Brandl at the time of her arrest, 1945
1 February 1902|
|Died||28 January 1948
Kraków, Republic of Poland
|Cause of death||Capital punishment (Hanging)|
Therese Brandl (1 February 1902 – 28 January 1948) was a Nazi concentration camp guard. In March 1942, Brandl was one of several SS women to be assigned to Auschwitz I concentration camp. Her duties included watching over women in the sorting sheds and as the SS Rapportaufseherin.
In October 1942, she was moved to the newly opened Auschwitz II extermination camp at Birkenau. She was convicted of crimes against humanity after the war during the Auschwitz Trial in Kraków and executed.
Born in Staudach-Egerndach, Bavaria, Brandl entered Ravensbrück concentration camp in March 1940 to begin her training under SS-Oberaufseherin Johanna Langefeld. Sent to Auschwitz I during March 1942, Brandl worked in the laundry and soon rose through the ranks and became an Erstaufseherin (First Guard) directly under Margot Dreschel and Maria Mandl. In the summer of 1943, she received a medal from the Reich for her "good conduct" in the camps. She took part in selections of women and children to the gas chambers as well as physically abusing prisoners, including children, as Andreas Larinciakos, a nine-year-old boy from Cles, Italy, recalled: "While in the camp, Doctor Mengele took my blood many times. In November 1944, all children were transferred to Camp A, the gypsy camp. When they counted us, one was found missing, so Mandl, manageress of the women’s camp and her assistant, Brandl, drove us out into the street at one in the morning and made us stand there in the frost until noon the next day." In November 1944, with the approach of the Soviet Army, she was sent to the Mühldorf Forest subcamp of Dachau along with Mandel and was demoted to Aufseherin. Not many reports have surfaced about Brandl's behavior at Muhldorf. She ultimately fled from Muhldorf on 27 April 1945, weeks before the arrival of the United States Army.
On 29 August 1945, the U.S. Army arrested her in the Bavarian mountains of Germany and sent her to a holding camp to await questioning. In November 1947 she was tried by the Polish authorities along with Mandl, Luise Danz, Hildegard Lächert and Alice Orlowski in the Auschwitz Trial at Kraków. On 22 December 1947, Brandl was convicted of participating in the selection of inmates to be put to death. She was hanged in prison on 28 January 1948, four days before her 46th birthday.
- Niewyk, Donald L. (1998). Fresh Wounds: Early Narratives of Holocaust Survival. The University of North Carolina Press. p. 432. ISBN 0-8078-2393-7.
- Hermann Langbein (2013). "Auschwitz Trials (Cracow)". Auschwitz-Birkenau. Jewish Virtual Library/Encyclopaedia Judaica. Retrieved 21 October 2013.
Source: Encyclopaedia Judaica. Bibliography: Naumann, Auschwitz (Eng., 1966); H. Langbein, Der Auschwitz-Prozess: eine Documentation, 2 vols. (1965); Brand, Yad Vashem Bulletin, 15 (1964), 43–117.
- Paweł Brojek (Nov 24, 2012), Pierwszy proces oświęcimski (The First Auschwitz Trial) Portal Prawy.pl; retrieved 12 May 2013. (Polish)
- Bloch, Anne L., Fox, Patricia Lowe, McClernan, Frances, Poznanski, Gitel, Radin, Max and Wasserman, Ursula, The Black Book (New York: Duell, Sloan and Pearce, 1945) pp. 246-247. The Child-Survivor erroneously refers to “Branded” (Brandl) as the chief and “Manded” (Mandl) as her assistant.
- G. Álvarez, Mónica. "Guardianas Nazis. El lado femenino del mal" (Spanish). Madrid: Grupo Edaf, 2012. ISBN 978-84-414-3240-6