I recently watched the 2005 British film Pierrepoint: The Last Hangman, supposedly based on the life of said Albert Pierrepoint. Midway through the film Pierrepoint (Timothy Spall) is sent to Germany after the war to handle the hangings of Nazi war criminals sentenced to death in the British sector. The first war criminal he is shown hanging is the unrepentant Irma Grese, who at 22 was the youngest Nazi war criminal to be executed. But we’ll get to her story later.
People may wonder why so many of these racist “Karens” suddenly appeared seemingly out of nowhere. Of course they were always here, they just needed a “leader” who made them feel “empowered” to express themselves. Particularly in regard to Latinos, the fact that any one of the could be threatened because of what some bigot assumed was their legal status, or simply not viewed as a “real American,” which made them subject to the “power” that a “Karen” felt to instill “fear” in them.
While the “Karens” of the country act out on their dark impulses, we see women using their “victimhood” to victimize. Take for instance the Manhattan Democratic District Attorney race, where Tali Farhadian Weinstein is another feminist playing the racist card while accusing others of playing the “race card” by pointing out what she is doing. She recently launched a full frontal attack on all available media accusing her principle challenger, former federal prosecutor Alvin Bragg—who is black—of being an “enabler” of “domestic abusers.” This was based on his “pledge” in a questionnaire that in cases of “cross-complaint” cases—where both parties are accused of domestic violence—the DA will not proceed if both parties do not want to press charges. Of course, people like Farhadian Weinstein would insist on prosecuting the male, because he would be “more guilty” even if he wasn’t the instigator and principle combatant.
Many New York voters professed to be “aghast” at receiving flyers making these accusations in the mail from the Farhadian Weinstein campaign; it is clear that she is doing this because she wants people to “understand” that she is not related to Harvey Weinstein. One person, Rachael Bedard, MD, tweeted that “It’s unbelievably mortifying that in a system that way over-incarcerates black men, where white women’s victimhood has been weaponized consistently to maintain racial hierarchy, you’ve dared to lie about Alvin’s stance on violence against women. I actually gasped when I saw the mailer, because it has the desperate, dishonest, menacing tone of a political ad from the Jim Crow era.”
Not surprisingly, Sonia Ossorio of the New York City chapter of the National Organization of Women, desperate to be “relevant” by building themselves up by tearing others down, claimed that she didn’t “understand” what all the fuss was about, and that people angry at the ads were just playing the “race card”—which just shows you what the feminist movement has always been: a white grievance group aimed specifically for women who think they are superior to others.
Putting “Karens” and feminists together in a blender and what do you get? Imagine what these people would be if they were in Nazi Germany. Well, who knows, but one thing we do know is that as a 2017 Slate piece pointed out, many former British suffragettes “flocked” to Sir Oswald Mosley’s British Union of Fascists as the “natural” successor to their movements of the early part of the 20th century. They were particularly enthralled by the power they would have to “reshape” Britain and return it to “racial” and cultural “purity.”
There were many infamous characters of the “fairer” sex who were quite notorious in Nazi Germany for those who have read up on the history. Ilse Koch, the so-called “Bitch of Buchenwald,” is perhaps the best known, but she certainly wasn’t the worst of them. The wife of the Buchenwald camp commandant, her notoriety was based on the fact that unlike other SS officer wives at the camp, she had a “reputation” among prisoners, that human flesh with tattoos that was removed from the deceased were rumored to be destined to the Koch household, and the testimony of a German houseboy who claimed not only to have seen lampshades made of human flesh, but a human head, which he testified he was forced to “reinsert” the teeth into after one of the Koch children had pulled them out.
During Koch's trial by the American military, none of these objects were produced as evidence, and in the face of her denials, the prosecution was forced to drop charges related to human body parts; however this is what the public would most identified her with. But there were other things, worse things she was accused of. Buchenwald was a men’s camp; Koch could live out the fantasy of some women to commit violence against men. Koch was said to dress provocatively within the sight of the men, and if any of them “noticed” her, she would denounce them to her husband to be killed. She would also take pleasure in watching naked prisoners standing in the cold being “searched.”
Koch could have just stayed in her villa like the other wives, but she didn’t. She would deliberately take trips where prisoners were on work detail, and if someone “accidently” got in her way, they were reported and put into the “Bunker”—detention cells were the prisoners were tortured, sometimes to death, by sadistic guards. And she was not a “good” German housewife; prisoners took care of her children and oversaw the household while she “partied” and allegedly had affairs “by the dozen” with SS men.
Koch’s husband was executed by the SS for embezzlement and theft—not from prisoners, which was allowed, but supposedly from other SS officers cheated out of their “share”—a month before the war ended. She herself was arrested by the Americans and stood trial for crimes against humanity, based on her reputation at the camp. Although initially convicted to life in prison—she escaped the death penalty because of pregnancy—she was soon released after the Buchenwald trial files were reexamined and discrepancies found; Koch’s sentence was reduced to four years. But American public opinion was outraged, and the general who authorized her release from prison was labeled a “lampshade lover.”
But since American law didn’t allow a second trial on the same charge, the Bavarian government was pressured to try Koch, and she was again convicted on the premise that she must have known that those prisoners she had personally condemned would be tortured or killed, and she was sentenced to life in prison again, when she would become delusional and hang herself in 1967. Here she is during her Bavarian trial, where her frequent fits of rage barred her from the court on the day of her sentencing:
As noted, Koch was far from the worst of the female perpetrators of sadism, and that is saying a lot. Irma Grese was born in 1923, the daughter of a dairy worker, and had a typical middle class existence until her mother learned that her father was having an affair with the daughter of a local pub owner. In a fit of madness she committed suicide by drinking hydrochloric acid. Grese was 13 at the time; when she was 14 she dropped out of school, although it is not clear whether this was due to not being a good student or the psychological effect of her mother’s suicide. It would be speculated that her later actions could be explained by suppressed rage of her early experiences, although it doesn’t explain the sadism of her actions unless there were other preexisting psychological issues.
Grese joined the Nazi organization League of German Girls, and was apparently an ardent young Nazi. She trained as a nurse but didn’t make the grade. However, her enthusiasm for her race superiority led her to apply at the SS school at Ravensbruck, where she easily passed the SS entry examination, and trained to be an SS Aufseherin, or camp guard, a position that would soon be in great demand. Grese later claimed that she was sent to the SS school against her will, but the records showed that she volunteered. Grese was technically a member of the “temporary” SS, the Waffen-SS, which was a war-time designation.
Grese was apparently such a good “pupil” in the arts of sadism that she “graduated” early, and was apparently proud of her achievement, after failing as a nurse. This was no small “accomplishment,” since being approved for the SS ranks meant you were “racially superior,” and camp guards were paid three times the average salary of a female worker in a typical “civilian” job. Grese returned home briefly to parade herself in front of her anti-Nazi father in her SS uniform, knowing it would enrage him; her father reportedly beat her before telling her never to come back home again.
Most camp guards were indeed brutal, but Grese was among the minority who not only crossed the line, but took apparent pleasure in it. Her first assignment at the “tender” age of 19 was Auschwitz-Birkenau in 1943; most of the inmates she dealt with were the recently arrived female Hungarian Jews, most of whom would die in the gas chambers. While wearing jackboots and carrying a whip and pistol, she was accused of the following: engaging in the selection process for the gas chambers; shooting prisoners in cold blood; unleashing her half-starved German Shepherds on prisoners; the physical and psychological torture of inmates; beating and flogging prisoners to death.
There was more. Grese was also accused of “sexual sadism” against female prisoners, especially those who still retained their “looks” despite their deprived conditions. This would include striking their bare breasts with the braided wire end of her whip, causing infections which Grese ordered “operated” on with unsterilized knives without anesthesia to the great agony of the women and the sadistic pleasure of Grese. Inmate doctor Gisella Perl recalled Grese’s look of “complete sexual paroxysm…she always came to watch the operations of these women whose breasts had been slashed open…kicking the victims if their screams interfered with her pleasure and giving herself completely to the orgasmic spasms which shook her entire body and made saliva run down from the corner of her mouth.”
Another inmate testified to an unwanted “visit” from the blonde woman with the “angel face” and “snake eyes” who was the “camp’s chief torturer” with her dogs while the inmates were on punishment detail pushing wagons. So frightened by Grese’s presence was one group that they lost control of their wagon, which fell down the hill and overturned. Grese then unleashed her dogs, which began “tearing at the girls’ bodies. Irma came close to observe what they what they were doing. Her eyes were bloodshot. The sight of blood seemed to intoxicate her. She was sexually excited—everybody could see that.”
Grese was still only 20 years old
when she was promoted to the rank of “senior supervisor,” which only testified
to her adaptability to circumstances; only someone who was “comfortable” with
the worst people could do and didn’t question orders was qualified for such a
position. There probably other reasons why Grese impressed her own superiors;
known to prisoners as “The Beautiful Beast” and the “Blonde Angel of Death,”
she was always “smartly” dressed—often in the best clothes that could be
confiscated from camp inmates—and reportedly spent hours in front of a mirror
styling her hair. She wore expensive perfume to “torment” the filthy, starving
prisoners under her authority. One inmate doctor, Olga Lengyel, wrote that “It
defied belief that such a pretty girl could be so cruel. When she walked
through the camp with a whip in hand, she was surrounded by a cloud of choice
perfume.” This was the woman who was so unmindful of her actions that she told
other SS guards that when the war was over, she was going to be a glamorous
“movie star.” She might be wondering if that would still be her future while she sat in the prisoner dock during her trial:
It wasn’t all “work” of course, for this woman that another inmate doctor called the “most beautiful woman I have ever seen” with an “angelic face.” At the various camps, SS members of both sexes were not only promiscuous, but were encouraged to do so to pass the time, whether they were married or not. Grese not only had relations with numerous SS men, but also the infamous Dr. Josef Mengele. She also had numerous relations with female inmates; her “intimacies” with these women generally involved beating and whipping them; when she became bored with them, they would be sent to their deaths. Mengele would break off their relationship after he discovered her intimacies with female prisoners, since this violated several “ethical” rules for SS members.
In January 1945, the approach of the Russian Army caused Auschwitz to be abandoned and Grese was sent to the Bergen-Belsen camp—where, if nothing else, her behavior became even worse. However, the less than four weeks she was in charge of prisoners there was only enough time for her to add one more new nickname, the “Beautiful Beast of Belsen.” Reports were that she would have inmates stand in freezing weather for hours in the early morning holding heavy rocks above their heads, and those who could not remain upright she beat with a truncheon until they were unconscious. Her tenure at Belsen lasted until British forces took control of the camp.
Grese was one of the few SS personnel who actually chose to remain rather than flee. At first she received deferential treatment because she stood out because of her looks, and was not forced like the other female camp guards to bury the dead. But this attention was soon the reason for learning who exactly she was, since many of the survivors of Auschwitz had been transferred to Bergen-Belsen, and they knew all about her. Unlike other SS prisoners, during her trial she was completely unrepentant and believed in the “rightness” of all the barbarities she had committed. There was little her British defense counsel could do for her, and at 22 she became the youngest defendant to be hanged for war crimes. Here is the relevant scene in the aforementioned film:
In 2015 there appeared a post about a University of Kansas doctoral student named Shelly Cline whose dissertation made the claim that Grese has been held up to represent “all” of the some 3,500 women who served as camp guards, who all supposedly shared her sadistic qualities. She also made the self-serving claim that there are those who make the "unfair" assertion that female camp guards were “worse” than male guards. But nobody has ever made such a claim; this is a fantasy of the self-consciousness of people who cannot come to grips with the fact that women can be just as bad as men under certain circumstances—and that in individual cases like that of Grese, maybe even worse than the worst men.
People tend to be unmindful of the fact that the reason that these women received so much attention was because women were the beneficiaries of another myth that still continues to this day: that they are by “nature” less susceptible to the darker aspects of human nature than men. The reality is that it is a matter of power; even if most women—unlike Grese—shrink from the actual physical implementation of sadism and murder, and they will order or “empower” men to do it for them.
Cline asserts that Grese was just as much a “victim” of the system as she was a perpetrator, which makes no sense. It is difficult to listen to the “cultural” racism of women like Laura Ingraham and Ann Coulter and pretend that they are somehow “victims” and not the perpetrators feeding into extreme-right fanaticism. Cline said it was a “challenge” to “humanize” people like Grese, which only underlines the fact that there is always “excuses” for the way even the most evil of women act (we only have watch how Disney has “humanized” its best known “bad girls”).
Looking back on this case, why do
women like Cline even bother to try to “humanize” someone like Grese? There was
some “tic” deep inside of her that in “normal” times would have found
expression in one of those “Karens,” with a dash of feminist-style oppressive malignancy.
What Grese and her “gang” did was not a revisionist Disney movie where evil
villainesses are “humanized” and “star” in sequels. This was real life. Untold numbers
died because of their “natural” sadism. Those Nazi exploitation movies of the Seventies and Eighties were probably closer to the truth than people realize.
No comments:
Post a Comment