Vera Salvequart – for war crimes.

Vera Salvequart – for war crimes.

28 year old Vera Salvequart had not been an SS guard, but rather a prisoner herself in Ravensbrück concentration camp. She was born on the 26th of November 1919 in Czechoslovakia of Czech and German parents and had trained as a nurse.

 According to her she served 10 months in Flossenberg for refusing to reveal to the Gestapo the identity of her Jewish boyfriend in 1941 and then two years commencing in 1942 for a similar offence, being released in April 1944.

 She was sent to Ravensbrück on the 6th of December 1944 after being arrested for helping five detained officers escape. Here she became a Kapo and worked as a nurse in the camp's hospital wing. In February 1945, she was said to have administered poison in the form of a sleeping powder to some 50 of the patients, of whom 12 died.

Salvequart was among 16 members of the staff who were arrested and were tried between the 5th of December 1946 and the 3rd of February 1947 by a British military court at the Curio Haus in Hamburg. 

 Her defence was seriously compromised by the testimony of a Viennese witness, Lotti Sonntag, who told the court that Salvequart had provided some of the prisoners with shoes from people who had been poisoned.  Salvequart admitted to having given inmates a poisonous white powder under the guise of medication, because they would not take it from the SS staff.  

Vera Salvequart wore the No. 10 at her trial and was found guilty on Monday the 3rd of February 1947. She was among five women who were sentenced to hang by the British Judge-Advocate General, 

C. L. Stirling. Elisabeth Marschall, Greta Bösel and Dorothea Binz were hanged at Hameln by Albert Pierrepoint on Thursday the 2nd of May 1947.  Vera Salvequart and Carmen Mory were scheduled to hang with them but Mory had committed suicide by cutting her wrists on the 9th of April.

Vera Salvequart petitioned King George VI for a reprieve, claiming to have stolen plans for the V2 rocket and passed these to British Intelligence.  She was granted a stay of execution while this was considered.

Lord Russell of Liverpool, the Deputy Judge-Advocate General, wrote in his recommendation against her plea for a reprieve, “Vera Salvequart, until now, has made seven absurd and inconsistent statements; three during the trial, one in her own defense and in the two petitions made since the trial. It seems clear that one can rely neither on her written nor on her spoken word." 

Thus the Royal prerogative of mercy was withheld and on Thursday the 26th of June 1947 she was the first of thirteen prisoners to be hanged that day by Albert Pierrepoint, assisted by Regimental Sergeant Major Richard Anthony O'Neill, her execution being carried out at 9.03 a.m.  Her body was later buried in the Wehl cemetery in Hameln.