Skip to main content

January 10, 1912 - Maria Mandl

As chief camp leader at Auschwitz II-Birkenau, she held direct authority over hundreds of thousands of female prisoners and is estimated to have been personally responsible for selecting some 500,000 women and children for the gas chambers. Her career traced a path through multiple camps before Birkenau — Lichtenburg, then Ravensbrück — where she developed both her methods and her rank within the SS female guard hierarchy. The documentary record of her conduct, from fatal beatings at Lichtenburg to her role in mass selections at Birkenau, made her one of the most consequential female perpetrators of the Holocaust.

From Wikipedia

Maria Mandl

Maria Mandl (, MAHN-dul; sometimes erroneously spelled Mandel; 10 January 1912 – 24 January 1948) was an Austrian-born Holocaust perpetrator and convicted war criminal. From 1942 until her arrest in 1945, she served as the Schutzhaftlagerführerin (camp leader) at the Auschwitz II-Birkenau concentration camp. She also held positions at the Lichtenburg and Ravensbrück camps as Aufseherin (overseer) and Oberaufseherin (head overseer), respectively.

Mandl was born in Münzkirchen, Austria-Hungary, into a financially well-off Catholic family affiliated with the Christian Social Party (CSP). Following the annexation of Austria by Nazi Germany in 1938, she moved to Munich and found work as an Aufseherin at the Lichtenburg concentration camp. There, she subjected prisoners to fatal beatings and floggings. In 1939, she was transferred to Ravensbrück, where she was promoted to Oberaufseherin. She oversaw the training program for prospective Aufseherinnen and worked alongside Dorothea Binz in the camp's punishment block.

⚠ Report a problem with this article

  • Last updated on .