Ravensbrück: Life and Death in Hitler's Concentration Camp for Women

by Sarah Helm

The new beating procedures would all have been approved by Himmler. In evidence later the camp staff all said that Himmler insisted on approving every individual beating and the manner in which it was done. A document unearthed in the papers of the SS Administration Headquarters by war crimes investigators in 1945, entitled ‘Flogging of Female Prisoners’, showed this to be the case. It confirmed a verbal order issued by Himmler in July 1942 stating that ‘orders for punishing female prisoners should be reported to him for approval’. The orders ‘must be numbered in red pencil in the right hand top corner consecutively’. In order ‘to save time’ Himmler also wanted the names and numbers of each woman to be flogged printed on a separate list, so he could notify his approval of the flogging by referring just to a number. In 1942 the flogging was to be done ‘with strokes to follow quickly after each other with a single-lash leather whip, the strokes being counted. Undressing and baring of certain parts of the body is strictly forbidden.’ From the evidence of Maria Klyugman in the Revier and countless flogging victims, by 1943 Himmler had updated the procedures, ordering that the beating should be done on bare buttocks.