Gerda Steinhoff

Guards of Stutthof and Bromberg-Ost Concentration Camps at the Stutthof Trial between April 25 and May 31, 1946, in Gdańsk. Gerda Steinhoff, front row center

Gerda Steinhoff (January 29, 1922 – July 4, 1946) born in Danzig-Langfuhr (Polish: Wrzeszcz), was a Nazi concentration camp overseer following the 1939 German invasion of Poland.

SS career

In 1939, Steinhoff became a cook, married and had one child. In 1944, because of the Nazi call for new guards, she joined the camp staff at Stutthof. On October 1, 1944, she became a Blockleiterin in Stutthof women's camp SK-III. There, she took part in selections of prisoners to be sent to the gas chambers. On October 31, 1944, she was promoted to SS-Oberaufseherin and was assigned to the Danzig-Holm subcamp. On December 1, 1944 she was reassigned to Bromberg-Ost female subcamp of Stutthof located in Bydgoszcz not far from Gdańsk. There on January 25, 1945, she received a medal for her loyalty and service to the Third Reich. She was devoted to her job in the camps and was known as a very ruthless overseer. Soon before the end of World War II, she fled the camp and went back home.

Arrest, trial and execution

On May 25, 1945, she was arrested by Polish officials and sent to prison. She stood trial with the other SS women and kapos and was convicted and condemned to death for her involvement in the selections and what was called her sadistic abuse of prisoners. She was publicly hanged on July 4, 1946, on Biskupia Gorka Hill, near Gdańsk.

See also

• Female guards in Nazi concentration camps

References

• Death on the Gallows