Hermine Braunsteiner

Braunsteiner-Hermine Ryan ( Vienna , Austria , 16 of July of 1919 - Bochum , Germany , 19 of April of 1999 ) was a female concentration camp guard and the first war criminal Nazi who was extradited from the United States . He participated in person in painful and cruel deaths of women and children. ^{1 2}

Early years

She was born in Vienna , the youngest daughter of a strictly Catholic working class family. His father Friedrich was apolitical Braunsteiner a driver of a brewery or butcher . His mother Mary was cleaning. Hermine Braunsteiner was a tall, blond, blue-eyed woman who went to school for eight years. She was frustrated that she had not fulfilled her aspiration to be a nurse and worked as a maid. Between 1937 and 1938, he worked in England at the home of an American engineer . ^{3 2 4 5}

World War II

Heinkel

In 1938 the unification of Germany and Austria ( Anschluss ), became a German citizen, returning to Vienna . Later that year, he moved and found work in the Heinkel aircraft factories in Berlin . ^{2 4}

Ravensbrück

Pressed by her landlord, she presented her candidacy for a better paid job as a prisoner supervisor (as a guard, she could quadruple her income). He began his training on 15 August 1939 as Aufseherin under Maria Mandel at the Ravensbrück Prison Camp . ^{1 2 6}

After some years, due to misunderstandings with his supervisor María Mandel , requested a transfer. ²

Majdanek

The 16 of October of 1942 he resumed his work in a factory at Majdanek , a suburb of Lublin , Poland that was both death camp and Arbeitslager . ¹

In January of 1943 she was promoted to assistant of guard ¹ of Elsa Ehrich , along with other five women. ^{[ Citation needed ]} Their abuse and sadism took different forms in the extermination camp, getting involved in the selection process of women and children to be sent to the gas chambers and beat several women to death. In the company of Elsa Ehrich , Hildegard Lächert , Marta Ulrich , Alice Orlowski , Charlotte Karla Mayer-Woellert , Erna Wallisch or Elisabeth Knoblich , came to kill women on foot, thereby gaining the nickname “trampling mare” (in Polish “Kobyła “, Or in German ” Stute von Majdanek “). ^{1 2 7 [ citation needed ]}

In 1943, he received the second-class merit cross of war for his work. ¹

Again in Ravensbrück

In January 1944, Hermine Braunsteiner was ordered to return to Ravensbrück as soon as the evacuations in Majdanek began . A subfield of Ravensbrück , outside Berlin, was promoted to supervisory guard at Genthin . ¹ According to witnesses, he abused some prisoners with a special whip he carried with him. ^{[ Citation needed ]}

Postwar in Austria

On May 7, 1945, Braunsteiner fled the countryside to avoid being captured by the Red Army . After his flight, he returned to Vienna . ¹ The Austrian police arrested her and handed her over to the British military authorities; being imprisoned since May 6, 1946 until April 18, 1947. An Austrian jury of Graz sentenced for torture , ill - treatment of prisoners and crimes against humanity and against human dignity committed in Ravensbrück (not Majdanek); Was sentenced to three years in prison, where she entered on 7 April 1948 and was released in early April 1950. An Austrian civil court granted her amnesty in the face of further charges in Austria . ^{1 3 8 5}

Once released, she performed low-level jobs in hotels and restaurants . ²

United States

Emigration and marriage

The American Russell Ryan met her during a vacation in Austria , both married in October 1958, later emigrating to Nova Scotia , Canada . She entered the United States in April 1959, becoming a US citizen on 01/19/1963. ³ Marriage lived in Maspeth , Queens being a meticulous housewife and a friendly neighbor. ^{3 4}

Discovery and accusation

The Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal had followed her trail through the world to Queens . ^{3 9} In 1964, Wiesenthal alerted the New York Times that Braunsteiner might have married a man named Ryan and live in Maspeth . The newspaper assigned Joseph Lelyveld , then a young reporter , the task of finding “Mrs. Ryan.” The reporter found her without too much difficulty, later wrote that she received him saying: “My God, I knew this would happen, you have come.” ^{5 8}

Mr. Ryan explained that she had exercised only one year in “Majdanek”, spending eight months of the year in the field nursing. “My wife, sir, would not kill a fly,” he said; “There is not a more decent person on earth, she told me that this was a service she had to do, it was a mandatory service.” ^{Referring to Fig.}

The 22 of August of 1968 the US authorities revoked his citizenship for not having purged his war crimes; His nationality was withdrawn in 1971 following a trial to avoid deportation . ^{2 3}

Extradition

A Duesseldorf prosecutor began investigating his behavior during the war and in 1973 the German government requested his extradition accusing it of its shared responsibility in the death of 200,000 people. ^{1 2 10}

El jurado norteamericano inmediatamente denegó la nulidad de la extradición, que tuvo su origen en que la normativa impide extraditar un ciudadano estadounidense a Alemania debido a que los cargos eran delitos políticos cometidos por una ciudadana “no alemana” fuera de las fronteras de la República Federal Alemana.² Durante todo el año, se sentó junto a su marido escuchando a supervivientes mientras daban su testimonio contra la antigua guardiana de las SS. Los testigos describieron los azotamientos y las palizas mortales.¹¹

The judge certified the extradition to the Secretary of State on May 1, 1973 and August 7, 1973 Hermine Braunsteiner Ryan was the first Nazi criminal extradited from the United States to Germany . ²

Return to Germany

She was held in custody in Düsseldorf in 1973 until her husband surrendered bail . The German court rejected the argument of having no jurisdiction over the accused, since she was not German, but Austrian; It also rejected the argument that the events tried outside Germany . The court ruled that at the time of the crimes she was a German citizen and, more importantly, that she had been an officer of the German government acting on behalf of the Third Reich . ^{1 2}

Hermine Braunsteiner appeared at his trial in Germany along with 15 other men and women former members of the SS of Majdanek . One of the witnesses against Hermine testified that she “grabbed children by the hair and threw them into trucks heading for the gas chambers .” Others spoke of their savage beatings. A witness spoke of Hermine and the steel-studded boots with which she mistreated the inmates. ^{4 12}

The third trial of Majdanek (Majdanek trial ) was held in Düsseldorf , commenced on 26 November 1975 and extended 474 sessions; Was the longest and most expensive trial held in Germany ^{[ citation needed ]} . All of the defendants, including Hermine Braunsteiner and Hermann Hackmann , had been SS guards at Majdanek. The court ruled that there was a lack of evidence in six sections of the indictment and condemned it only for three: murdering 80 people, leading to the murder of 102 children and collaborating in the death of 1000. On June 30, 1981, the court sentenced her to Life sentence , a punishment more severe than that of any of his imputed companions. ^{1 13 14}

Complications related to diabetes , including amputation of a leg, led to her being released from the female prison in Mülheimer in 1996. Hermine Braunsteiner died on 19 April 1999 in Bochum , Germany. ^{1 4 12 15}

Repercussions

Following the publicity surrounding the extradition of Hermine Braunsteiner, the United States Government established in 1979 the Office of Special Investigations to search for war criminals and deprive them of nationality and extradite them. This office took over the jurisdiction previously held by the immigration and naturalization service.

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