SS-Gefolge (Women's SS Division)

SS-Gefolge was the designation for the group of female civilian employees of the Schutzstaffel (SS) in Nazi Germany. SS-Gefolge members served in a limited capacity, as the organisation was not formally part of the SS. Members of the Gefolge worked in the Nazi concentration camps as guards and nurses.^[1]

SS-Gefolge members (from left to right: Hildegard Kanbach, Magdalene Kessel, Lisbeth Fritzner, Irene Haschke, Herta Ehlert, Herta Bothe) being paraded for burying victims at Bergen-Belsen. Photographed by Sergeant Harry Oakes on 17 April 1945, the camp was liberated two days later and the women were arrested on 15 May.

Recruitment

During the early stages of the war, the Gefolge was primarily staffed by volunteers, but as the war progressed, more women were conscripted or recruited from wartime factories with the false promise of high pay and easier working conditions.^[2]

Training

Most Gefolge recruits trained at Ravensbrück. Trainees spent anywhere from one week to six months receiving instruction on disciplinary techniques, subterfuge detection, and escape prevention. Showing sympathy for prisoners was forbidden, and any Gefolge member suspected of helping them received severe punishment.^[3]

In concentration camps

By mid-January 1945, around 3,500 women were on guard duty in the concentration camps, along with around 37,000 men. Based on the sparse literature on this subject, approximately 10% of the concentration camp guards were women. Besides 8,000 SS men, about 200 female guards were on duty in the Auschwitz concentration camp between May 1940 and January 1945. SS Gefolge Women were the main guards at female specific concentration camps of Ravensbrück, Auschwitz-Birkenau, Mauthausen, and Bergen-Belsen.^[2] Male SS members were not permitted to enter the female camps.^[4]

Notable members of the Gefolge

• 
  Irma Grese oversaw the death cells at Bergen-Belsen; mugshot was taken by Sergeant Johnny Silverside on 8 August 1945 (including the ones following)
• 
  Elisabeth Volkenrath was a guard at Ravensbrück and Auschwitz before becoming head wardress at Bergen-Belsen
• 
  Johanna Bormann was a guard at Lichtenburg, Ravensbrück, Auschwitz-Birkenau, and Bergen-Belsen
• 
  Herta Bothe was a guard at Ravensbrück, Stutthof, Bromberg-Ost, and Bergen-Belsen
• 
  Herta Ehlert was a guard at Ravensbrück, Majdanek, Kraków-Płaszów, and Auschwitz; she was deputy wardress at Bergen-Belsen under Volkenrath and Grese

• Jenny-Wanda Barkmann
• Elisabeth Becker
• Erna Beilhardt
• Erika Bergmann
• Jane Bernigau
• Dorothea Binz
• Grete Boesel
• Johanna Bormann
• Herta Bothe
• Therese Brandl
• Hermine Braunsteiner
• Luise Danz
• Margot Dreschel
• Herta Ehlert
• Else "Elsa" Ehrich
• Irma Grese
• Martha Haake [de]
• Wanda Klaff
• Liesbeth Krzok [de]
• Hildegard Lächert
• Johanna Langefeld
• Elisabeth Lupka
• Maria Mandl
• Elisabeth Marschall
• Margarete Mewes [cs; de; pl]
• Elfriede Mohneke
• Ruth Closius-Neudeck
• Alice Orlowski
• Ewa Paradies
• Margarete Rabe
• Gertrud Rabestein [de]
• Elfriede Rinkel
• Ida Schreiter
• Gerda Steinhoff
• Maria Stromberger
• Inge Viermetz
• Elisabeth Volkenrath
• Erna Wallisch
• Emma Zimmer