Johanna Langefeld

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Johanna Langefeld (March 5, 1900 - January 26, 1974) was a female supervisor at two concentration camps during the Nazi Regime.

Born in Kupferdreh (now in Essen, Germany), Johanna Langefeld later married and had a son. As her husband was killed on the Russian front, she volunteered to be a camp guard to earn her and her son's living. She began her training in Ravensbrück, as she stated after the war, "to help the poorest of the poor."

In 1941, Langefeld was promoted to SS Oberaufseherin and became head of all prisoners and female guards at Ravensbrück. Prisoners recounted Langefeld with mixed feelings. She saved the life of a Polish woman who was to be executed, but showed no adverse reaction when a prisoner was beaten in front of her. In March 1942, Langefeld was selected to become head of the Auschwitz I camp in newly occupied Poland. There she tried to take control of the women's camp and get absolute power. The then commandant, Rudolf Höß, did not accept this and the two butted heads. Höß was unimpressed by the women guards and saw them as incompetent and untrustworthy.

After the war, Höß recounted in his memoires that they had been:

"spoiled rotten in Ravensbrück. Everything had been done to persuade them to stay in the KZ women's auxiliary. They were given good food and extremely good lodging. They also made a salary which could never be met in civilian life. From their very first days in Auschwitz, many of them wanted to run back to the quiet and comfortable life of Ravensbrück. There were only three or four competent ones, and the rest were driven crazy by the others who ran around like excited chickens."

Höß also wrote that the morale among the female guards was low. Many of them eventually stood before an SS court for stealing from the camp's supply huts. Eventually Höß had enough of the power struggle and sent Langefeld back to Ravensbrück in October 1942. That same month the Auschwitz women's camp was moved to the Auschwitz Birkenau camp 3 km away and Maria Mandel became the new female camp leader. Back at Ravensbrück Langefeld served as chief wardress along with several other women.

In April 1943, she became deputy wardress under Lagerführerin Erna Rose. In November 1944, Langefeld began helping select out women in barracks to be gassed. Margarethe Buber-Neumann, a prisoner who was Langefeld's assistant, records in Milena—Kafkas Freundin (Albert Langen—Georg Müller Verlag, Munich, 1977) that Langefeld was dismissed for excessive sympathy with Polish prisoners; she was separated from her daughter, taken under arrest to Breslau, where she was tried by an SS tribunal, ending after 50 days in her acquittal (for lack of evidence). In April 1945, Langefeld successfully negotiated the release of over 1,000 female concentration camp prisoners to the Swedish Red Cross via Denmark. Along the way over thirty of the women died in air raids.

After the war Langefeld was never prosecuted for war crimes. She was praised for her kindness and consideration in the camps, but attacked by Höß in his memoirs. Johanna Langefeld died at her home in Augsburg, Germany on January 26, 1974, at the age of 73.