Ruth Neudeck
{{Short description|SS supervisor (1920–1948)}}
{{Infobox criminal
| name = Ruth Neudeck
| image = File:Ruth Closius.jpg
| caption =
| birth_name = Ruth Closius
| birth_date = 5 July 1920
| death_date = 29 July 1948 (aged 28)
| birth_place = Breslau, Weimar Republic
(present day Wrocław, Poland)
| death_place = Hamelin Prison, Hamelin, Allied-occupied Germany
| module = {{Infobox military person|embed=yes
| allegiance = {{flagcountry|Nazi Germany}}
| branch = File:Flag Schutzstaffel.svg Schutzstaffel
| serviceyears = 1944 {{mdash}} 1945
| rank = Blockführerin
(Barrack Overseer)
}}
| death_cause = Execution by hanging
| criminal_penalty = Death
| criminal_status = Executed
| conviction = War crimes
| trial = Hamburg Ravensbrück trials
}}
Ruth Closius-Neudeck (5 July 1920 – 29 July 1948) was a Nazi Schutzstaffel (SS) supervisor at a Nazi concentration camp complex from December 1944 until March 1945. She was executed for war crimes for her role in the Holocaust.
Early life
Ruth Closius was born in Breslau, Germany (now Wrocław, Poland). She hoped to become a nurse, but worked a saleswoman in a textiles warehouse.{{Cite magazine |last=Willmott |first=Lauren |date=2015-06-10 |title=The Forgotten Brutality of Female Nazi Concentration Camp Guards |url=https://time.com/3915391/the-forgotten-brutality-of-female-nazi-concentration-camp-guards/ |access-date=2024-09-21 |magazine=TIME |language=en}} She later married and was known as Ruth Neudeck or Ruth Closius-Neudeck.{{Cite book |last=Heath |first=Tim |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ecOIDwAAQBAJ&dq=Ruth+Neudeck&pg=PT247 |title=In Hitler's Shadow: Post-War Germany & the Girls of the BDM |date=2018-04-30 |publisher=Grub Street Publishers |isbn=978-1-5267-2003-0 |language=en}}
Atrocities in Nazi concentration camps
In July 1944, she arrived at the Ravensbrück concentration camp to begin her training to be a camp guard. Neudeck soon began impressing her superiors with her unbending brutality towards the female prisoners, resulting in her promotion to the rank of Blockführerin (Barrack Overseer) in late July 1944.
In the Ravensbrück camp, she was known as one of the most ruthless female guards. Former French prisoner Geneviève de Gaulle-Anthonioz commented after the war that she had seen Neudeck "cut the throat of an inmate with the sharp edge of her shovel".{{cite book|last=De Gaulle-Anthonioz|first=Geneviève|authorlink=Geneviève de Gaulle-Anthonioz|author2=Richard Seaver|title=The Dawn of Hope|year=1999|publisher=Arcade Publishing|isbn=1-55970-498-5}} Another survivor testified that Neudeck "took off the clothes of some inmates, poured cold water over them and made them stand in the cold for hours."{{Cite journal |last=Smeulers |first=Alette |date=2015-01-22 |title=Female Perpetrators: Ordinary or Extra-ordinary Women? |url=https://brill.com/view/journals/icla/15/2/article-p207_1.xml |journal=International Criminal Law Review |language=en |volume=15 |issue=2 |pages=207–253 |doi=10.1163/15718123-01502001 |issn=1571-8123}}{{Citation |last1=Porter |first1=Theresa |title=Women, Torture, and the Abuse of Power |date=2022-01-01 |work=Women and the Abuse of Power |pages=123–138 |editor-last=Gavin |editor-first=Helen |url=https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/978-1-80043-334-220221010/full/html |access-date=2024-09-21 |series=Emerald Interdisciplinary Connexions |publisher=Emerald Publishing Limited |doi=10.1108/978-1-80043-334-220221010 |isbn=978-1-80043-335-9 |last2=Gavin |first2=Helen|url-access=subscription }}
In December 1944, Neudeck was promoted to the rank of Oberaufseherin, and moved to the Uckermark extermination complex subcamp close to Ravensbrück. There she was involved in the selection and execution of over 5,000 women and children and running of the gas chambers.{{Cite web |title=Ravensbrück: training center for SS female guards |url=https://ahrp.org/ravensbruck-training-camp-for-himmler-s-new-female-prison-guard/ |access-date=2024-09-21 |website=Alliance for Human Research Protection |language=en-US}} The prisoners were mistreated by Neudeck or her fellow SS Aufseherinnen. In March 1945, Neudeck became head of the Barth subcamp.{{cite book |last1=Jones |first1=Phillip |title=Quickly to Her Fate |date=2010 |publisher=PJ Publishing |location=England |isbn=978-0956554932 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=SCotAgAAQBAJ&q=Ruth+Closius-Neudeck+barth&pg=PT61 |accessdate=30 July 2019}}
Capture, trial and execution
In late April 1945, she fled the camp but was later captured and detained in prison while the British Army investigated the allegations against her. From 26 April 1948,{{Cite book |last=Ingmann |first=Lorenz |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=b89VEAAAQBAJ&dq=Ruth+Neudeck&pg=PA84 |title=KZ-Aufseherinnen im Visier der Fahnder in »Ost- und Westdeutschland« |date=2021-12-01 |publisher=BoD – Books on Demand |isbn=978-3-96229-287-4 |pages=84 |language=de}} she stood accused at the third Ravensbrück trial, along with other Schutzstaffel (SS) women.Stracey, Heather. (2017) ‘Enfer Des Femmes’: Britain and the Ravensbrück-Hamburg Trials. MS thesis. Canterbury Christ Church University. The 28-year-old former SS supervisor admitted to the accusations of murder and maltreatment made against her.
The British court found Neudeck guilty of war crimes and sentenced her to death by hanging. On 29 July 1948, she was executed by British executioner Albert Pierrepoint on the gallows at Hamelin Prison.{{cite news|accessdate=26 September 2012|title=Nazi She-Devils|url=https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/nazi-she-devils-566055|journal=Mirror|date=13 November 2014}}
See also
References
{{reflist}}
Sources
- {{cite book|author=Daniel Patrick Brown|title=The Camp Women: The Female Auxiliaries Who Assisted the SS in Running the Concentration Camp System|series=Schiffer Military History|publisher=Schiffer Publishing Limited|year=2002}}
External links
- {{cite web|url=http://www.zyklon-b.info/anwendung/ravensbrueck.htm|title=Testimony of Ruth Closius Neudeck during her trial|url-status=dead|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20050218100022/http://www.zyklon-b.info/anwendung/ravensbrueck.htm|archivedate=2005-02-18}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Neudeck, Ruth}}
Category:Executed German mass murderers
Category:Executed German women
Category:Female guards in Nazi concentration camps
Category:Female mass murderers
Category:German people convicted of torture
Category:Hamburg Ravensbrück trials executions
Category:Holocaust perpetrators in Germany