SS Women's Auxiliary Corps
The SS Auxiliary Corps of Women (German: SS-Helferinnenkorps) was the female branch of the Waffen-SS, founded in 1942 during World War II by order of Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler. The corps comprised approximately 3,000 female SS auxiliaries and war auxiliaries, predominantly German women, but also many foreign volunteers of the Germanische SS.
The SS Auxiliary Corps did not include the roughly 3,000 female auxiliaries, employees, and workers of the SS-controlled Order Police, nor the 8,000 women who had worked as civilian employees in SS offices since 1933 and who, in the final year of the war (from approximately the beginning of 1944), could also be drafted into the SS or police for emergency or wartime service, with some even transferring to the corps as civilian employees, for example, as SS signals officers.
In addition to the police auxiliaries officially trained in Erfurt, there were approximately 1,000 female signals and staff auxiliaries, as well as 15,000 female drivers and tower observers. These figures must also include the 100 to 200 female SS doctors who, although officially part of the "SS-Gefolge", were legally (military law) part of the "Wehrmacht Women's Auxiliary Corps" (Wehrmachtshelferinnenkorps).
Contents
History
The idea for an SS Auxiliary Corps for Women originated with SS-Gruppenführer Ernst Sachs, who had been Chief of Signals for the Personal Staff of the Reichsführer SS since 1 November 1940. Sachs had served in the Prussian Army since 1900 and was an experienced signals officer. Heinrich Himmler approved of the idea, as he himself was a champion of highly educated, graceful, and intellectually noble women. He also promoted the establishment of "Women's Colleges for Wisdom and Culture" (German: Frauenhochschulen für Weisheit und Kultur) to cultivate great, strong, purposeful, and distinguished women.
Sachs' "Provisional Deployment Regulations for SS Auxiliaries for Women" (German: Vorläufige Einsatzordnung für SS-Helferinnen) stipulated that the auxiliaries, who worked 56 hours a week (including up to 14 hours of training), were not permitted to wear any jewelry other than a wristwatch and their wedding or engagement ring. As was customary in the SS, alcohol was prohibited, as was smoking in public, in offices, and in sleeping quarters.
There was a conflict between Sachs and Himmler: Sachs planned a female replacement unit, which was to function like the Wehrmacht and efficiently free up men for combat. He understood that the war was raging and that the young women simply had to be trained quickly. Himmler, however, wanted a female nucleus of the SS clan and saw the SS Reich School as the "mother house of the order." As late as March 1943, he rejected masculinizing uniforms and female leadership ranks, demanding a stricter selection process. Female applicants also proudly and openly expressed their displeasure. In October 1943, Helga P. wrote a letter to Ernst Sachs, who was still responsible for the program at that time:
- "So it takes a whole year to be deployed to the SS as a signals officer. You must admit yourself that, for the standards of the 20th century and especially in the current wartime, that is rather long."
In the Wehrmacht, training lasted up to a maximum of 12 weeks, depending on the requirements. This was one reason why many female applicants, who desperately wanted to serve their suffering and endangered Vaterland, turned away in disappointment and instead enlisted in the Heer, Luftwaffe, or Kriegsmarine.
Ideology and bureaucracy had triumphed over the necessities of war within the SS. Sachs resisted this as long as he could, but at the end of the power struggle in 1944, the SS Auxiliary Corps was placed under the authority of the SS Main Office and no longer under the Chief of Signals and Telecommunications.
Schooling
Volunteers in the SS Corps had to be at least 17 years old, no older than 30, and at least 1.60 meters tall. Like the Wehrmacht's Blitzmädel (signals auxiliaries), they were employees and received a monthly salary. They were trained, among other places, at the Reich School-SS in Oberehnheim, Alsace (where 2,765 women were registered). After successfully completing the basic training course and taking the oath, they were accepted into the Waffen-SS and, like civilian SS employees, received a SS clan number (SS-Sippennummer). Only these women were then referred to as "SS auxiliaries" (SS-Helferinnen) The training was supposed to last 12 months, but this proved unrealistic due to the war.
Differentiation
Female SS Auxiliaries of the Waffen-SS
The female SS auxiliaries, or "SS Maidens" (primarily SS Signal Maidens), were mostly German women and girls. However, numerous foreign women also volunteered for service and were sometimes highly decorated for their support in the fight against Bolshevism. Female SS auxiliaries received comprehensive service uniforms for all areas of operation (including the General Government and the Bialystok District, excluding areas where uniforms were prohibited even for members of the Wehrmacht). Within the Reich territory, special protective clothing was provided.
Female War Auxiliaries of the Waffen-SS
Female war auxiliaries were German women and girls who were mostly (but not always) drafted into the Reich SS School for training. There, they initially attended the basic course but were discharged from the Reich SS School after a short time for various reasons. They were therefore not admitted to the SS, did not receive a clan number, and, when they served (or returned to their assigned unit, where some had previously worked), were designated as "war auxiliaries" to distinguish them from schooled SS auxiliaries.
Provided they met the necessary physical and moral standards, war auxiliaries were issued the same uniforms for deployment in the occupied eastern territories (including northern Norway and Finland) as SS auxiliaries, with minor differences depending on the specific location. Outside the Reich borders (with the exception of the aforementioned territories), only SS auxiliaries were permitted to wear uniforms; war auxiliaries wore only civilian clothing, partly as a form of self-protection against murderous partisans.
Numbers
Estimates suggest (based on incomplete records) that at least 2,765 women served in the SS Auxiliary Corps, including 2,375 female members of the Waffen-SS (SS auxiliaries) and 390 female war auxiliaries. This figure does not include the numerous female Waffen-SS war auxiliaries who served in the Eastern Front or in occupied territories and were deployed directly to support troops based on their professional qualifications, without having previously attended an SS training institution. As with the Wehrmacht, in addition to the SS auxiliaries and female Waffen-SS war auxiliaries, there was also a considerable, though unknown, number of female volunteers serving in the occupied territories. For comparison, between 450,000 and 500,000 women served in the Wehrmacht.
WWII
After their training, these female helpers operated radio, telephone, and teletype systems both within the Reich and in enemy territory during World War II. On the invasion front in the West and, in the final months, on the Eastern Front, it was often these young women who held out until the very end, as a breakdown of communications would have meant the deaths of many fiercely fighting Waffen-SS divisions at the front. Many died in the hail of bullets from the invaders; others were taken prisoner of war. Particularly in the East, they were mass-raped, then beaten to death, or tortured for many years as forced laborers.
SS-Gefolge
SS-Gefolge (SS entourage) was the term used in the Third Reich for female civilian employees of the 
. While not formally part of the SS, the members of the SS-Gefolge were subject to SS and police jurisdiction. It is estimated that between 3,000 and 10,000 women belonged to the entourage by the end of the war, although sources disagree on the exact number. Wehrmachthelferinnen (female Wehrmacht auxiliaries, or Wehrmacht entourage) were neither part of the SS entourage nor did they serve in concentration camps.
Formation
The SS entourage officially included (though often subordinate to the SS Women's Auxiliary Corps or, concerning the doctors, the Wehrmacht Women's Auxiliary Corps):
- Female camp guards
- Female doctors (women's camps)
- Nurses (women's camps)
- Female telephone operators (Waffen-SS)
- Female teletype operators (Waffen-SS)
- Female radio operators (Waffen-SS)
Post-WWII
After the Second World War, female civilian employees were labeled "subhuman Nazi criminals", they were persecuted, and even murdered, although historians and courts had to acknowledge that the vast majority had fulfilled their duties correctly and within the framework of existing laws. There were also show trials, illegal under international law, against members of the SS, some of which ended in death sentences by hanging, for example, in the Stutthof trials before a Polish-Soviet tribunal. Among the executioners were former Stutthof prisoners who donned their prison uniforms once more for the execution. As the noose was placed around the necks of the German women, some of them, as a final act of protest and defiance, shouted: "Heil Hitler!"
Aufseherinnen
The Aufseherinnen were female guards in German concentration camps during World War II. Male SS members were not allowed to enter women's camps in order to prevent any possible abuse of authority against the female prisoners. Of the 55,000 guards who served in German concentration camps, over 3,000 were women. They were never given any positional titles or equivalent ranks of the SS. As for other guards, there are various allegations of atrocities, notably at the Hamburg Ravensbrück trials, including regarding allegations of a "gas chamber" at the Ravensbrück camp, one of the Western Holocaust camps. Other notable allegations include regarding Ilse Koch.
Numbers
According to a list in the SS Main Economic and Administrative Office (WVHA) from early 1945, there were still 1,170 female SS guards at that time. Female SS guards wore field-gray uniforms with the Reichsadler (Imperial Eagle) as their insignia on the left sleeve. Until the differentiation of ranks in 1944, female guards wore a black triangle with a bar on the lower part of the sleeve.
The number of female guards is estimated at approximately 3,500 over the course of the war (1939–1945), based on surviving records, payroll data, and historical analyses. This includes all who were trained or deployed, primarily starting at Ravensbrück (the main women's camp and training hub) and then assigned to other camps like Auschwitz, Majdanek, Bergen-Belsen, and Buchenwald.
Some sources cite a slightly higher figure of around 3,700, while German statistics specifically record 3,508 active female guards (not including those who had already rotated out, died, or deserted). These women were not formal SS members but auxiliaries in the SS-Gefolge, supporting the male-dominated SS-Totenkopfverbände.
The vast majority were German women from within the Greater German Reich (including areas like Austria and the Sudetenland). Recruitment targeted working-class or lower-middle-class women aged 17–50, often via labor offices, newspaper ads, or conscription after 1943's "total war" declaration. There is minimal evidence of foreign women (from occupied countries like Poland, France, or the Soviet Union) serving as Aufseherinnen. Some Volksdeutsche (ethnic Germans from outside the German Reich, like in Eastern Europe) may have been included if they met racial standards, but they were treated as Germans. Strict gender and racial policies limited roles to women's camps.
Camp-specific examples
- Ravensbrück: Up to 958 female guards
- Auschwitz: Around 200 total female guards who served
- Majdanek: 28 female guards between 1942 and 1944
- Bergen-Belsen: 30 to 50 female guards in April 1945
See also
- Marie-Claude Vaillant-Couturier: prisoner and claimed Holocaust witness at Ravensbrück
