Hermine Braunsteiner | |
|---|---|
 Braunsteiner during her time in the SS | |
| Born | (1919-07-16)July 16, 1919 |
| Died | April 19, 1999(1999-04-19) (aged 79) |
| Other names | Mare of Majdanek (Stute von Majdanek) |
| Criminal status | Deceased |
| Spouse | Russel Ryan |
| Motive | Nazism |
| Convictions | Austria Crimes against humanity West Germany Murder (1080 counts) Accessory to murder (102 counts) |
| Trial | Majdanek trials |
| Criminal penalty | Austria 3 years imprisonment West Germany Life imprisonment |
| SS career | |
| Allegiance |  Nazi Germany |
| Branch |  Schutzstaffel |
| Years of service | 1939–1945 |
| Rank | SS Helferin |
| Awards | Kriegsverdienstkreuz 2. Klasse, 1943 |
| Other work | Hotel and restaurant worker Housewife |
Hermine Braunsteiner Ryan (July 16, 1919 – April 19, 1999) was an AustrianSSHelferin andfemale camp guard atRavensbrück andMajdanek concentration camps. She was the firstNaziwar criminal to beextradited from theUnited States to face trial inWest Germany.[1][2] Braunsteiner was known to prisoners of Majdanek concentration camp as the "Stomping Mare" and was said to have beaten prisoners to death, thrown children by their hair onto trucks that took them to be murdered in gas chambers, hanged young prisoners and stomped an old prisoner to death with her jackboots.[3][4][5]
Braunsteiner was convicted for her complicity and collaborating in murders of over 1,000 people duringthe Holocaust. She was sentenced to life imprisonment by the District Court of Düsseldorf on April 30, 1981. She was released on health grounds in 1996, and died three years later.[6]
Braunsteiner was born inVienna, the youngest of seven children in a strictly observantRoman Catholic family, variously described aspetite bourgeoisie (kleinbürgerlich) orworking class. Her father, Friedrich Braunsteiner, was abutcher and achauffeur for a brewery owner, while her mother was a washwoman and custodian. She was raised under impoverished circumstances in theNußdorf suburb ofDöbling.[2][7]
Braunsteiner graduated fromHauptschule in 1933 with aspirations to become anurse. Due to the death of her father in 1934, however, she was required to find employment to support the family and thus unable to enter nursing school. Braunsteiner worked as a maid, mostly in Vienna, though she briefly moved to live with relatives in the Netherlands for three months in summer 1936. Upon her return, she was hired as anassembly worker at the brewery her father formerly worked for.[7]
From 1937 to May 1938, Braunsteiner worked inLondon for anAmerican engineer's household, but returned to Austria following theAnschluss, fearing possible internment by the British government in the event of war.[8] Having become a German citizen through the annexation, Braunsteiner filed a request to undergo nurse training with theBlaue Schwesternschaft [de] inBerlin, to no success. In August of the same year, she relocated to Germany for a job at a munition factory inGrüneberg before moving to Berlin to work at theHeinkelaircraft works.[2][8][7]
Unsatisfied with the menial labour, Braunsteiner found out through her landlord, aFürstenberg police officer, that the recently establishedRavensbrück concentration camp had open contractual positions for female supervisors (Aufseherinnen), with a weekly salary of 64mark, quadruple her current income.[5] She began her training at Ravensbrück on August 15, 1939, underMaria Mandl, receiving the service number 38.[2][7] She remained there after the start of World War II, and the influx of new prisoners from occupied countries.[1][2][9] After three years, a disagreement with Mandl led Braunsteiner to request a transfer in October 1942.[2]
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On October 16, 1942, Braunsteiner assumed her duties in the forced-labor apparel factory near theMajdanek concentration camp, established nearLublin, Poland, a year earlier. It was both a labour camp (Arbeitslager) and anextermination camp (Vernichtungslager) withgas chambers and crematoria.[1] She was promoted to assistant wardress in January 1943,[1] underOberaufseherinElsa Ehrich along with five other camp guards.[10] By then most of the Aufseherinnen had been moved into Majdanek from the Alter Flughafen labor camp.
Braunsteiner had a number of roles in the camp. She involved herself in "selections" of women and children to be sent to thegas chambers and whipped several women to death. Working alongside other female guards such asElsa Ehrich,Hildegard Lächert, Marta Ulrich,Alice Orlowski,Charlotte Karla Mayer-Woellert,Erna Wallisch and Elisabeth Knoblich, Braunsteiner became known for her wild rages and tantrums. She was noted for her particularly cruel treatment of children, whom she called "useless eaters", regularly punishing them for minor infractions such as wearing stockings and pillows for warmth or incorrectly sewing their identification numbers to clothes, and in one instance, she beat a group of starved children with aladle for coming too early for food distribution. One witness at her later trial in Düsseldorf described an incident where a prisoner had concealed his child inside a backpack and upon Braunsteiner seeing movement in the bag, she whipped the child for several minutes before personally dragging her to the gas chamber.[5] Other survivors testified how she killed women by stomping on them with her steel-studded jackboots, earning her the nickname "The Stomping Mare" (InPolish "Kobyła", inGerman "Stute").[1][2][11] For her work, she received the War Merit Cross, 2nd class, in 1943.[1][12]
In January 1944, Braunsteiner was ordered back to Ravensbrück as Majdanek began evacuations due to the approaching front line. She was promoted to supervising wardress at theGenthin subcamp of Ravensbrück, located outside Berlin.[1] Witnesses say that she abused many of the prisoners with a horsewhip she carried, killing at least two women with it.[13] A French physician, who was interned at Genthin recalled the sadism of Braunsteiner while she ruled the camp: "I watched her administer twenty-five lashes with a riding crop to a young Russian girl suspected of having tried sabotage. Her back was full of lashes, but I was not allowed to treat her immediately."[14]
On May 7, 1945, Braunsteiner fled the camp ahead of theSovietRed Army. She then returned to Vienna,[1] where Austrian police arrested Braunsteiner a year later on May 6, 1946, and turned her over to the Britishmilitary occupation authorities. She was held in various internment camps until April 18, 1947. Braunsteiner was re-arrested by Austrian officials on April 7, 1948.[7]
On November 22, 1949, the Austrian People's Court inGraz convicted Braunsteiner ofcrimes against human dignity for non-fatal abuse in Ravensbrück, but acquitted of her crimes in Majdanek, including murder, due to a lack of witnesses. Braunsteiner was sentenced to three years in prison and had her property confiscated. With credit for time served, she was released from prison on 26 April 1950, having served four months. Braunsteiner was told that she would not face further prosecution, and was later granted partial amnesty in 1957.[1][3][4][15][16] She worked at low-level jobs in hotels and restaurants inCarinthia until emigrating.[2][17]
American national Russell Ryan met Braunsteiner whilst working as a US Air Force mechanic stationed in Germany.[18] They married in October 1958, after they hademigrated toNova Scotia, Canada.[19] She entered the United States in April 1959, becoming an American citizen on January 19, 1963. They lived inMaspeth, Queens, New York City, where she was known as a fastidious housewife with a friendly manner, married to a construction worker.[3][8]
Nazi hunterSimon Wiesenthal picked up on her trail by chance on a visit toTel Aviv. He was at a restaurant there when he received a call from his friend that he could not make it to their luncheon. Themaître d'hôtel announced the "phone call for Mr. Wiesenthal" and this led to his recognition by the other patrons, who stood up to applaud him. When he returned to his table, there were several Majdanek survivors waiting who told him about Braunsteiner and what she had done. Based on this information he followed her trail from Vienna toHalifax, Nova Scotia, and then, viaToronto, toQueens.[3][19][20] In 1964, Wiesenthal alertedThe New York Times that Braunsteiner might have married a man named Ryan and might live in theMaspeth area of the Borough of Queens in New York City. They assignedJoseph Lelyveld, then a youngreporter, to find "Mrs. Ryan".[21] They first lived at 54–44 82nd Street in western Elmhurst and moved to 52–11 72nd Street in Maspeth.[15] He found her at the second doorbell he rang and later wrote that she greeted him at her front doorstep and said: "My God, I knew this would happen. You've come."[22]
Braunsteiner stated that she had been at Majdanek only a year, eight months of that time in the camp infirmary. "My wife, sir, wouldn't hurt a fly," said Ryan. "There's no more decent person on this earth. She told me this was a duty she had to perform. It was a conscriptive service."[15] On August 22, 1968,United States authorities sought to revoke Braunsteiner's citizenship, since she had failed to disclose her convictions for war crimes; she was denaturalized in 1971 after entering into aconsent judgment to avoid deportation. In 1972, vigilantes firebombed a home where they mistakenly thought Braunsteiner was living.[2][3][23]
A prosecutor in Düsseldorf began investigating Braunsteiner's wartime behavior, and in 1973 the West German government requested her extradition, accusing her of joint responsibility in the death of 200,000 people. On March 22, 1973, Braunsteiner was taken into custody as she awaited deportation. She was held atRikers Island, then at the Nassau County Jail.[1][2][24][25][26]
The United States court denied procedural claims that herdenaturalization had been invalid (U.S. citizens could not be extradited to West Germany), and that the charges allegedpolitical offenses committed by a non-German outside West Germany. Later, it rejected claims of lack ofprobable cause anddouble jeopardy.[2] During the next year, she sat with her husband inUnited States district court in Queens, hearing survivors' testimony against the formerSchutzstaffel (SS) guard. They described whippings and fatal beatings. Rachel Berger, alone among the witnesses, testified she would celebrate retribution against the former vice-commandant of the women's camp at Majdanek.[27]
The judge certified her extradition to theSecretary of State on May 1, 1973,[28] and on August 7, 1973, Hermine Braunsteiner Ryan became the first Nazi war criminal extradited from the United States to West Germany.[2]
Braunsteiner wasremanded into custody inDüsseldorf on August 7, 1973, until her husband posted bail on April 7, 1976.[17] However, she returned to custody on December 8, 1977, after attempting to intimidate witnesses, and remained there until January 9, 1978. The West German court rejected Ryan's arguments that it lacked jurisdiction, because she was not a German national but Austrian, and that the alleged offences had occurred outside Germany. It ruled she had been a German citizen at the time and more importantly had been a German government official acting in the name of the German Reich.[1][2]
She stood trial inWest Germany with 15 other former SS men and women from Majdanek.[29] One of the witnesses against Braunsteiner testified that she "seized children by their hair and threw them on trucks heading to the gas chambers". Others spoke of vicious beatings. One witness told of Braunsteiner and the steel-studdedjackboots with which she dealt blows to inmates.[8][30] Braunsteiner had two recorded screaming fits during the trial and accused a witness of lying during a break.[5]
The third Majdanek trial (Majdanek-Prozess in German) was held inDüsseldorf. Beginning on November 26, 1975, and lasting 474 sessions, it was the longest and most expensive trial in West Germany. The defendants included Ryan, formerSS guardHermann Hackmann andcamp doctorHeinrich Schmidt. The court foundinsufficient evidence on six counts of theindictment and convicted her on three counts: the murder of 80 people, abetting the murder of 102 children, and collaborating in the murder of 1,000 people.[12] On June 30, 1981, the court imposed alife sentence,[29] a more severepunishment than those meted out to her co-defendants.[1][31][32]
In 1996, complications ofdiabetes, including a legamputation, led to her release from Mülheimer women's prison. Hermine Braunsteiner Ryan died on April 19, 1999, aged 79, inBochum, Germany.[1][8][30][33]
After the publicity surrounding Ryan's extradition, theUnited States government established in 1979 aU.S. DOJ Office of Special Investigations to seek outwar criminals todenaturalize or deport. It took jurisdiction previously held by theImmigration and Naturalization Service.[34]
The 2024 novelThe Mare by Angharad Hampshire is based on Hermine Braunsteiner's life.[35][36]
...Hermine Braunsteiner-Ryan's pay at... Majdanek ... four times what she earned in a munitions factory.Original from the University of Michigan. Digitized March 18, 2008.
Hermine Ryan nannte man "Kobyla, die Stute": weil sie mit ihren eisenbeschlagenen Stiefeln die Menschen trat.
The prosecutor's office began an investigation into the case of the former concentration camp supervisor Hermine Braunsteiner-Ryan who had been extradited by the United States to Germany where she was wanted for participating in the murder of 2,000 Jews.
In the winter of 1973 in New York City, deportation hearings were held for Hermine Braunsteiner Ryan, wife of an American citizen, a resident of Queens, New York. Former SS guard at Ravensbrueck and Majdanek, Mrs. Ryan stood accused of beating inmates to death during the years 1939–1944 while performing her duties as vice-commandant of the women's camp at Majadanek; of being responsible, also, for the death selection of hundreds of others.(Conflates extradition and deportation.)
She ran as far as the United States, to a marriage with an American and a home in Maspeth, Queens. But Hermine Braunsteiner Ryan couldn't hide indefinitely and, finally found out, she was stripped of American citizenship in 1971 and deported in 1973. And last week, after a five-year trial, she was convicted of murder as a guard in the Maidanek concentration camp near Lublin, Poland, during World War II.
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