Elisabeth Marschall (May 27, 1886 – May 3, 1947) was the Head Nurse (''Oberschwester'') at the

Ravensbrück concentration camp Ravensbrück () was a German concentration camp exclusively for women from 1939 to 1945, located in northern Germany, north of Berlin at a site near the village of Ravensbrück (part of Fürstenberg/Havel). The camp memorial's estimated figure o ...

. Her duties included selecting prisoners for execution, overseeing medical experiments, and selecting which prisoners would be shipped to

Auschwitz Auschwitz concentration camp ( (); also or ) was a complex of over 40 concentration and extermination camps operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland (in a portion annexed into Germany in 1939) during World War II and the Holocaust. It con ...

. She worked with Dr. Adolf Winkelmann and Dr. Percival Treite. At the

Hamburg Ravensbrück trials (male), (female) en, Hamburger(s), Hamburgian(s) , timezone1 = Central (CET) , utc_offset1 = +1 , timezone1_DST = Central (CEST) , utc_offset1_DST = +2 , postal ...

, Marschall was found guilty and sentenced to death. On May 3, 1947, she was

hanged Hanging is the suspension of a person by a noose or ligature around the neck.Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed. Hanging as method of execution is unknown, as method of suicide from 1325. The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' states that hanging in ...

by British executioner

Albert Pierrepoint Albert Pierrepoint (; 30 March 1905 – 10 July 1992) was an English hangman who executed between 435 and 600 people in a 25-year career that ended in 1956. His father Henry and uncle Thomas were official hangmen before him. Pierrepoint ...

on the

gallows A gallows (or scaffold) is a frame or elevated beam, typically wooden, from which objects can be suspended (i.e., hung) or "weighed". Gallows were thus widely used to suspend public weighing scales for large and heavy objects such as sacks ...

Hamelin Prison Hamelin Prison, also known as the ''Stockhof'', was a prison and penitentiary in Hamelin. The penal institution, which had a predecessor since 1698, existed from 1827 to 1980. It was located between the old town and the river Weser. The listed pri ...

. Nearly 61 when she died, Marschall was the oldest female Nazi war criminal to be executed by the British occupation authorities.

References

Sources

* 1886 births 1947 deaths Holocaust perpetrators in Germany People from Meiningen People from Saxe-Meiningen Nazi Party members Female guards in Nazi concentration camps Nazi human subject research Executed people from Thuringia Hamburg Ravensbrück trials executions Executed German women German women nurses German nurses Ravensbrück concentration camp personnel {{Germany-med-bio-stub Executed mass murderers