Throughout the Second World War, there were many evil SS commandants and commanders who
operated the concentration camps.
At sites such as dachau and Buchenwald, evil reigns of terror were imposed by the guards,
and at the top of the organisational hierarchy of the sites were the men who set the rules
and ensured brutality and discipline was intertwined with violence, execution and mass killing.
Some concentration camps were so large that there were different commandants who ran specific
parts of the site, for example at Auschwitz Josef Kramer the Beast of Belsen was in charge
of Birkenau, the extermination centre.
But despite these men being responsible for the killing of over 6 million people, many
of them were married and their wives would live with them sometimes inside of the camps
that they oversaw.
A short distance away from the operation of mass murder, wives of the commandants would
be preparing dinner, or looking after children for their husbands to come home from a day
of slaughter.
Join us today as we look at the wives of the concentration camp commandants, and remember
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Rudolf Hoess was the commandant of Auschwitz that oversaw its huge expansion, and he would
be responsible for the deaths of over 1 million people.
He would after the war testify about what was happening inside of the concentration
camps, and he was executed for his crimes on a specially built gallows inside of Auschwitz.
But he was married to.
Woman named Hedwig Hensel.
The couple met after they were both part of the Artaman League, a group which protested
urbanisation, and favoured back to the land policies, which promoted a farm based lifestyle.
The couple married on the 17th August 1929, and they had five children, two sons and three
daughters.
Annegret the youngest daughter was born at Auschwitz in November 1943 shockingly.
It was believed that Rudolf Hoess protected his family from the true horrors of the camp
he was overseeing, as he would consciously lie to his wife about what was going on.
The family lived in a villa close by the camp, but Hedwig often referred to Auschwitz as
‘paradise,’ as she did not lack anything.
Food and clothing was confiscated from the jews luggage, and it’s believed that some
of the wealth came back to the Hoess household from this.
Hoess’ daughter would later go on to say that her father was two people, one who would
oversee Auschwitz, and the other a doting father that would hug and kiss his children
before he went to work.
Rudolf Hoess continued to lie to his wife about the gassings and mass killings, but
one day she overheard comments made by Fritz Bracht, the Gauleiters of Silesia.
He was explaining what went on at Auschwitz, the camp her husband was overseeing, and outraged
Hedwig was disgusted by her husband’s actions.
Because of this she argued with him, and she even refused to share the same bed with her
husband.
As the end of the war approached, Hedwig Hoess moved north to Flensburg with her eldest son,
and she was arrested there by the Allies.
She was sent to the British Army’s 92nd Field Security Section and was interrogated
for weeks regarding her husband’s whereabouts.
She claimed that he was dead, however he was working on a farm and had changed his name
to Fritz Lang in an attempt to evade capture.
He also pretended to be a member of the Kriegsmarine, and he evaded capture for around a year, but
he was then arrested in Gottrupel in Germany in March 1946, after Hedwig finally relented
and told the authorities where her husband could be found.
She later remarried after her husband’s execution and moved to America and lived until
the age of 90.
Josef Kramer was known as the beast of Belsen, and was the commandant of Auschwitz II Birkenau,
and also Bergen-Belsen.
He had been senior at various other concentration camps, but his work at Belsen saw the camp
fall into ruin with disease running rampant and riot across the site, with hundreds dying
each day.
Belsen became very overcrowded, and it was here where Anne Frank died.
It’s believed Kramer must have been responsible for more than 400,000 people’s deaths, and
he was married to Rosina Kramer.
The pair were married on the 16th October 1937, and Rosina would testify for her husband
at his war crimes trill.
She said, ‘Except for short intervals I have been always with him, although, of course,
when he was on duty he was in the camp.
I went inside the concentration camp on Sundays, off-duty days.
I went to Auschwitz in 1944, two weeks after my husband.
The Kommandant of Birkenau, before my husband took over, was Hauptsturmführer Hartjenstein.
Three days prior to my husband taking over I asked Hartjenstein why my husband had been
chosen for Auschwitz.
His answer was because of the rank my husband held and that there was a general change of
commands.’
She knew exactly what was going on inside the camps her husband oversaw, and she said
when asked, ‘did you ever go to Belsen?’
‘
One Sunday afternoon.
I went into the place where they were weaving and my husband told me with great pride about
the beautiful orchestra which was playing.
He wanted to show me that.
There was a band, but they had no instruments, so my husband asked for the instruments from
Auschwitz to be sent to Belsen so that these girls should at least be able to play something.’
She would claim that her husband never treated anyone poorly, and that his duty was to take
care of the inmates which he did day and night.
She also admitted she had knowledge of the gas chambers, and that her husband had admitted
it was wrong what he was doing.
But Josef Kramer was responsible for scores of deaths, and the conditions at Belsen which
caused horrific mass killing were ultimately responsible to him.
Rosina following Josef’s execution would change her name and became a teacher, and
she then retired and moved in with her son and it’s believed she lived in the area
of Bergen-Belsen, close to the concentration camp her husband horrifically oversaw.
One woman who was arguably more infamous than her husband was Ilse Koch, the wife of the
Commandant of Buchenwald Karl Otto Koch.
Karl is best remembered for being the man who oversaw a horrific concentration camp,
however he was prosecuted for embezzling money from the Nazis.
For this he was then executed at his own camp.
He and his wife Ilse built huge projects at Buchenwald for their own personal game including
a huge Horse riding arena.
In this Ilse would parade on her horses, and if any prisoner looked at her she would order
them to be sent to their death.
She was known for being involved in terrifying experiments, but also she would be completely
barbaric.
Despite being the mere wife of the commandant, she became known as the Witch of Buchenwald,
and she also beat many of the prisoners.
After the war, Ilse Koch was placed on trial for her crimes, but was sentenced to prison
time.
However this was reduced to 4 years time, as there was an issue with proving if she’d
selected inmates to be exterminated so she could take their tattooed skin to make artefacts
with.
But then later in 1949 she was re-arrested and was tried in 1950.
250 witnesses testified against her, and she was sentenced to life imprisonment for her
crimes.
A forgotten commandant of Auschwitz is Arthur Liebehenschel.
Much is documented about Rudolf Hoess, but Liebehenschel was an SS man who succeeded
Hoss when he was forced away briefly from Asuchwitz.
He continued the mass executions and exterminations, but removed torture devices such as the standing
cells, and also stopped the selections of regular prisoners.
He was regarded as much more lenient in his running of the camp, however still thousands
of people were dying each week under his command.
He was married to his first wife a woman named Gertrud, and they had one son and three daughters.
The youngest daughter was born in 1943, shortly before her father became the commandant of
Auschwitz.
Her mother was awarded the bronze mother’s cross by Hitler to women who had four or more
children.
The story of Gertrud, Arthur Liebehenschel’s first wife is tragic.
She lost her husband to another woman, and was then arrested at the end of the war being
the wife of an SS officer.
She then suffered with her mental health, and suffered with paranoid schizophrenia,
and she was placed inside of a mental health facility.
Liebehenschel’s second wife Anneliese gave birth to a son, and little is known about
her.
It’s unclear how much these women knew about their husband’s involvement in the concentration
camps, and specifically his work at Auschwitz.
An SS officer who served as the commandant of a number of concentration camps was Max
Kogel.
Kogel would be in charge of Lictenburg, Ravensbruck, Majdanek and also Flossenburg, and he was
seen as a reliable and efficient killer.
He was involved in the installations of gas chambers at Majdanek, but he also oversaw
the labour camp for women at Lichtenburg, and then the all female concentration camp
of Ravensbruck.
He married Anna Jilecek when he was an adjutant with the SS at dachau.
Anna wrote that she aspired to become a professional singer, but blamed her father’s jewish employer
for their financial hardship, which forced her to become a receptionist and a nursery
school teacher.
She worked as a waitress when she met Max Kogel, and Anne went with him to six different
concentration camps, and they were the first residents in the commandant’s house at Ravensbruck,
which was a newly built large villa which a big garden sat on a ridge overlooking the
camp.
She was described by there prisoners as an unpleasant character, and during one event
she went to the hair salon at Ravensbruck, and said the workers were disgusting.
After the war Kogel died by his own hand, and Anna remarried.
Fritz Suhren was also the commandant of Ravensbruck concentration camp, and his policy was the
exterminate the women through working them to death without feeding them much food.
He gave prisoners over for experimentation, bit his wife Elfriede was a different woman.
She was a seamstress and married Fritz Suhren when he was a lowly SS personnel officer.
But when he became the commandant of Ravensbruck, the couple moved into the villa on the ridge.
His wife was softly spoken, and was very faithful to her husband.
It’s not entirely known what crimes she committed if any at the camp, but Suhren after
the war was captured.
He was tried and was executed for his crimes, but Elfriede stayed loyal to her husband and
approached many former prisoners to testify on his behalf.
However after her husband’s execution, she even approached his former mistress and said
she could apply for an orphan’s pension for the daughter she had with Suhren.
She was a rather loyal but strange lady.
The wives of the commandants of the concentration camps lived rather bizarre lives.
For example Rudolf Hoess’ wife was living seemingly a normal wife whilst her husband
went to work and committed murder and slaughter on an industrial scale.
They had a varied involvement in the camps where their husband’s ruled over with iron
fists, and many of the wives of the commandants were seen as witches or as evil cogs in the
system.
Ilse Koch for example spent the majority of her life after the war behind bars, but others
moved to different countries and lived under different names.
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