Elisabeth Marschall


Elisabeth Marschall was the head nurse at the Nazi Ravensbrück concentration camp and was executed after the Hamburg Ravensbrück trials.

Early life

Marschall was born in 1886 and received her nursing education in Meiningen, passing the state exam in 1910. She joined the Nazi party because "Hitler could save Germany from its misery".

Camp career

Marschall worked as Oberschwester at Ravensbrück concentration camp from April 1943 until the camps liberation, where her duties included selecting prisoners for execution, overseeing medical experiments, and selecting around 800 prisoners to be shipped to Auschwitz. She worked with Adolf Winkelmann and Percival Treite, assisting in torture of prisoners and providing postoperative care to the subjects of their experimental operations.
A survivor who worked as a prisoner-nurse testified that Marschall had loaded a group of 50 women with new-born infants onto a cart and did not provide them with food, milk or water. All of the prisoners passed away. Another witness testified that "I have seen schwester Lisa beating sick women without any reason at all."
Mil Le Coq, a French trained nurse, reported an incident with Marschall, recounted in :

Trial

Marschall was arrested when the camp was liberated. At the Hamburg Ravensbrück trials, she was found guilty and sentenced to death. On 2 May 1947, she was hanged by British executioner Albert Pierrepoint on the gallows in Hamelin Prison. Nearly 61 when she died, Marschall was the oldest female Nazi war criminal to be executed by the British occupation authorities.