.
Mandl combined her horrible acts with her passion for music,
a pas de deux of her deepest desires.
Right after Mandl murdered a prisoner at roll call,
she was seen playing the piano,
lost in a world of her own, in ecstasy.
Mandel's acts of violence earned her the nickname "The Beast".
And her beastly acts continued to move her up the ranks
until she eventually was moved to Poland
and became SS Lagerfuhrerin, or camp leader, at Auschwitz.
This was the highest position a woman could hold
at the largest concentration camp.
as SS Lagerführerin, The Beast created her Magnum Opus,
The Women's Orchestra of Auschwitz.
The orchestra consisted of prisoners
who would play for the commanders,
for the arrival of new prisoners, for hangings,
and for prisoners' processions to the gas chambers.
The gorgeous melodies became an ominous signal of terror.
At the height of her reign,
the tides of war shifted in favor of the allies.
In 1945, the allied invasion of Germany
provided a coda to Mandl's brutal career.
No longer in control, she attempted to flee to Bavaria
but was instead captured by American troops
and sent to Krakow, Poland to stand trial.
In 1947 Mandl's trial commenced.
She was declared a war criminal
and sentenced to death by hanging.
Shockingly in trial transcripts,
Mandl stated that she had only acted in violence
to restore order when the prisoners would not listen to her
and even this was only done by a hit with her hand.
In reality, an estimated 500,000 death orders
can be attributed to Maria Mandl.
The studies of Jonathan Homola
indicate that an overwhelming number of perpetrators
were collectively performing under cognitive dissonance
and many Germans claim absolute ignorance of the genocide.
Maria Mandl was no exception.
She experienced no remorse.
The Beast was hanged on January 24th, 1948.
Her final words
perhaps a last ditch attempt in ingratiation,
"Long live Poland."