Survivors and researchers usually present the concentration camp as the ultimate example of a total institution. The terror so Zealously applied by the employees of the Schutzstaffel (SS, protection squadron) in the camps was indeed meticulously planned by the leaders of the SS – first and foremost Heinrich Himmler (Sofsky, 1997; Armanski, 1993; Herbert, Orth and Dieckmann , 1998; Benz and Distel, 2005). Nevertheless, the idea that all terror was systematically organized is somewhat misleading.
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Camp regulations certainly gave the guards, like SS officers, the authority to punish prisoners. But this right was subject to strict procedures as, even more so, was the right to kill (Mailänder Koslov 2011; Strebel, 2003). SS guards never officially had the right to use violence on prisoners arbitrarily, still less the right to kill them (service pistols were only to be used in self-defence). On the contrary, they had to follow a strict code of punishments. Its chief purpose Heinrich Himmler’s official visit to Ravensebruck concentration camp, photographed by the SS photography service. Ravensbrück 1940 ou 1941. Archive du mémorial de Ravensbrück MRG/SBG, FoII/D, 10-1622awas to ensure orderly supervision and management of the camp. But despite these regulations and the prohibition on assaulting prisoners, the guards carried out their daily tasks brutally and bloodily. There was a significant gap between rules and practice.
Using a microanalytic approach, this paper will address this gap by exploring physical violence as a social practice (Lüdtke and Lindenberger, 1995; Sofsky, Kramer and Lüdtke 2004). Through a case study of one specific camp– the concentration and extermination camp of Majdanek where a total of 28 female guards worked between the autumn of 1942 and the spring of 1944 – it will focus on the 'interplay of actors' and the everyday experiences, practices and interactions of female SS personnel.
We will compare the careers of two female camp guards, one notorious for her extreme violence, the other judged to be ‘humane’ by survivors. The former, Hermine Braunsteiner, born in Vienna in 1919, started out as an ordinary guard at the Ravensbrück camp (August 1939–October 1942) and finally became head overseer (Lagerführerin) at the Genthin camp (January 1944–May 1945), a subcamp of Sachsenhausen, having been a deputy chief overseer at Majdanek in the interim (October 1942–January 1944). The latter, Herta Ehlert (born in Berlin in 1905), arrived at Ravensbrück in December 1939 and stayed for four years. In January 1943 she was transferred to the concentration and extermination camp of Majdanek.
Braunsteiner and Ehlert are good examples because they were among the first female guards and went on to hold senior positions at Majdanek. What led them to a concentration camp? How did they perform their guard duties? What made them remain in the camps for six and a half years? How did the female guards exercise power over the prisoners? What role did physical violence have in the interplay of actors?
By comparing the behavior of Braunsteiner, who beat prisoners to death, with that of 'gentle Ehlert', we can analyze the margin of manoeuvre in the exercise of power in the camps and take a closer look at the appropriations of violence and power from a microanalytic perspective. We have adopted Michel Foucault’s concept of power, which stands at the center of his work. Rather than analyzing power from the point of view of its internal rationality, we will examine power relations by contrasting different strategies. The exercise of power does not exclude the use of violence, which is applied directly to bodies and things, violence which ‘forces. . . bends. . .breaks on the wheel. . .destroys’ (Foucault 1983, p. 220). Indeed the two often go hand in hand. On the microhistorical and microsocial level, power and violence are almost inseparable.
As we will show, different forms of violence in the camp arise out of specific situations but also depend on the people who live and work there, their position in the camp, and their place in the hierarchy of guards. It is necessary to situate the various practices of power in their historical specificity and their social asymmetries. Thus this paper focuses on the logic of power in action. It deals with situational socialization into violence (effects of the social environment supported by gratifications), peer pressure, and the reciprocal influence of all the actors present, whether active or passive.
FEMALE SS GUARDS EMPLOYED IN CONCENTRATION CAMPS
Following a strict gender separation in accordance with the orders of Heinrich Himmler himself, female guards (SS-Aufseherinnen in the terminology of the SS) were only employed in concentration camps for women. These camps were organized in an almost identical way to the camps for men opened in 1933–34 (Erpel, 2007; Schwartz, 2006: 349–374; Schwartz, forthcoming). In the earliest women’s camps, which resembled prisons, at Mohri