The First Concentration Camp built and opened by the Nazis was Dachau.
It was opened on the 22nd March 1933, and during the Second World War and its time in
operation around 188,000 prisoners passed through the barbed wire fences, and over 41,000
never made their way out as they succumbed to disease, violent treatment and execution.
The Guards of Dachau were known for being immensely brutal and violent, and it was even
used as a training school for SS officers who would learn how to inflict a reign of
terror onto other prisoners.
There were also floggings and whippings administered on a daily basis for those who broke the rules
of the camp, and also standing cells were used where people were held inside incredibly
cramped chimneys for sometimes days on end, and they could not sit down.
But executions occurred on a daily basis either in the nearby firing range or in the roll
call yards, but inside of Dachau four female spies were brutally tortured and never made
it out of the camp as they were executed in horrific fashion.
These women are remembered today for their espionage and also their suffering inside
of Dachau.
Join us today as we look at the torture of the female spies of Dachau, remember to support
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When Dachau was liberated by the American Army, they found 30,000 prisoners and 10,000
of them were suffering from starvation and disease heavily.
The liberators worked tirelessly day and night to sort out the conditions at the camp, and
there were acts of reprisals carried out against the former guards of Dachau.
But many of the stories of the camp came out in the following years, and many of the prisoners
told of killings and death.
But there was one set of executions that were carried out that saw 4 female spies executed
inside the camps fences.
On the morning of the 13th September 1944, these four women were taken into a yard where
they were executed by firing squad.
But these women had suffered greatly following their capture, and their torture was brutal
but despite this they gave over little or no information to the Gestapo or the SS.
One of these women was Noor Inayat Khan, who was part of Special Operations Executive.
SOE were involved in espionage and sabotage during World War 2, and they conducted reconnaissance
in occupied lands and also allied themselves with the resistance groups.
Codenamed Madeleine, Noor Khan was the first female wireless operator sent from the UK
into occupied France to help the French Resistance.
On her final report it was noted that she was ,’"Not overburdened with brains but
has worked hard and shown keenness, apart from some dislike of the security side of
the course.
She has an unstable and temperamental personality and it is very doubtful whether she is really
suited to work in the field.”
However she flew by Lysander into France and then linked up in Paris with the leader of
a resistance circuit and network of agents.
This network was known as Prosper, but from the 24th June 1943 this network was being
rounded up and captured by the Germans.
Noor remained in contact with London at the time, and it was said she would be flown home
but she wanted to stay in Paris.
She believed she was the only remaining radio operator in Paris but she was later betrayed
to the Germans.
It’s alleged her betrayer pas paid 100,000 francs for her capture, and she was arrested
on the 13th October 1943 and was subsequently interrogated by the SD in Paris.
During this, she was tortured and tried to escape twice.
Her notebooks were found, but she did managed to escape the SD headquarters around 5 weeks
after her capture.
But she was eventually recaptured and was considered highly dangerous.
She was shackled in chains most of the times, and she remained un-co-operative with her
captors.
She refused to give over any information.
She was tortured terribly, and it was said that torture of women by the SD included violent
beatings, sleep deprivation, cutting and mutilating the body, pulling out finger nails and toe
nails, and near drowning which was very dangerous.
For 10 months Noor was also shackled and her hands and feet and she could barely move,
which was torture itself.
She was also suspended by her arms in the manacles and the Nazis used this and often
joints would dislocate and they would burn the flesh of their victims.
The beatings and water torture made her suffer, and each evening she would cry and other prisoners
would hear her suffering.
She was seen as a lost cause, and was then transferred to Dachau.
Another woman who died alongside Noor Khan was Madeleine Damerment.
Madeleine was a French spy who served in SOE and the French Resistance.
She was considered a keen and hard worker with good stamina, and she was seen as aggressive
and had a good knowledge of close combat.
She was a good shot with a pistol and rifle, but some of her superiors did not have much
faith in her.
She trained heavily, and was assigned to become a courier for the bricklayer resistance network.
She parachuted from a Handley Page Halifax into France however the Gestapo were waiting
for her as they had captured SOE wireless operators and transmitted false messages with
their radios.
So Damerment was a sitting target.
She was taken to the gestapo headquarters in Paris where she was interrogated and tortured
in the same manner as Noor Inayat Khan was.
She was regularly beaten and was held under horrific conditions before she was also transferred
to Dachau.
Elaine Plewman was another agent who worked for SOE and the French Resistance, and she
served as a courier for the monk circuit in occupied France.
She trained as an agent in the field, and she was just over 5 feet tall and she showed
determination throughout her training.
She learned how to kill, sabotage and detonate explosives and was seen as a promising agent.
She parachuted Inyo France from a Handley Page Halifax in August 1943, and avoided German
Radar.
She was to be the communication link between saboteurs and intelligence gathering agents,
and for a short time after being dropped she was separated from her circuit.
She made several contacts of her own whilst in hiding, and then contributed to her circuit
and managed to work between different groups.
Despite challenging circumstances, she was doing very well but in March 1944 she was
captured and imprisoned.
She was also beaten and tortured by the Gestapo for information and was treated awfully.
Yolande Beekman was a British Spy who served in the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force and also
Special Operations Executive.
She was a member of SOE’s musician circuit inside of France where she worked as a wireless
operator.
She was considered trustworthy and also fearless and she became riskier in her work each day.
But at the time, the Germans began to become efficient at intercepting her radio signals,
and with this they managed to narrow down the area where her transmissions were coming
from.
She moved a number of times, and settled at the Cafe Moulin Brûlée, a safe house however
the next day the Gestapo stormed the house and arrested her at gunpoint.
Beekman was then taken to the Fresnes Prison, and was brutalised and beaten violently regularly
for information.
She was moved with other captured SOE Agents, and was beaten so badly that she had trouble
walking, and it was said that ‘she didn’t leave her cell much as she suffered badly
with her legs.’
She along with the other 3 women was also transferred to Dachau Concentration Camp.
The 4 women were taken to Dachau and following their arrival on the 13th September 1944 the
four women were executed together.
A Gestapo man named Max Wassmer was in charge of their transport to the camp, and other
Gestapo officers told of the women’s fate at the end of the war.
These officers told of the executions of the four female spies of Dachau.
It was said that, ‘The four prisoners had come from the barrack in the camp, where they
had spent the night, into the yard where the shooting was to be done.
Here he [Wassmer] had announced the death sentence to them.
Only the Lagerkommandant and the two SS men had been present.
The German-speaking Englishwoman (the major) had told her companion of this death sentence.
All four had grown very pale and wept; the major asked whether they could protest against
the sentence.
The Kommandant declared that no protest could be made against the sentence.
The major had then asked to see a priest.
The camp Kommandant refused this on the grounds that there was no priest in the camp.
The four prisoners now had to kneel with their heads towards a small mound of earth and were
killed by the two SS, one after another by a shot through the back of the neck.
During the shooting the two Englishwomen held hands and the two French-women likewise.
For three of the prisoners the first shot caused death, but for the German-speaking
Englishwoman a second shot had to be fired as she still showed signs of life after the
first shot.
After the shooting of these prisoners the Lagerkommandant said to the two SS men that
he took a personal interest in the jewellery of the women and that this should be taken
into his office.
There was allegations also that the female spies were set upon by SS officers and in
particular Wilhelm Ruppert and that they were beaten within an inch of their lives before
their executions.
It was also alleged that they may have been beaten to death before they were shot from
behind.
What is certain though is that these 4 women were brutally tortured for information by
the Gestapo following their capture, and that they were treated terribly.
All of them were regularly beaten and were subject to horrific treatment at the hands
of their captives.
Inside of Dachau they met their brutal end as they were executed.
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