Brutal Execution of Cruel Nazi Guard at Auschwitz & Bergen Belsen – Elisabeth Volkenrath

In the spring of 1945, while the Third Reich was collapsing, British troops entered Bergen Bellson. Among thousands of bodies and an unbearable stench, they found those responsible for the camp still in their positions. Among them, a woman with an impassive face, Elizabeth Falenrat.

 She had arrived from Achvitz to impose order in the midst of chaos. Her presence represented the continuity of the system, even in its ruin. Falcenrath did not act on impulse. She followed orders, applied punishments, maintained the structure of control when there was nothing left to control. She was the perfect extension of a hierarchy that had turned obedience into a form of power.

 What keeps someone steady within the absolute moral collapse? What turns discipline into an instrument of destruction? How far can loyalty go when the war has ended? The day of discovery. Bergen Bellson under British command. On the 15th of April 1945, shortly before noon, the reconnaissance units of the 11th British Armored Division advanced toward the north of Germany and reached the limits of the Bergen Bellson concentration camp.

 It was not a war offensive. There were no shots, no resistance. The German commander, Joseph Kramer, had formally requested the surrender of the camp, claiming that a typhus epidemic had gotten out of control and that his troops were unable to maintain order. The British order was clear. Occupy the place, establish immediate control, and contain the infectious outbreak.

 Upon entering, the soldiers found a devastated area. The perimeter, surrounded by rusty wires and empty towers, concealed an expanse of land saturated with bodies. Among the ruined wooden barracks, thousands of corpses were piled up. Some were stacked next to the walls, others lay inside the huts where decomposition was progressing.

 The first report spoke of nearly 13,000 unburied bodies. The putrifaction was so intense that the soldiers had to cover their faces with cloths soaked in disinfectant to be able to advance. Inside the barracks, there remained about 60,000 prisoners still alive. Most could not stand up. Extreme thinness, intestinal infections, and typhus had reduced their strength to an irreversible point.

 Drinking water had been scarce for weeks. The kitchens were destroyed, the tanks contaminated. According to British records, the daily rations prior to liberation did not exceed the equivalent of a few hundred calories per person. Colonel Dr. Glenn Hughes, chief of medical services of the Second British Corps, took charge of the operation.

 In his first report, he stated that the camp should be considered a contaminated area and that conventional relief measures were insufficient. He ordered the complete isolation of the area, the creation of a quarantine zone and the gradual evacuation of the survivors who could be relocated. Even so, during the first days, the mortality rate did not decrease.

 Records indicate between 400 and 500 deaths daily during the first week. The German military hospital in Honer, located 3 km away, was requisitioned and converted into a care center for prisoners in conditions to be moved. The most serious cases remained inside the camp in improvised infirmaries set up among the barracks, disinfected with creolin.

 The army distributed blankets and emergency food, but many died in the first hours of rehydration. The body, [music] weakened by months of starvation, could not withstand the change. The engineering units began the excavation of mass graves in the vicinity. Between the 17th and the 28th of April, more than 30 trenches were opened.

 In each one, hundreds of bodies were deposited under military supervision. The soldiers forced the captured German prisoners and SS members to participate in the burial tasks. The order was strict. Clean the camp to avoid a sanitary catastrophe. Among the detainees were Yseph Kramer, the camp commander, and a group of SS guards, both men and women.

 Among the women, one figure was pointed out by several witnesses, Elizabeth Falconrath. Until February of that year, she had served in Avitz and had come to Bergen Bellson to take the position of head warden. British officers recorded her identity and separated her from the rest of the female staff for questioning. The statements of the prisoners began immediately.

 Some barely able to speak identified her as the direct authority of discipline in the women’s blocks. In the administrative files of the camp, her name appeared next to the supervisory functions of the female staff, confirming her hierarchy. In the following days, the interrogations continued while the sanitary operations intensified.

Dr. Hughes reported that the main difficulty was not the lack of medicines, but the inability to properly feed the survivors. Attempts to provide them with solid food often ended in death. By medical order, a liquid diet composed of oatmeal soup and diluted powdered milk was introduced. In the first week, more than 10,000 patients were recorded as treated under this regime.

 To maintain cleanliness, the army allocated 160 SS prisoners [music] to sanitation duties. The orders were executed under armed supervision. The tasks of transfer and burial continued until the end of May when the last barracks were emptied. The British Army film unit documented every stage. The footage showed the condition of the prisoners, the unburied bodies, and the cleaning operations.

 The material was sent to Allied headquarters as evidence of the camp conditions. The accompanying written reports listed the approximate number of bodies, the number of open graves, and the records of the survivors nationalities. The general report from the 30th of April noted that since the arrival of the troops, more than 14,000 people had died.

 The total number of deaths since the creation of the camp exceeded 50,000. The British then ordered the creation of a new compound called camp number two in a nearby area. Kitchens, bunks, and medical posts were set up there under the supervision of the Red Cross. The survivors were classified according to their health status, and a mandatory hygiene routine was established.

 Colonel Taylor, appointed commander of the camp under British administration, reported on the lack of discipline and the sanitary priority. He ordered the incineration of all contaminated clothing and objects. Nothing was to be kept from the original camp. At the same time, lists of surviving prisoners were drawn up through records and interviews.

The German documents were incomplete and many names were illeible. Determining the exact number of victims was impossible. The presence of the captured SS women caused perplexity among the British soldiers and doctors. The female control structure in the concentration camps had operated with autonomy and military discipline.

 Falenrat held the highest rank within that hierarchy at Berg and Bellson. In her first statement on the 18th of April, she described the camp’s organization and the transfer of prisoners from Avitz. She claimed to have assumed supervision of the female guards in February and attributed the chaos to the lack of supplies.

 She did not mention abuses or punishments. The later British reports confirmed the administrative disintegration of the camp during the last weeks of the regime. The transport routes were cut off and the supplies did not arrive. However, the testimonies agreed that the repressive discipline had continued until the end.

 The punishments were applied even in the days prior to the entry of the troops. Several prisoners from Avitz and Ravensbrook along with nurses detained during the evacuations reported that they had seen Falconrath participate in beatings and work selections. Their statements were collected and archived as evidence material.

 In May, with the health situation under control, the British authorities began sorting documents and translating German records. Lists of transports from Avitz and notes with the supervision signatures of the female guards were found. Among them was Falcon rats. At the end of the month, all the identified members of the SS were transferred to a detention center in Chella.

 There, photographs of the prisoners were taken, including those of Kramer, Graca, and Falconrath, intended for the official archive. Although the camp had been liberated, the deaths continued. The medical reports from June accounted for nearly 14,000 additional deaths among the survivors. The total number of direct or indirect victims exceeded 70,000.

The final report of the British Army dated the 30th of June described Bergen Bellson as an extreme case of sanitary and human collapse. The annex of the document included the list of arrested German prisoners. among them Elizabeth Fulcanrath SS Oberov Searin captured on the 17th of April of 1,945. The documentation obtained in those weeks served as the basis for drafting the judicial files that in the following months would establish the responsibilities of the camp personnel.

In the Chel and Lunberg archives, the first statements of Falconat and the background that would mark the beginning of an unprecedented postwar judicial process would be recorded. German childhood, the creation of a blind believer. Elizabeth Mua was born on the 5th of September 1919 in Sherna and Katsbach, a small industrial town located in the district of Lignitz in the region of Lower Salisia within what was then the Vhimar Republic.

 Her father Ysef Mua was a forestry worker and her mother took care of six children. The rural environment was characterized by a fragile economy based on logging, coal work and small metallurgy workshops. The houses were modest wooden with roofs blackened by the constant smoke from the stoves. The German postwar period had left a disjointed country.

 The treaty of Versailles signed in 1919 imposed economic and military sanctions that altered daily life. In Slesia, the effects resulted in unemployment, inflation, and dependency on subsidies. Working families like the Muau survived on rations and temporary jobs. The political crisis of the Vhimar Republic created an atmosphere of widespread frustration.

 The ex-combatants blamed the politicians for the defeat while the young grew up in an atmosphere of resentment. In that context, Elizabeth was educated in rural primary schools where Prussian values prevailed, obedience, discipline, and respect for authority. History books exalted the unification achieved by Bismar and described the surrender of 1918 as an internal betrayal.

 The teachers, many of them war veterans, repeated that interpretation in their classes. For the children, the notion of homeland was linked to duty and loyalty, not to critical reflection. During the 1920s, the German political system became unstable. The constant changes of government and the inflation of 1923 destroyed families purchasing power.

 The depression of 1929 worsened the situation. In the villages of Cellesia, a hostile view towards left-wing parties and a distrust of everything foreign consolidated. In the local newspapers, nationalist messages and conspiracy theories blaming Jewish bankers and socialists for the economic collapse were repeated. Elizabeth grew up in an environment of constant poverty, but with a rigid social structure.

 According to the records of the lignits district, she completed elementary school at 14 years old and began working as a domestic helper. Opportunities for a woman of workingclass origin were limited. Cleaning, sewing, or cooking in well-off households. Between 1935 and 1938, she worked in a local hair salon. Employment recorded in the municipal archives.

The rise of the National Socialist Party in 1933 transformed all areas of public life. Elizabeth was 13 years old at the time. The regime’s propaganda infiltrated schools, homes, and youth organizations. Girls were incorporated into the Bund Deutsche Medal, the League of German Girls, the female branch of the Hitler Youth.

 Its function was to shape the thinking and behavior of young German girls under three principles. obedience to the furer, racial purity and sacrifice for the community. The activities combined physical exercises, marches, songs, and social service tasks. However, the central function was ideological. It was taught that women should maintain the health and purity of the German people.

 Educational manuals emphasized the biological duty to marry early, have children, and avoid any ties with those who did not belong to the so-called Aryan race. Personal emotions were subordinated to the national ideal. By 1936, [music] membership in the BDM became mandatory by decree. All German girls were required to join the organization between 10 and 18 years old.

 Elizabeth, like thousands of rural adolescents, joined by official mandate. The weekly meetings included reading Hitler’s speeches, analyzing excerpts from mine camp and group singing. The hierarchical structure replicated that of a battalion, commands, uniforms, and obedience. The reports from the Reich Ministry of Education recorded attendance of over 90%.

In rural areas, the BDM became a form of social integration. For the daughters of workers, it represented an opportunity for recognition and belonging. The organization offered uniforms, badges, and participation in public ceremonies in an environment without economic mobility. That symbolic prestige held weight.

 In 1937, the league began recruiting members for the National Women’s Labor Service. The young women had to perform 6 months of agricultural or domestic work for the benefit of the state. The experience combined semi-military discipline and ideological indoctrination. They were taught to value physical endurance, collective effort, and usefulness to the Reich.

Elizabeth completed this service in 1939, shortly before the start of the war. The regime authorities considered this service a preparatory stage for jobs in factories, offices, or state institutions. Women with good conduct and racially pure backgrounds could be recommended for administrative tasks in the SS or in industries linked to the war effort.

Thus, the transition from education to the state’s labor structure occurred without disruptions. In the years prior to the war, propaganda intensified the exaltation of female duty. The news reels showed BDM young women working on farms and participating in patriotic parades. The official magazines presented them as pillars of the nation.

 They did not fight, but they sustained the home front through work and obedience. The ideal of the German woman was defined as a productive and reproductive force in service of the state. On the 1st of September of 1939, with the start of the conflict, the regime mobilized millions of men and expanded mandatory female labor.

 In 1941, the SS began recruiting auxiliary personnel for their concentration camps. The growth of the repressive system demanded more administrative and surveillance employees. That same year, Elizabeth Muau was called up. The records of Ravensbrook mention her as an auxiliary warden assigned in October of 1,941. Her incorporation followed a standard procedure.

 Medical examination, ancestry verification, and oath of loyalty to the state. No academic training or previous experience was required, only willingness to obey orders and maintain discipline. The instruction course for the new female guards lasted a few weeks. It included conduct rules, punishment regime, and internal organization of the camp.

 The instructors insisted on unconditional obedience and the prohibition of questioning orders. The job offered salary, uniform, accommodation, and access to stores reserved for the SS personnel. For many women, it represented a significant material improvement compared to civilian jobs. In the Nazi educational and propaganda system, obedience had replaced individual thought.

 The generations trained after 1920 were taught to consider discipline as a virtue and empathy as a weakness. Compassion was to be directed only towards members of the national community. The enemies of the Reich were stripped of humanity by definition. The documents preserved in the federal archive of Berlin show that by 1939 the ideological uniformity of the BDM was total.

 Meetings opened with the salute to the furer and concluded with the reading of slogans. The educational material repeated the same concepts, purity, obedience, service. This mechanism produced a generation program to act without moral deliberation. For Elizabeth, this system eliminated the doubt. Her training had reduced the decision-making process to a sequence.

 Receive the order, carry it out, report back. When she was called to Ravensbrook, that logic was fully internalized. She perceived no contradiction between obedience and morality because her upbringing had eliminated the notion of personal judgment. Ravensbrook, the school of sadism. In October 1941, Elizabeth Muau was assigned to the Ravensbrook women’s concentration camp located about 90 km north of Berlin next to Lake Schvzy.

 Her appointment was made through the SS economic and administrative main office, the body responsible for recruiting personnel assigned to the camp system. By then, Ravensbrook had been in operation for more than 2 years and had a consolidated structure. The camp, inaugurated in May of 1939, was the main internment center for women under the control of the Reich.

 Its initial capacity was around 3,000 prisoners, but by the end of 1941, it exceeded 12,000. In addition to the barracks, workshops, and medical facilities, it housed a section dedicated to the training of new female guards called Erzihung’s Abtailum. Mua was assigned there for her instruction. The training was led by Doraththa Bins, an officer with the rank of Oberof Seaharin, considered the central figure of the female SS Corps.

Her method combined military discipline, psychological control, and the use of physical punishment. The purpose was to eliminate any emotional bond between the guards and the prisoners. The recruits, mostly young women without previous experience, were subjected to a routine that turned obedience into an automatic reflex.

 The training course lasted between 6 and 8 weeks. It included theoretical classes on the internal regulations, counting procedures, and the organization of work groups. Precision in commands, body posture, and authoritative tone were emphasized. Prisoners were identified only by number. Any deviation, a word out of turn, an unexpected movement was punished with forced exercises or deprivation of rest.

 Bins established that the function of the guardian was not to care but to control. Authority was to be expressed through fear. To ensure obedience, reciprocal surveillance was promoted among the instructors and apprentices themselves. Behaviors were evaluated daily. Those who showed doubts received sanctions. Those who demonstrated firmness were recommended for promotions.

 The training created an environment where fear replaced personal judgment. Each block of the field was managed by a German supervisor, the block furerin, assisted by prisoners designated as capos. The trainee guards accompanied the morning counts, the marches to the workshops, and the punishment sessions. They were taught to use simple instruments such as sticks or straps.

 The use of firearms was restricted to the perimeter. The continuous repetition of orders, shouts, and blows established a behavioral pattern where violence was integrated into the routine. Elizabeth Muau was temporarily assigned to the commandos, external work groups in charge of agricultural or construction tasks.

 Her duty was to maintain the formation and pace of work. The supervisors observed her performance to evaluate her control ability. In that environment, vigilance became an extension of training. Authority was tested on the ground, facing the silent resistance of the prisoners. Discipline was also enforced among the SS women themselves.

 They had to greet their superiors with an outstretched arm, keep their uniform in perfect condition, and avoid any dealings with the male staff of the annexed camps. Infringements entailed internal arrest or salary reduction. Bins applied the sanctions with precision, reinforcing hierarchy as an instrument of cohesion.

 The guardians lived in separate buildings within the compound with exclusive dormitories and dining rooms. During the service, personal conversations were forbidden. In the evenings, the apprentices attended collective readings of the regulations. On the walls of the instruction room, propagandistic phrases were displayed extolling hardness as a virtue.

 The aim was to turn obedience into a moral principle. Starting in 1942, Ravensbrook was incorporated into a program of medical experimentation led by Carl Ghart, chief surgeon of the SS and personal physician to Himmler. In the laboratories, procedures were performed on Polish prisoners who [music] were deliberately wounded and infected to test antibacterial treatments.

 The female guards collaborated by transferring the inmates, supervising the pavilion, and maintaining order during the operations. There are no direct records of Mulau’s participation, but her position in the training area placed her in contact with those who carried out these tasks. The reports from the field indicate that the guards assigned to the medical block received additional rewards.

 The daily handling of the physical pain of the prisoners turned violence into a functional component. The victims were seen as instruments of study, not as individuals. That operational indifference was part of the learning. Bins justified the punishments and harshness as a duty towards the state. He repeated that weakness led to chaos and that the guardians mission was to preserve order by any means.

 Severity was presented as proof of loyalty. The acts of repression were documented as compliance with the regulations. The desensitization process progressed in stages. Initially, the apprentices observed the punishments applied by their superiors. Later, they were ordered to execute them. The evaluation criterion was simple.

 Firmness in the face of insubordination. The internal rating reports reflect the importance of that attitude. Promotions depended on the ability to impose discipline without hesitation. The growth of the camp multiplied the need for personnel. In 1942, more than 3,000 SS women had received instruction at Ravensbrook and were distributed throughout the camp system.

 The practices of control and punishment were replicated in Awitz, Maidanek, Bhanvald, and Lublin. The Ravensbrook training became an operational model. Elizabeth Muau completed her training that same year. The internal documents rate her as suitable for supervisory tasks and recommend her transfer to a larger camp.

Her file dated March of 1942 [music] includes the final note signed by bins satisfactory discipline, obedience, and appropriate reaction to insubordination. The atmosphere of the camp defined the behavior of those who were formed there. Power was exercised through physical control and humiliation. The relationship between guards and prisoners was strictly hierarchical.

Showing compassion was equivalent to questioning authority. Institutional logic turned suffering into an indicator of effectiveness. Contact with the Polish prisoners subjected to experiments reinforced the idea that certain bodies were valless outside of their utility for the Reich. The integration between medical practices and the discipline of the camp consolidated a single structure of thought.

 Pain could be used as a legitimate tool. At the end of 1942, Ravensbrook housed more than 45,000 prisoners. The increase in executions and the addition of a crematorium transformed the facility into a center of punishment and elimination. The female guards attended the executions as mandatory witnesses. Their presence symbolized the extension of administrative authority over death.

When Mulau completed her training, the system of camps expanded to the east. Ashvitz became the main center for deportation and extermination. The SS required female personnel for the new sectors. In the records, her name appears crossed out on the Ravensbrook list and entered on the Avitz one on the 5th of March of 1,942.

At 22 years old, with a certificate of exemplary conduct, Elizabeth Muau left Ravensbrook. She carried with her the discipline learned in an environment where violence was considered a form of order. Her transfer to Avitz would place her in the operational core of the extermination system that the Reich had perfected.

Avitz Burkanau, the rise of the executioner. On the 5th of March 1942, Elizabeth Muau arrived at the Avitz complex. then in the process of expansion. Her transfer was part of a reorganization of female staff from Ravensbrook intended to strengthen the new administrative areas in the eastern camps.

 At that time, Ashvitz operated primarily as a concentration and transit camp, although it would soon become the core of the Reich’s extermination system. Upon her arrival, Mua was assigned to the sub camp of Avitz one, where the female sector was just being structured. Her first assignment was to supervise a group of prisoners employed in sewing and uniform repair workshops.

 Internal SS documentation indicates that the majority of the workers were Polish and Jewish women over 40 years old. The female guards were responsible for maintaining order and productivity during the working days, which extended for more than 12 hours daily. The rules of conduct were identical to those at Ravensbrook.

 rigid formation, immediate discipline, and physical punishment for any breach. The wardens could apply sanctions without prior authorization. The methods included slaps, beatings with rods, or the obligation to remain immobile for long periods. Offenses considered serious were referred to the security office, which decided on confinements or transfers to forced labor.

 Subsequent statements from survivors such as Polish prisoner Vera Fischer identified Mua as one of the guards who habitually used violence. Fischer claimed to have been beaten during a clothing check and hospitalized after the incident. Other testimonies agreed in describing her conduct as authoritarian and strictly subject to camp regulations.

In the following months, Mulao was transferred to the package administration area where shipments addressed to the prisoners were sorted. The role [music] included the inspection and recording of confiscated food, clothing, and items. The control of that material offered opportunities for misappropriation, a common practice among the staff.

 There are no documents directly linking Mua to these acts, although her position placed her in a position of access to them. Toward the end of 1942, her name appears in an administrative report from Avitz Burkanau. By that date, the complex was already divided into three sectors. Awitz the first administrative, Awitz II Burkanau intended for extermination and forced labor and Awitz three monowits industrial.

Mua was transferred to Burkanau where the flow of deportations from occupied Europe was steadily increasing. The female structure of the camp was headed by Maria Mandel Oberavarin of all women’s sections. Under her command, several intermediate chiefs controlled the blocks and workshops. In 1943, Mulao, already known as Elizabeth Vulcanrath after her marriage to SS officer Hines Fulenrath, was promoted to the position of Block Furerin, responsible for several barracks.

 Her promotion was recommended by superiors who highlighted her ability to maintain discipline and fulfill orders without requiring assistance. The marriage to Heint Falconrath consolidated her position within the camp staff. SS couples received separate accommodations and access to exclusive facilities. Her life unfolded between the work routine in Burkanau and the staff residents located nearby.

In the SS records, her maiden name disappears from that year. The expansion of Burkanau coincided with the installation of new crerematoria and gas chambers. Selections on the ramps were carried out continuously. SS doctors decided who would be sent to work and who would die upon arrival. The female guards under direct orders guarded the lines and maintained order during the process.

 Survivors like Hela Herkovitz and Vera Fischer stated having seen Vulcanrath overseeing the areas where the trains arrived. They described that she intervened to prevent escapes or changes in line using physical force. There are no records of her participating in medical selection, but she did fulfill functions of immediate control during the operations.

 Her role consisted of ensuring that orders were executed without resistance. As the camp population increased, the supervisory tasks expanded. In 1943, Falconrath was appointed head of the women’s section with authority over a group of wardens and prisoners designated as capos. Her work included organizing roll calls, supervising workshops, and controlling disciplinary marches.

 Reports describe her performance as efficient and strict. The system of physical punishments was kept regulated. The wardens had to record the infractions and report the sanctions applied. Serious reports were sent to Mandel’s office, who decided on additional measures. Fulcanrath complied with these rules exactly. The effectiveness was measured by the ability to maintain order without external intervention.

 The testimonies agree that she led with severity the collective punishment exercises known as sport machan. During these, the prisoners were forced to march or perform repetitive movements until exhaustion. A testimony from the Avitz Museum recounts that upon the loss of an object, Falconrath ordered dozens of women to march in a circle until several collapsed.

 The punishments were carried out in public and had an exemplary function. In Burkanau, periodic inspections were also carried out to select sick or incapacitated prisoners. The female guards assisted the SS doctors during these examinations. Those selected were marked and transferred to block 25, the step prior to extermination. Survivors identified Vulcanrath as one of those responsible for accompanying this procedure.

 The system encouraged punitive initiative. The female guards who demonstrated toughness were valued as loyal. That internal competition created a climate where brutality was synonymous with efficiency. In that context, figures like Irma Greece and Elizabeth Falconrath gained a reputation among their superiors for their disciplined conduct and unquestioning compliance.

During 1,944, the number of prisoners exceeded 90,000 people. The mass deportations of Hungarian Jews pushed the facilities to the limit. In that period, Fulcanrath was promoted to Uber Seaharin, chief supervisor of all the female staff in the camp. Under her command, there were around 30 female guards and a large number of prisoners responsible for internal administration.

 The administrative reports show that the camp was going through a logistical collapse. Overcrowding, epidemics, and lack of supplies worsened the situation. In that context, the female authority had to ensure the minimum functioning of the system. Fulcanrath acted as a liaison between Mandel’s orders and daily execution.

 The statements agree in describing her as a rigid and methodical figure present in the counts and daily checks. There are no records of her expressing opposition or conflict with the orders. Her behavior conformed to institutional norms. Obedience constituted the [music] evaluation and promotion parameter. In January of 1945, with the advance of the Red Army, the SS authorities ordered the evacuation of Avitz.

 The so-called death marches began on the 17th of that month. Tens of thousands of prisoners were forced to move westward on foot under extreme temperatures. The female columns were organized by sections. Bergen Bellson, the collapse and the moral decomposition. On the 5th of February of 1945, Elizabeth Vulcanat arrived at the Bergen Bellson concentration camp along with a group of SS guards from Ashvitz Burkanau.

 The transfer was part of the evacuation of the eastern camps in the face of the Soviet advance. Orders from the SS high command stipulated that prisoners capable of walking be taken into the interior of the Reich. Bergen Bellson in lower Saxony was designated as the reception point for those columns. When Fulcanrath took up her position, the camp was already on the brink of collapse.

 It had been conceived as a facility for political prisoners and later as an exchange camp. But in the first months of 1945, it became a depo for deportiz without destination. Thousands of people from Avitz, Noengama and Middleora were crammed into insufficient space. The SS reports from January and February mentioned the arrival of convoys exceeding 18,000 prisoners.

 Deaths began even before the trains were emptied. The health care system collapsed in a matter of weeks. There was no drinking water. The barracks were infested with lice and the food consisted of a thin soup and a piece of bread weekly. Death records stopped being updated at the end of February when deaths multiplied uncontrollably. Epidemics of typhus, dissentry, and tuberculosis devasted the camp.

 Many German doctors fell ill or died and the rest abandoned their posts. Since December of 1944, the direction was in the hands of Ysef Kramer, former commander of Avitz. His staff included about 40 SS wardens. Fulcanrath, appointed as Oberovin, was the highest female authority and oversaw discipline, forced labor, and internal administration.

 Although the camp did not have gas chambers, the daily mortality reached levels comparable to those of the extermination centers. The testimonies of prisoners describe an unstructured environment. The barracks meant for 100 people housed more than 500. The corpses piled up next to the living. Without water, many drank from puddles or drainage channels.

 Most suffered from fever, diarrhea, and open wounds. The smell of decomposition permeated everything. In the midst of the chaos, Fulcanrath’s authority remained active. Witnesses agreed that she continued to impose punishments with methodical discipline. While some staff members attempted to retreat, she remained in command of the female sector.

 A later British report recorded the account of a prisoner forced to hold a turnip over her head for hours. When she fainted, she was beaten by Falconrath until she lost consciousness. Another witness recounted that she participated along with Kramer in the assault of an inmate accused of attempting to escape. By that point, the punishments lacked functional purpose.

Forced labor had ceased and productive orders no longer existed. However, the military hierarchy remained. The wardens continued applying sanctions as if the system was still in effect. Obedience had become an end in itself. In March of 1945, subsequent medical reports estimated between 500 and 1,000 deaths daily.

 The corpses were piled up or thrown into ditches. Some survivors claimed to have witnessed acts of cannibalism due to extreme hunger. British investigations confirmed these accounts, indicating an unprecedented degree of physical and moral degradation. Despite the collapse, the chain of command did not dissolve. orders descended from Kramer and were carried out without deliberation.

Falconroth continued coordinating the morning roll calls which extended for hours even as prisoners fell dead in formation. The blows and shouts of the guards accompanied those scenes. A Dutch survivor identified as witness 126 stated that Falconrath attended the roll calls armed with a rubber baton.

 Another prisoner recounted that shortly before liberation, she saw her hit a woman who could not drag a corpse. Both descriptions matched her behavior. Rigidity, control, and routine violence. The German archives of Hanover record that at the beginning of April, Bergen Bellson was isolated. The food supply ceased on the 7th of that month.

Requests for transport to evacuate staff were ignored. With resources concentrated in Berlin, the camp was abandoned. In the final days, the administrative structure collapsed. Several male guards deserted or were executed while attempting to escape. Falcanat remained in her position. Her name appears on the list of staff present on the 12th of April, 3 days before the arrival of the British troops.

 The last documented assaults occurred on those days. A prisoner nurse stated that on the 14th of April, she saw Falconrath beat a young woman until she was unconscious. That same day, another testimony placed her directing prisoners who were cleaning the area around the infirmary among corpses. On the 15th of April, the British troops surrounded the camp.

 Yseph Kramer presented himself to them and handed over the command. He argued that an uncontrollable epidemic had destroyed all management capacity. The British ordered that SS personnel be kept in custody. Fulcenrat was arrested that same day. The records of the 11th armored division include her name among the first detainees.

 She was forced along with other guards to participate in the cleaning and burial of the bodies. Photographs from the army film unit show her transporting corpses under armed supervision. Medical Colonel Glenn Hughes took control of sanitation and drafted the first technical report on the state of the camp. He described a persistent smell of death that permeated the skin and clothing.

 He estimated over 14,000 additional deaths between the 15th and the 21st of April. Many prisoners did not survive the initial treatment. The interrogations of the SS staff began immediately. The British were seeking to identify the commanders. The statements were evasive. Falconroth claimed to have arrived recently and was unaware of the magnitude of the disaster.

 However, the survivors recognized her as the active chief until the end. The trial of Lunberg, the fall of Elizabeth Falconrath. The Bellson trial began on the 17th of September 1945 in the city of Lunberg under British jurisdiction. It was the first large-scale trial organized by the Allied powers after the capitulation of Germany.

 45 defendants were in the dock including 22 women belonging to the SS linked to the crimes committed in the Bergen Bellson and Avitz Burkanau camps. Among the defendants was Elizabeth Falcanrath registered as Oberof Zirin, the highest ranking female SS staff in Bellson. The court was presided over by Colonel Mvin Gonin and consisted of five British officers.

The prosecution was led by Colonel TM Backhouse, appointed by the judge advocate general’s office. Each defendant had assigned military defense. The process was conducted according to British military law according to Allied control ordinance number 10, which allowed war crimes committed in areas under British control to be judged.

 The charges against Fulcanrath were divided into two groups. The first accused her of conscious participation in murders, mistreatment and torture in Bergen Bellson between February and April of 1945. [music] The second of collaboration in the selections and acts of extermination carried out in Avitz Burkanau between 1,900 and 1,95942 and 1,944.

The prosecution presented administrative documents, personnel records, and direct testimonies from survivors. It also included photographs and films shot by the British Army film unit after the liberation of the camp, showing the overcrowded barracks and piled up bodies. These visual evidence served to establish the conditions of the place and the direct involvement of the guards in the management of the camp.

 The sessions were held daily. The defendants were placed behind a metal grid on an elevated bench. The SS women, among them Falconrath, Irma Grace, and Johanna Borman, wore prison uniforms. During the reading of the charges, they remained motionless. In the first stage of the trial, the prosecution presented the evidence related to Bergen Bellson.

 The medical reports of Colonel Glenn Hughes and Captain Derek Sington confirmed that the massive deaths were not exclusively the product of the chaos at the end of the war, but the result of deliberately negligent administration. The conditions of the camp had led to death by starvation, disease, and neglect of tens of thousands of people.

Then the testimonies of the survivors were presented. Vera Fischer, Helen Herkovitz, Anita Alaska Walffish, and Animeie Pith identified Vulcan Wrath as the head of the female guards in both Ashvitz and Bellson. They described recurring physical punishments, blows with a rubber tunchon, slaps, kicks, and forced exercises applied as collective punishment.

 A witness stated having seen her on the ramps of Burkanau participating in the selections of sick women sent to block 25. During cross-examination, the defense questioned the witness’s memory and the possible confusion between different wardens. The strategy was uniform. Deny the specific facts and attribute responsibility to hierarchical superiors.

Fulcanrath testified under oath that her role was to maintain order, not to punish. She admitted to slapping disobedient prisoners, but denied causing serious injuries or deaths. About the selections at Avitz, he stated that his presence was due to administrative tasks. His duty, he said, was to ensure the alignment of the rose without deciding destinies.

Regarding Bellson, he claimed that the mortality was due to the lack of food and medicine resulting from the final collapse of the Reich. He alleged that Typhus had escaped all control and that he had followed orders without resources or alternatives. The prosecutor refuted those arguments. He presented SS regulations that established the authority of the Oberinan over the discipline and treatment of female prisoners.

 According to the hierarchical structure, Fulcanrath was not a subordinate, but an intermediate command with decision-making power. General orders did not exempt from responsibility for acts of cruelty or negligence. Between the 10th and the 19th of October, the longest testimonies were heard. Ela Herkovich recounted that she had been repeatedly beaten by Vulcanrath after being accused of theft, confined without food or water, and then forced to do cleaning work while sick with typhus.

Other witnesses described collective punishments consisting of keeping the arms raised for hours or performing exercises until collapse. The prosecution presented these cases as evidence of a systematic pattern. The abuses were not isolated incidents but part of an institutionalized method of control.

 The violence was applied regularly and with awareness of the consequences. In her final statement, Falconrath insisted on due obedience. She claimed not to have understood the fate of the prisoners selected in Avitz and denied witnessing executions. Regarding the deaths in Bellson, she repeated that she could not prevent the hunger or the epidemics.

 According to the record, she responded in a calm tone and without showing emotion. On the 30th of October 1945, the court delivered its verdict. Elizabeth Fulcenroth was found guilty of war crimes on both charges. The document signed by Colonel Gonin described her as an active instrument of a system of brutality that operated with her knowledge and cooperation.

The penalty imposed was death by hanging. 11 accused received the same sentence, including Joseph Kramer, Irma Gracer, and Johanna Borman. The rest [music] were sentenced to imprisonment. Those convicted were transferred to Hamlin prison, [music] designated as the execution center of the British zone. The executioner, Albert Pierre Point, assisted by Herbert Morris, was tasked with carrying out the sentences.

Preparations followed the usual protocol, medical review, body weighing to calculate the length of the rope and mechanism check. The prison record of Hamlan states that Fulcanrath was executed on the 13th of December of 1945 at 9:34. The military doctor certified the immediate death. The report from the British War Ministry indicates that the procedure was conducted without incidents.

 The bodies were buried in anonymous graves within the penitentiary grounds. The British press published extensive reports on the executions. The newspapers, the Times, Daily Telegraph, and Manchester Guardian highlighted the magnitude of the process and the hierarchy of the women sentenced. In the majority of the articles, Falconrath was identified as the highest ranking woman among the Bellson guards and mentioned alongside Irma Graaser.

 The headlines underscored the exemplary nature of the sentence in the postwar [music] context. The military correspondence highlighted the symbolic dimension of the trial. More than punishing individuals, it was about reaffirming a legal principle, personal responsibility within a regime based on obedience.

 The Lunberg process became a direct precedent of the Neuremberg trials inaugurated in November of the same year. The case file kept in the archive of the judge advocate general’s office includes a final note from prosecutor back house. Obedience is not a defense when it is exercised in the commission of inhumane acts.

 The accused knew what she was doing and maintained it until the end. After the execution, the bodies were buried without ceremony or identification. No family claimed [music] the remains. There are no records of letters or final statements from Falconrath. Her name remained absent from public archives for years until it was recovered in subsequent historical investigations.

The Bellson trial established fundamental precedence in the matter of individual responsibility for war crimes. It recognized the judicial value of the testimony of the victims and defined accountability as an unavoidable principle. The figure of Elizabeth Falconrat was documented as a structural part of the concentrationary system representative of the administrative chain that executed orders without question.