Therese Brandl (1 February 1902 – 24 January 1948) was a

Nazi concentration camp From 1933 to 1945, Nazi Germany operated more than a thousand concentration camps, (officially) or (more commonly). The Nazi concentration camps are distinguished from other types of Nazi camps such as forced-labor camps, as well as concen ...

guard. In March 1942, Brandl was among the SS women assigned to

Auschwitz I concentration camp Auschwitz concentration camp ( (); also or ) was a complex of over 40 Nazi concentration camps, concentration and extermination camps operated by Nazi Germany in Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany, occupied Poland (in a portion annexed int ...

. Her duties included watching over women in the sorting sheds and as the ''SS Rapportaufseherin''. In October 1942, she was posted to the newly opened Auschwitz II

extermination camp Nazi Germany used six extermination camps (german: Vernichtungslager), also called death camps (), or killing centers (), in Central Europe during World War II to systematically murder over 2.7 million peoplemostly Jewsin the Holocaust. The v ...

Birkenau 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 ...

. Brandl was convicted of

crimes against humanity Crimes against humanity are widespread or systemic acts committed by or on behalf of a ''de facto'' authority, usually a state, that grossly violate human rights. Unlike war crimes, crimes against humanity do not have to take place within the ...

after the war during the

Auschwitz Trial The Auschwitz trial began on November 24, 1947, in Kraków, when Poland's Supreme National Tribunal tried forty former staff of the Auschwitz concentration camps. The trials ended on December 22, 1947. The best-known defendants were Arthur Lieb ...

Kraków Kraków (), or Cracow, is the second-largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland. Situated on the Vistula River in Lesser Poland Voivodeship, the city dates back to the seventh century. Kraków was the official capital of Poland until 1596 ...

and executed.Paweł Brojek (Nov 24, 2012)
Pierwszy proces oświęcimski (The First Auschwitz Trial)
Portal Prawy.pl; retrieved 12 May 2013.

Career

Born in

Staudach-Egerndach Staudach-Egerndach is a municipality in the district of Traunstein in Bavaria, Germany. Notable residents * Therese ("Rosi") Brandl (190248), Nazi concentration camp guard executed for war crimes. *Anna Kroher (18591943), folklore researcher ...

Bavaria Bavaria ( ; ), officially the Free State of Bavaria (german: Freistaat Bayern, link=no ), is a state in the south-east of Germany. With an area of , Bavaria is the largest German state by land area, comprising roughly a fifth of the total lan ...

, Brandl was posted to

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 ...

in March 1940 to begin her training under '' SS-Oberaufseherin''

Johanna Langefeld Johanna Langefeld (5 March 1900, Kupferdreh, Germany – 26 January 1974) was a German female guard and supervisor at three Nazi concentration camps: Lichtenburg, Ravensbrück, and Auschwitz. Early life Born in Kupferdreh (now Essen, Germany) ...

. Sent to Auschwitz I during March 1942, Brandl was employed in the laundry and soon rose through the ranks and became an ''

Erstaufseherin Aufseherin was the position title for a female guard in the Nazi concentration camps during World War II. Of the 50,000 guards who served in Nazi concentration camps, about 5,000 were women. In 1942, the first female guards arrived at Auschwitz an ...

'' (First Guard) directly under

Margot Dreschel Margot Elisabeth Dreschel, also spelled Drechsler, or Drexler (17 May 1908 – May/June 1945), was a prison guard at Nazi concentration camps during World War II. Before her enlistment as an SS auxiliary, she worked at an office in Berlin. ...

and

Maria Mandl Maria Mandl (also spelled Mandel; 10 January 1912 – 24 January 1948) was an Austrian '' SS- Helferin'' (" SS helper") known for her role in the Holocaust as a top-ranking official at the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp, where she is bel ...

. In the summer of 1943, she received a medal from the

Reich ''Reich'' (; ) is a German language, German noun whose meaning is analogous to the meaning of the English word "realm"; this is not to be confused with the German adjective "reich" which means "rich". The terms ' (literally the "realm of an emp ...

for her "good conduct" in the camps. She took part in selections of women and children to be murdered in the gas chambers as well as physically abusing prisoners, including children, as Andreas Larinciakos, a nine-year-old boy from

Cles Cles (german: Glöß; Nones: ''Clés'' or ''Cliès'') is a town and ''comune'' in Trentino, in the Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol region of northern Italy. It is the main town of Val di Non. It is the main town of and is located in Val di Non. Mo ...

, Italy, recalled: "While in the camp, Doctor Mengele took my blood many times. In November 1944, all children were transferred to Camp A, the gypsy camp. When they counted us, one was found missing, so Mandl, manageress of the women's camp and her assistant, Brandl, drove us out into the street at one in the morning and made us stand there in the frost until noon the next day".Bloch, Anne L., Fox, Patricia Lowe, McClernan, Frances, Poznanski, Gitel, Radin, Max and Wasserman, Ursula, The Black Book (New York: Duell, Sloan and Pearce, 1945) pp. 246–247. The Child-Survivor erroneously refers to “Branded” (Brandl) as the chief and “Manded” (Mandl) as her assistant. In November 1944, with the approach of the

Soviet Army uk, Радянська армія , image = File:Communist star with golden border and red rims.svg , alt = , caption = Emblem of the Soviet Army , start_date ...

, she was assigned to the

Mühldorf concentration camp complex Mühldorf was a satellite system of the Dachau concentration camp located near Mühldorf in Bavaria, established in mid-1944 and run by the ''Schutzstaffel'' (SS). The camps were established to provide labor for an underground installation for t ...

, subcamp of

Dachau , , commandant = List of commandants , known for = , location = Upper Bavaria, Southern Germany , built by = Germany , operated by = ''Schutzstaffel'' (SS) , original use = Political prison , construction ...

along with Mandl and was demoted to '' Aufseherin''. Few reports have surfaced about Brandl's behavior at Mühldorf. She ultimately fled from Mühldorf on 27 April 1945, weeks before the arrival of the

United States Army The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, cla ...

. On 29 August 1945, the U.S. Army arrested her in the Bavarian mountains of Germany and sent her to a holding camp to await questioning. In November 1947, she was tried by the Polish authorities along with Mandl,

Luise Danz Luise Danz (11 December 1917 – 21 June 2009) was a Nazi concentration camps, Nazi concentration camp guard in World War II. She was born in Walldorf (Werra) in Thuringia. Danz was captured in 1945 and put on trial for crimes against humanity at ...

Hildegard Lächert Hildegard Martha Lächert (19 March 1920 – 14 April 1995) was a female guard, or '' Aufseherin'', at several concentration camps controlled by Nazi Germany. She became publicly known for her service at Ravensbrück, Majdanek and Auschwitz- ...

, and

Alice Orlowski Alice Orlowski (30 September 1903 – 21 May 1976) was a German concentration camp guard at several of the German Nazi German camps in occupied Poland during World War II, camps in German-occupied Poland (1939-1945) during World War II. After the ...

at the

. On 22 December 1947, Brandl was convicted of participating in the selection of inmates to be murdered. 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 ...

in prison on 24 January 1948, about a week before her 46th birthday.

Career

See also

References

Further reading