Hildegard Martha Lächert (19 March 1920 – 14 April 1995) was a female guard, or '' Aufseherin'', at several

concentration camp A concentration camp is a prison or other facility used for the internment of political prisoners or politically targeted demographics, such as members of national or ethnic minority groups, on the grounds of national security, or for exploitati ...

s controlled by

Nazi Germany Nazi Germany, officially known as the German Reich and later the Greater German Reich, was the German Reich, German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a Totalit ...

. She became publicly known for her service at Ravensbrück, Majdanek and

Auschwitz-Birkenau Auschwitz, or Oświęcim, 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 into Germany in 1939) d ...

Early life

Lächert became a mother aged 18 and again aged 23, both children conceived in non-marital relationships.

Camp service

In October 1942, at the age of 22, Lächert, a German

nurse Nursing is a health care profession that "integrates the art and science of caring and focuses on the protection, promotion, and optimization of health and human functioning; prevention of illness and injury; facilitation of healing; and alle ...

, was called to serve at Majdanek as an ''Aufseherin''. During her time in Majdanek, Lächert was recalled as having been extremely brutal. Lächert was disciplined by her SS superiors at least three times, albeit all for administrative offensives. She spent five days in jail for violating a curfew, and another eight days in jail for losing her pistol. In 1944, after the birth of her third child, Lächert served at Auschwitz concentration camp. She fled the camp in December 1944 ahead of the advancing

Red Army The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Republic and, from 1922, the Soviet Union. The army was established in January 1918 by a decree of the Council of People ...

. There are reports that her last overseeing jobs were at Bozen, a detention camp in northern

Italy Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...

, and at the

Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp Mauthausen was a German Nazi concentration camp on a hill above the market town of Mauthausen, Upper Austria, Mauthausen (roughly east of Linz), Upper Austria. It was the main camp of a group with List of subcamps of Mauthausen, nearly 100 f ...

Austria Austria, formally the Republic of Austria, is a landlocked country in Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine Federal states of Austria, states, of which the capital Vienna is the List of largest cities in Aust ...

. In July 1945, Lächert, whose crimes had not been discovered yet, returned to Berlin and worked in an American hospital until October, after which she returned to Austria to continue nursing. On 30 March 1946, Austrian police officers arrested Lächert since she had previously worked with the SS. She was transferred to British custody, and then extradited to

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It extends from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Sudetes and Carpathian Mountains in the south, bordered by Lithuania and Russia to the northeast, Belarus and Ukrai ...

in December.

Trial

In November 1947, the former member of the ''

Schutzstaffel The ''Schutzstaffel'' (; ; SS; also stylised with SS runes as ''ᛋᛋ'') was a major paramilitary organisation under Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party in Nazi Germany, and later throughout German-occupied Europe during World War II. It beg ...

'' (SS) appeared in a

Kraków , officially the Royal Capital City of Kraków, is the List of cities and towns in Poland, second-largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland. Situated on the Vistula River in Lesser Poland Voivodeship, the city has a population of 804,237 ...

courtroom, along with 40 other SS guards in the Auschwitz trial. Lächert sat next to three other former SS women, Alice Orlowski, Therese Brandl, and Luise Danz. Because of her

war crime A war crime is a violation of the laws of war that gives rise to individual criminal responsibility for actions by combatants in action, such as intentionally killing civilians or intentionally killing prisoners of war, torture, taking hostage ...

s in Auschwitz and Płaszów, the former guard and mother of two surviving children was given a sentence of 15 years in prison. Lächert was released from prison under an amnesty on 7 December 1956. Lächert subsequently received 6000 DM from the West German government as an alleged

prisoner of war A prisoner of war (POW) is a person held captive by a belligerent power during or immediately after an armed conflict. The earliest recorded usage of the phrase "prisoner of war" dates back to 1610. Belligerents hold prisoners of war for a ...

. After her release, Lächert briefly worked with the Federal Intelligence Service ( BND), West German spy agency and the CIA, which at the time was routinely interviewing Nazi war criminals who had been released from prisons in Eastern Europe. Lächert's work with the agencies ended after only a few months since she was quickly deemed useless. In August 1973, Lächert was arrested by West German officials, and questioned about her past in Majdanek, due to the upcoming third Majdanek Trial. Lächert was released, but then rearrested as a suspect in June 1979 and put on trial. The same year, she ran in the

European Parliament election Elections to the European Parliament take place every five years by universal adult suffrage; with more than 400 million people eligible to vote, they are the second largest democratic elections in the world after India's. Until 2019, 751 ...

for Erwin Schönborn's far-right Aktionsgemeinschaft Nationales Europa in the European elections, placing 4th on the group's list. The testimonies heard concerning Lächert's sadistic behaviour were extensive and detailed. One former prisoner, Henryka Ostrowska, testified, "We always said ''blutige'' about the fact that she struck until blood showed," giving her the nickname "Bloody Brigitte" (''Krwawa Brygida'' in Polish). Many other witnesses characterized her as the "worst of the worst" or "the most cruel" ''Aufseherin'', as "Beast", and as "Fright of the Prisoners." Another survivor, Maria Kaufmann-Krasowski, testified that when Lächert assigned her to wash floors she beat her with a whip and referred to her as "a piece of filth." For her part in selections to the gas chamber, complicity to the murder of 1196 prisoners, releasing her dog onto pregnant inmates (in one example ‘targeting the most vulnerable parts of her body in an act of cruel desecration and killing of her unborn child’) and her overall abuse, the court sentenced her to 12 years imprisonment in the

Majdanek trials The Majdanek trials were a series of consecutive war-crime trials held in Poland and in Germany during and after World War II, constituting the overall longest Nazi war crimes trial in history spanning over 30 years. The first judicial trial of ...

. Prosecutors had requested a life sentence. Lächert never had to serve this time, since her imprisonment in Poland and the time she spent in custody awaiting trial were allowed as time served. She died in 1995.

References

Female Nazis
The Holocaust History Project, retrieved on August 17, 2016.
Auschwitz Trial (November-December 1947)

Jewish Virtual Library The Jewish Virtual Library (JVL, formerly known as JSOURCE) is an online encyclopedia published by the American foreign policy analyst Mitchell Bard's non-profit organization American–Israeli Cooperative Enterprise (AICE). It is a website cove ...

, retrieved on December 22, 2006. {{DEFAULTSORT:Lachert, Hildegard 1920 births 1995 deaths Kraków-Płaszów concentration camp personnel Mauthausen concentration camp personnel People convicted in the Auschwitz trial People convicted in the Majdanek trials Holocaust perpetrators in Poland Prisoners and detainees of Germany Prisoners and detainees of the British military Prisoners and detainees of Austria People extradited to Poland Ravensbrück concentration camp personnel Criminals from Berlin Auschwitz concentration camp personnel Female guards in Nazi concentration camps German neo-Nazis German people convicted of torture German women nurses German nurses BND agents convicted of crimes CIA agents convicted of crimes

Early life

Camp service

Trial

Further reading

References