Hildegard Lächert

Hildegard Martha Lächert (January 20, 1920 – 1995) was a notorious female guard, Aufseherin, at several German World War II concentration camps. She became publicly known for her service at Ravensbrück, Majdanek and Auschwitz-Birkenau. After the war she spent 27 years in prison altogether for her brutal treatment of inmates during her camp service.

In October 1942, at the age of 22, Hildegard Lächert, a German nurse, was called to serve at Majdanek as an Aufseherin. In 1944, after the birth of her third child, Lächert went on to serve at Auschwitz concentration camp. The ruthless overseer fled the camp in December 1944 ahead of the advancing Red Army. There are reports that her last overseeing jobs were at Bolzano, a detention camp in northern Italy, and at the Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp in Austria.

In November 1947, the former SS woman appeared in a Kraków, Poland 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 crimes at Auschwitz and Płaszów, the former guard and mother of two surviving children was given a sentence of 15 years in prison. Lächert was released in 1956 from a Kraków prison. In 1975, the German government decided to try 16 former SS guards from the Majdanek concentration camp. Lächert was one of them, along with Hermine Braunsteiner and Alice Orlowski. From November 26, 1975, until June 30, 1981, the accused were tried in a Düsseldorf courtroom.

The testimonies heard concerning Lächert's sadistic behaviour were long 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" or "the most cruel" Aufseherin, as "Beast", and as "Fright of the Prisoners." For her part in selections to the gas chamber, releasing her dog onto inmates and her overall abuse, the court sentenced her to 12 years imprisonment.

Hildegard Lächert died in 1995 in Berlin, aged 75.

Reference links

 * Female Nazis, Holocaust History Project, retrieved on December 22, 2006.
 * Auschwitz Trial (November-December 1947), Jewish Virtual Library, retrieved on December 22, 2006.