Throughout the Second World War, there were many SS guards and members of staff who worked
in the concentration camps that committed scores of crimes and atrocities.
Many of the worst female guards such as Irma Grese and Elisabeth Volkenrath reigned over
camps such as Auschwitz, Bergen-Belsen and Ravensbruck.
These female guards ruled over the women’s camps with ruthless brutality, and were known
for executions and killings with their whips, guns and dogs.
Many after the war were sentenced to death and were executed for their crimes against
humanity.
There were other concentration camps which were lesser known that others, and one of
them was stutthof.
It was found near to Danzig, and it housed around 110,000 prisoners during the war, but
it’s estimated that 65,000 people were killed there due to execution, starvation, illness
and disease.
The treatment of inmates there was savage, and one guard who worked there briefly but
was still sentenced to death following the war was Elisabeth Becker.
She was only 22 when she was executed in front of a huge crowd.
But what is her story and what did she do?
Join us today as we look at the justified execution of Elisabeth Becker.
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Elisabeth Becker was born near to Danzig on the 20th July 1923 and as a young girl she
grew up with the growing influence of Adolf Hitler and the Nazis.
As a young girl its assumed she had a normal upbringing, but at the age of 13 like millions
of other girls she joined the League of German Girls.
Inside of this youth group, girls were taught domestic roles and how to raise a family and
care for children.
Hitler’s belief was that women would raise as many children for the Third Reich as possible.
Female youth groups taught childcare, and male youth groups trained their cohorts up
to have some experience in the military.
Whilst inside here would have took part in many different classes, and two years later
at the age of 15 she then found a job in Danzig as a tramway conductor, and she would take
and issue tickets on the transport.
In 1940 she moved jobs and worked for a company before she became an agriculture assistant.
She remained in the area of Danzig as she saw this as her home.
But as the Second World War waged on, and turned against the Germans, many of the SS
guards who worked in the concentration camp system were being drafted back into the military
to fight the advancing allied armies and the soviet red army.
Because of this, the SS needed more guards and concentration camp staff to work at sites
such as Stutthof which was a camp relatively close to where Becker lived.
Elisabeth then was called up for service to work at the Stutthof Concentration camp, and
she arrived there on the 5th September 1944 to begin her training as an SS Aufseherin
or a female overseer.
Many women were sent to Ravensbruck an all female camp when they were trained and schooled
in how to instigate a reign of terror and fear.
But Elisabeth Becker was trained at Stutthof presumably as the SS believed it was quicker
to train her there on the job and then get her guarding women prisoners.
But the camp she came to was one which was known for it’s death and depravity.
Stutthof was the first concentration camp established by the Nazis outside of their
WW2 German borders, and it had opened on the 2nd September 1939.
It had a huge number of nationalities inside of the prisoner population, and conditions
there were extremely severe.
Tens of thousands of prisoners died from starvation and disease, and typhus spread through the
camp throughout a number of different years.
Many who were considered too weak or sick to work were sent to the small gas chamber
found at Stutthof, and they were then killed inside of these.
Gassings using Zyklon B, the same pesticide used in Asuchwitz began in June 1944, around
the time Elisabeth Becker came to the camp.
It’s believed around 4000 prisoners including women and children were killed inside the
gas chamber there before the camp was evacuated.
Many prisoners at Stutthof were also killed using lethal injections of phenol, and others
were even drowned in the mud and were sometimes clubbed to death.
Many prisoners were forced to work incredibly hard in the different industries there, and
many died from the intense labour conditions.
Elisabeth Becker worked inside of the Stutthof SK-III women’s camp, and she was known for
being rather violent despite being around just 21 years old.
However some of her biggest crimes were in sending people to their deaths.
She was accused later at her trial of personally selecting women and children to go to their
deaths.
Selections took place throughout the camps week, and also when new prisoners arrived
at Stutthof.
Those who were too weak or were not fit enough to work would be sent straight to the gas
chambers and would be killed.
Many guards who did this were playing god with the prisoner’s lives, choosing if they
lived another day or died.
Elisabeth Becker was one of these, and she regularly participated in the killing of many
of the camp’s victims including children.
Elisabeth following the evacuation of the camp then went on the run.
Prisoners began to be evacuated from Stutthof in January 1945, and many were marched towards
the Baltic Sea, were forced in the water and were machine gunned and killed.
Thousands were killed in the evacuations, but Becker went on the run.
She must have known that her crimes would come back to haunt her, and she returned back
to her home.
However three months later the Polish police arrived at her house and arrested her and
she was placed inside a prison to await her trial for crimes she committed at Stutthof.
The first Stutthof Trial occurred in Danzig on the 31st May 1946 and five SS women and
many Kapos who worked at the camp were brought forward to stand against charges of crimes
against humanity.
So along with 10 other defendants the 22 year old woman was brought to trial.
She had confessed during her interrogation that she had selected at least 30 female prisoners
to be sent to the gas chambers and had been killed, however she later withdrew this confession.
But despite this, she was sentenced to death and was found guilty of her murderous actions.
But her death sentence did attract some criticism.
Elisabeth Becker was just 21 when she worked at Stutthof, however she had also only been
there at the camp a number of months, and she was tried alongside more established war
criminals who had longer histories of cruelty and barbarism.
But she still responsible for the deaths of many women, and for this she was executed.
She even tried to appeal to the Polish president to commute her sentence, and the court said
that she should have been commuted to 15 years imprisonment, as she was not as brutal as
other defendants such as Jenny Wanda Barkmann.
However, no pardon was given, and for this her death sentence was confirmed.
Inside of Gdansk in Poland, Biskupia Gorka a small part of the city was the site of Elisabeth
Becker’s execution.
On a large hill close to the city, a number of gallows had been created that were huge.
On the 4th July 1946, Elisabeth Becker and her fellow condemned criminals were brought
to the hill where tens of thousands of people had come to witness the executions.
The gallows were so big that everyone could have a good view of the killings.
Elisabeth Becker was placed on the back of a truck and was flanked by guards.
Nooses hung from the gallows, and then these were secured around the necks of the condemned.
Elisabeth Becker was forced to stand with the noose around her neck, and then the truck
she was stood on drove away and she was left hanging from her neck.
She struggled and tried to gasp for breath, but within minutes she was dead.
Elisabeth Becker’s execution is a little different to other female nazi war criminals.
She had only been at the camp overseeing brutality for a number of months, compared to some female
guards who had long history’s at various different camps.
Despite the court recommending a prison sentence she was executed, but what cannot be disputed
is the fact her actions led to the deaths of many women.
This is the reason she was executed, because she selected women to go to the gas chambers.
But ultimately she was a 22 year old girl who was integrated from a young age with the
Nazis, and she actively participated in their evil regime and persecution.
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