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The concept of gender balance is widely discussed today, but history shows that achieving it doesn’t always lead to positive outcomes. Even the Nazi regime, infamous for its atrocities, had its own form of gender balance. But does that make it commendable?
When it comes to the capacity for evil, men and women are not so different. While biological differences—such as physical strength—exist, morality and cruelty are not defined by gender. History has shown that both men and women are equally capable of acts of kindness and brutality alike.
There were an extensive number of female guards as part of the SS across several concentration camps. Compared to the likes of Ilse Koch or Maria Mandl, Gerda Steinhoff wasn’t the worse of the female guards, probably because she joined the SS late in the war. Before her career with the SS, she had been working as a tram conductor. She was married in 1944 and had a child.
That same year, due to a shortage of new guards, Gerda Steinhoff joined the camp staff at Stutthof. On the first of October in 1944, she became a Blockleiterin in Stutthof women’s camp SK-III. There she participated in the selection of prisoners sent to the gas chambers.
Later that month, on 31 October 1944, Gerda Steinhoff was promoted to SS-Oberaufseherin and assigned to Danzig-Holm Subcamp. On 1 December 1944, she was reassigned to the Bromberg-Ost Female Subcamp of Stutthof, located in Bydgoszcz near Gdańsk. At the camp, she received a medal for her loyalty and service to the Third Reich on 25 January 1945. She was dedicated and utterly devoted to her job and was known as an extremely ruthless supervisor. Before the end of World War II, she fled the camp and went home.
Gerda Steinhoff’s stay at home didn’t last long. On 25 May 1945, she was arrested by Polish officials and sent to prison. She stood trial with the other SS women and kapos. She was convicted and condemned to death for her involvement in the selection and her sadistic abuse of prisoners. During the trial Gerda showed no remorse—instead, she made jokes.
She was publicly hanged near Gdańsk on 4 July 1946 on Biskupia Gorka Hill.
sources
https://dbpedia.org/page/Gerda_Steinhoff
https://www.executedtoday.com/tag/gerda-steinhoff/
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/stutthof-trial-april-may-1946
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History of Sorts 
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