Herta Bothe—The Sadist of Stutthof and the Lenient Sentence

Herta Bothe was a German concentration camp guard during World War II. She was imprisoned for war crimes after the defeat of Nazi Germany, and was subsequently released early from prison on 22 December 1951 as an act of leniency by the British government. She was 6ft3 which must have been quite intimidating for the prisoners.

n September 1942, Bothe became the SS-Aufseherin camp guard at the Nazi German Ravensbrück concentration camp for women. The former nurse took a four-week training course and was sent as an overseer to the Stutthof camp near Danzig (now Gdańsk). There she became known as the “Sadist of Stutthof” due to her merciless beatings of female prisoners. On other accounts he was also know as the “Sadist of Bergen-Belsen”