Maria Mandl

Maria Mandl
Mandl in U.S. custody, 1945
Born	(1912-01-10)10 January 1912 Münzkirchen, Austria-Hungary
Died	24 January 1948(1948-01-24) (aged 36) Montelupich Prison, Kraków, Polish People's Republic
Cause of death	Execution by hanging
Other names	The Beast
Political party	Nazi Party
Motive	Nazism
Conviction(s)	Crimes against humanity
Trial	Auschwitz trial
Criminal penalty	Death

Maria Mandl (also spelled Mandel; 10 January 1912 – 24 January 1948) was an Austrian SS-Helferin ("SS helper") and a war criminal notorious for her role in the Holocaust as a top-ranking official at the Auschwitz II-Birkenau and Ravensbrück concentration camps. She was executed for committing crimes against humanity.

Life

Early life

Maria Mandl was born on 10 January 1912, in Münzkirchen, Austria-Hungary, to shoemaker Franz Mandl and Anna Streibl. She grew up on her family's farm alongside three elder siblings, Georg, Anna, and Aloisia. Mandl's father was well-known in the community for speaking out against the Nazi Party, instead aligning with the Christian Social Party (CSP). After the war, he served on the party's District Council.

In order to assist with the family farm, Mandl withdrew from school on 20 July 1924, at the age of twelve, without an exit certificate. However, in 1927, with her father's financial support, she was accepted into a Catholic boarding school in Neuhaus am Inn, where she studied for the next three years.

After graduating, Mandl struggled to find work in Münzkirchen, so she relocated to Brig, Valais, Switzerland, where she worked as a housekeeper and cook. Mandl resigned from her position after thirteen months due to homesickness and returned to Austria to live with her parents until 1934. She eventually found work as a maid at a private villa in Innsbruck. She ultimately left this job in 1936 and returned home once again when her mother and father's health began to decline. The following year, she began working at the Münzkirchen post office and became engaged to a local man.

The annexation of Austria by Nazi Germany in 1938 resulted in the separation of Mandl and her fiancé, who believed that the Mandl family's involvement with the CSP would harm his reputation as a Nazi soldier, as well as the loss of her position at the post office. Mandl was fired because her family was affiliated with the CSP, according to Münzkirchen residents, contradicting Mandl's claims that she was fired because she "had no identity as a National Socialist".

Move to Germany and KZ Lichtenburg

Mandl moved to Munich in September 1938 to live with her uncle, a police constable, in the hopes that he would help her get a job in the police force. There were no open positions, so her uncle encouraged her to take the position of Aufseherin (overseer) at the Lichtenburg concentration camp in Prettin. In a subsequent interview, Mandl stated that she accepted the position because of the decent pay and the expectation that she would earn more than a nurse. She also claimed that she "knew nothing about what the concentration camps were".

Mandl went through a standardized training program that included classes on Nazi philosophy and the proper attitude toward the Third Reich, as well as a twenty-question exam that assessed her knowledge of history, geography, and key dates in the Nazi Party. Her views on race and global issues were also examined. After meeting the requirements, Mandl was promoted to Aufseherin and permitted to work on the Lichtenburg camp grounds. For the first three months, she was working on a trial basis and supervised by one of her more experienced coworkers.

At Lichtenburg, Mandl worked under Kommandant Max Kögl, who influenced her sadistic behavior, and Oberaufseherin (senior overseer) Johanna Langefeld. Punitive exercises known as "sport" were forced upon prisoners, and Sunday beatings and whippings were common. Mandl was involved in the perpetration of these violent acts, according to Lichtenburg survivors Emilie Neu and Lina Haag, who described Mandl beating women, whilst they were naked and strapped to a wooden post, with a dogwhip. This is in addition to an incident in which Mandl repeatedly struck a prisoner with a key until they were unconscious, then dragged her by her knees across the camp and into a solitary cell.

A Lichtenburg survivor recalled an interaction with Mandl in the woman's early days at the camp. In response to the survivor's assertion that she is "too pretty to play supervisor", Mandl replied, "No, I swore the oath to the Führer, I'm staying."

Transfer to KZ Ravensbrück

Mandl was transferred to the Ravensbrück concentration camp on 15 May 1939 when she was twenty-seven, where she continued to work under Kögl and Langefeld. Mandl was given Langefeld's Oberaufseherin rank in April 1942 after the latter was found to be ineffective in enforcing "brutality and structure" within the camp. Mandl earned the nickname "the beast" during this period.

Mandl became known among Ravensbrück prisoners for targeting women with curly hair, beating them in the head, kicking them to the ground, or shaving off their curls. Survivor Maria Bielicka has described in an incident in which Mandl kicked a Jewish woman to death during roll-call—one of the many fatal beatings that took place at the camp.

When Ravensbrück became a center for women to receive Aufseherin training, Mandl took over much of the instruction in the early years of the program. Mandl trained Aufseherin Hermine Braunsteiner, who would become known as the "Mare of Majdanek", in the summer of 1939. Braunsteiner described Mandl as "very strict" and "unfavorable", referring to how she witnessed her hitting the prisoners.

Mandl had a brief relationship with Obersturmführer Edmund Bräuning while at Ravensbrück, which ended when Bräuning became involved romantically with another woman. This increased the number of prisoners shot and punished by Mandl.

Transfer to KZ Auschwitz II-Birkenau

In October 1942, Mandl was assigned to Auschwitz II-Birkenau, where she succeeded Langefeld in rank after being promoted from Oberaufseherin to Lagerführerin (camp leader). Mandl worked under Kommandant Rudolf Höss, who was the only SS man she had to report to. Höss regarded her highly, and on 27 March 1944, arranged for her to receive a one-hundred Reichsmark bonus in addition to her monthly pay. Mandl was also given command of all the female Auschwitz camps and subcamps, including Hindenburg O.S., Lichtewerden, and Raisko.

Mandl promoted Irma Grese to head of the Hungarian women's camp at Birkenau and appointed Therese Brandl as her private secretary. According to survivor Anita Lasker-Wallfisch, Mandl would often stand at the gate into Birkenau, waiting for an inmate to turn and look at her; those who did were taken out of the lines and never heard from again. Mandl took part in death selections and other atrocities at Auschwitz for the next two years. She signed inmate lists, sending thousands of women and children to their deaths in the gas chambers at Auschwitz I and II.

I had a friend who had a job cleaning in the guards' hostels. One of the senior guards had a piano in her room. One day my friend went in and heard the most beautiful music. The woman who was playing was lost in a world of her own – in ecstasy. It was the same guard who had murdered the Jewish woman a few days earlier.

Maria Bielicka, 1942

In April 1943, Mandl and Hauptsturmführer Franz Hössler formed the Women's Orchestra of Auschwitz to accompany roll calls, executions, selections, and transports. Mandl personally selected the first conductor, Polish music teacher Zofia Czajkowska, and later arranged for an accomplished Austrian violinist named Alma Rosé to be transferred into Auschwitz so that she could lead the women’s orchestra. According to historian David M. Crowe, Mandl "blended a passion for classical music with extreme cruelty towards her female prisoners".

In November 1944, Mandl was awarded the War Merit Cross, Second Class. Around this time, she was assigned to the Mühldorf subcamp of the Dachau concentration camp, and Elisabeth Volkenrath was appointed head of Auschwitz, which was liberated in late January 1945.

Arrest and execution

Maria Mandel behaves differently. She does her best to be in control of herself but her efforts are futile. The woman who condemned female prisoners to death with a single gesture now cannot control her accelerated breathing, unnatural blush and nervous twitching of her entire face.

Echo Krakowa, 24 December 1947

In May 1945, Mandl fled from Mühldorf into the southern Bavarian mountains to return to Münzkirchen, but her father refused to assist her in hiding. Mandl then sought refuge with her sister in Łuck, Ukraine. However, Mandl was arrested by the United States Army on 8 October 1945. Mandl spent some time in a cell in the former Dachau concentration camp. She was filmed by U.S. soldiers on 14 May 1946, while sharing a cell with Elisabeth Ruppert. Interrogations allegedly revealed her to be highly intelligent and dedicated to her work in the camps.

On 11 November 1946, at their request, U.S. officials transferred Mandl to Polish custody and placed her in Montelupich Prison. On 22 December 1947, Mandl was tried by Poland's Supreme National Tribunal in the Auschwitz trial, found guilty of crimes against humanity and sentenced to death by hanging. It is estimated that she was complicit in the murders of 500,000 people.

Mandl seated at the dock during the Auschwitz trial in Kraków, 24 November 1947

Stanisława Rachwałowa, a Polish survivor of Auschwitz who was an inmate under Mandl's administration and was arrested by Poland's post-war communist authorities as a "anti-communist activist", was imprisoned in the cell next to Mandl and Therese Brandl. Rachwałowa was proficient enough in German to interpret for the wardens. She stated that the last time she saw the two German war criminals, after they had been sentenced to death and shortly before their executions took place, they both asked her for forgiveness.

Mandl was hanged on 24 January 1948 at 7:32 A.M., at the age of thirty-six. Her final words were: "Polska żyje" ("Poland lives").

See also

• Female guards in Nazi concentration camps
• SS-Gefolge (Women's SS Division)

References

Bibliography

• Bartrop, Paul R.; Grimm, Eve E. (11 January 2019). Perpetrating the Holocaust: Leaders, Enablers, and Collaborators. Bloomsbury Publishing. ISBN 978-1-4408-5896-3.
• Crowe, David M. (2004). Oskar Schindler: The Untold Account of His Life, Wartime Activities, and the True Story Behind the List. New York, New York: Basic Books. ISBN 978-0-465-00253-5.
• Eischeid, Susan (2024). Mistress of Life and Death: The Dark Journey of Maria Mandl, Head Overseer of the Women's Camp at Auschwitz- Birkenau. New York, New York: Citadel Press. ISBN 978-0-8065-4285-0.
• Fleming, Michael (2022). In the Shadow of the Holocaust: Poland, the United Nations War Crimes Commission, and the Search for Justice. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1-009-09898-4.
• Heath, Tim (April 2018). In Hitler's Shadow: Post-War Germany and the Girls of the BDM. Yorkshire, England: Pen and Sword Books. ISBN 978-1-5267-2001-6.
• Helm, Sarah (15 January 2015). If This Is a Woman, Inside Ravensbrück: Hitler's Concentration Camp for Women. London, England: Little, Brown and Company. ISBN 978-1-4087-0107-2.
• Koop, Volker (2021). The Commandant of Auschwitz: Rudolf Höss. Barnsley, South Yorkshire, England: Frontline Books. ISBN 978-1-47388-688-9.
• Müller, J. M. (2020). Angeklagte Nr. 9: Die "Hyäne von Auschwitz" im Kreuzverhör. Das Protokoll (in German). Norderstedt, Germany: Books on Demand. ISBN 978-3-7543-0588-1.
• Zapotoczny, Walter S. (30 August 2022). The Road to Auschwitz: The Deportation of the Slovak Jews by the Hlinka Guard. Fonthill Media. ISBN 978-1-78155-880-5.

Further reading

• Kennedy, Kate (15 August 2024). Cello: A Journey Through Silence to Sound. London, England: Bloomsbury Publishing. ISBN 978-1-80328-701-0.