Pole Hanging Executions Of The Female Traitors Of World War 2

It was one of the most ruthless and public execution methods used at the end of World War II. Pole hanging was a method which aimed to bring humiliation before death, and it was mostly deployed inside of Hungary and Czechoslovakia. And many collaborators who sided with the Germans during World War II suffered this fate.

But amongst those who were pole hanged were a number of women, female traitors who worked with the occupiers, and those who their neighbors and family deemed were their enemies. This was something that brought them a huge amount of shame. And the method of pole hanging was performed upon these women as the executioners wanted to show people that justice was being performed upon those who betrayed their nation.
Amongst the female pole hanged traitors was a woman who may have worked inside of the concentration camps, and also a woman who was condemned for working with the Gestapo. This is the pole hanging executions of the female traitors of World War II. During World War II, there were many women who betrayed their nations and who sided with the German army or the occupiers who came to their towns, cities, and lands.
These women were often seen as the worst kind of traitors. In France, women who collaborated and slept with the Germans were said to have been found guilty of horizontal collaboration, and they were later, following the liberation of parts of their country, treated terribly in public. They had their heads shaved and were forced to run the gauntlet, and many were beaten and battered by large crowds of angry people.
But inside countries to the east, many women were subjected to even worse treatment as they were publicly executed for their involvement with the enemy. This included women who helped to translate during interrogations, and they would then be targeted following the end of the war. But inside specifically Hungary and Czechoslovakia, there were some female traitors who were pole hanged.
Pole hanging was an extreme execution method used exclusively inside these countries. But the executioners claimed it was more humane than even using a gallows. But why did this happen? Pole hanging was an execution method used inside countries which had formerly been under the control or influence of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
It was very different to a traditional gallows and was carried out normally in public in front of the eyes of thousands of people. Specifically, the method used a 3-m wooden post or a metal pole and the execution had a number of different steps. The condemned was brought in front of the pole or post first and then the executioner and his assistant worked together to bring life to an end.
A rope was attached around the feet of the condemned and was then passed through a pulley at the bottom of the pole. The condemned was then held in place at the top of the post through the use of a chest sling across their middle and this kept them suspended at the top until the drop was released.
A narrow noose was then passed around the neck of the prisoner and this was then secured to a hook at the top of the post. When the death sentence was read out and everything was checked, the chest sling was released and the prisoner would then rapidly jerked downwards with the drop and the assistant executioner guided the fall via a foot rope.
The executioner would be stood behind the post and when the drop was released, he attempted to shove the neck to one side in an attempt to dislocate the neck manually. Often when this went correct, executioners claimed the death could occur within seconds. But a lot of the time the method was rather unsuccessful as someone would slowly strangle in front of a crowd.
Particularly during and after World War II, there were a number of women who were subjected to this execution method, and specifically, they were condemned as they were said to have betrayed their nations and have been traitors. One of these women was Maria Nagy, who was executed in front of a large crowd inside the city of Budapest.
There isn’t a huge amount of information available about the crimes and actions of Maria Nagy. However, it is known that she was condemned as a war criminal and that she had particularly tortured young women, presumably inside of a concentration camp or a prison. Her name is rather typically Hungarian, too. And with her execution, which took place in March 1946, she was brought out in front of a large crowd and was then attached to the post.
The executioner and his assistants worked together, and when the plank she was stood on was removed, the executioner brought her life to an end, practically strangling her against the post. Now, Maria Nagy was said to have been a traitor and specifically a collaborator with the Germans, and this was why she went to her execution.
This public execution method was meant to shame her and bring humiliation to her in front of a large crowd. It was also a public statement that she had betrayed the nation and all of those she was in front of and that the old regime was finished. It also sent a clear message that collaborators would definitely be punished.
The hooded body of Maria Nagy was then left hanging in a public square for some time, and this sent another warning that traitors would also be punished. Another woman who was executed by public hanging was Herta Kašparová. She was a Czech citizen who could also speak German. As a young woman, she was mocked by her peers, but during the war, she would get her own back and get some revenge.
She worked for the Germans and the German occupiers, and specifically, she worked for the Gestapo spies in the city of Trieste, her hometown. She translated documents and conversations for them during interrogations and also reported on those who resisted the German occupation in her hometown. But in the final months of the war, Herta Casperova willingly fraternized with the Germans and SS soldiers, and she specifically asked the SS to execute four young men who had before the war been cruel to her at school.
These hadn’t during World War done anything which would have led to their deaths. But all four of them were executed later that day by firing squad. Herta Casperova said later at her war crimes trial that,
“I know that I caused the deaths of several people. I acted out of revenge.”
What she had specifically done is betrayed her people, her hometown, and her country.
And on the 13th of September, 1946, over a year after the end of the Second World War, Herta Casperova was brought out for her execution. At around 6:30 p.m., thousands looked on, and she was then taken to the execution post. She wept and fell to her knees when she first saw it, and guards then had to carry her there. As she was helped onto the pole, she screamed and shrieked, and the executioner put the chest sling around her.
He worked very quickly and secured the noose around her neck and then released the drop. For some time, Herta Casperova struggled on the post, and her head violently twitched from side to side until a doctor declared that she was in fact dead. The executioner then threw his white gloves to the ground to symbolize his disgrace in hanging her.
And following her pole hanging, Casperova was placed inside of a coffin and was then buried in a grave in front of the large crowd still. These two women at the end of World War II were executed for betraying their nations and countries. And what they had done was to get involved in the brutality of the German occupations.
They didn’t have to carry out the actions that they did. They didn’t have to get involved in death and suffering. And their actions brought a significant amount of pain to their fellow countrymen and women during the war. There were a number of men who were also subjected to this treatment at the end of the conflict.
Inside of Hungary, this included members of the Arrow Cross Party, a collaborationist government made up of Prime Minister Ferenc Szálasi and his cronies. These were all executed in exactly the same way and place as Maria Nagy. And they may have even been hanged on exactly the same post. They were condemned in the same manner.
And also there was a Hungarian priest, András Kun, who had rampaged throughout the city slaughtering wherever he went. But the execution method of pole hanging was used to execute a number of people at the end of World War II, mostly for the crime of betraying their nation. They were in front of a large crowd condemned in what was meant to shame and bring humiliation for them and their families in their final moments.
After the drop from the pole had been released, a white sheet was thrown over them in what became a rather final and haunting image for the female traitors who betrayed their nation and ultimately were pole hanged for it. Throughout World War II, Hitler ordered his army to rampage into different lands and territories.
And these were then brought to heel in terrifying and brutal occupations, which resulted in much death and bloodshed. Czechoslovakia was occupied by the Germans. And Hitler in 1939 declared the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. And this left the nation powerless to German occupation and governance, and the country was known as the arsenal of the Reich as it was intended to produce a huge amount of armaments, weapons, and equipment for the Wehrmacht and overall German war efforts.
Ruthless Nazi overseers such as Reinhard Heydrich were brought in to oversee these nations, and he brought with him a reign of terror which was intended to keep the country productive and to keep the Czech people at heel. Terrifying persecution laws were brought in, and it was common to see people in the streets to send a clear message to people to stay in submission and to not resist.
Herta Kašparová was born on the 21st of June, 1923 in the town of Triesch and her father had a humble job working on the railways. However, Herta from birth suffered a disability and she walked with a limp caused by her right leg. And because of this, while she was at school, she was bullied and treated terribly by other students.
Her family spoke Czech and also German. And because of this, when Hitler seized control of the Sudetenland following the Munich Conference, she and her family were seen as favorable by Hitler. He wanted German families to live inside of these lands, and Herta was given Reich citizenship because of her German origins and roots.
She was of dual nationality and was also part of Hitler’s Reich. She even changed her surname to Kašpar to make it sound more German, too. But in 1940, she started a new job inside of an office of the German criminal police in a town named Jihlava, and she served as an interpreter. As she could speak Czech and German, she was seen as useful by the Gestapo, and with this she was involved in interrogations of many Czech people who were suspected of being involved in the resistance.
And because of this, she was now openly collaborating with the Nazi enemy. The Gestapo were known for roughly treating those who were suspected of being in defiance to the Nazi regime, and many people were tortured to death or were executed for their involvement. Herta was now involved in the business of working for the Gestapo, and she was an important cog in securing the deaths of many Czech people.
Many of those who worked with the Gestapo, the SS, or the Nazis in any capacity were seen as the worst of the worst, and many were hunted at the end of the war to be executed for their collaboration with the enemy. She continued to translate for the Germans for a number of years, but at the end of the Second World War, as the Red Army were moving towards Herta’s hometown, she quickly left her job and went back to living with her parents in Triesch.
But after the Prague Uprising, there were many different pockets of resistance in Triesch, and they targeted those who had helped the Germans throughout the occupation. Different Wehrmacht units then arrived to free a number of imprisoned German people, and Herta Kasparova spoke to the German soldiers about the fact her house had been broken into.
She even then identified a number of men and boys who had stolen items, and for this action, she chose 11 people, and all of those 11 that Herta had chosen were then dragged out to the courtyard of the town hall in her hometown, and they were then executed by firing squad alongside a number of other rebels.
Amongst the executed were allegedly some of the people who bullied Herta Kasparova at school, and she got vengeance against them utilizing the German links that she had to have them shot. But the Germans also released her from her imprisonment at the hands of the rebels, and she then ran off to Austria and served in a number of jobs including working as a cook.
But part of her employment saw her working for the Red Army, her enemy. However, in February 1946, she was arrested and was then sent to Czechoslovakia to stand charges relating to being a collaborator with the Germans. She was placed on trial for the work she conducted alongside the Gestapo as an interpreter and also as someone who was responsible for the executions of those who she had personally identified.
At her trial, Hertha stated that,
“I know that I caused the death of several people. I acted out of revenge.”
She was vengeful and she knew she would be condemned. The court confirmed her darkest fears and sentenced her to death for collaborating with the Nazis and for treason against the Czechs. Her execution, however, was one which was to be very different and she was only one of a very few number of women who were executed by pole hanging at the end of the Second World War.
Pole hanging as an execution method was common in Czechoslovakia and Hungary at the end of the war and a number of high-ranking politicians and government officials were executed in this manner instead of using a gallows. Hertha Casparova was executed that evening after her death sentence had been given to her.
She was walked outside to a meadow on the outskirts of Trieste close to the castle. On the day before, the head of the Nazi offices inside of the town was executed in the very same way and Hertha was brought out in front of the huge crowd. The pole hanging post was 3 m tall and it was 60 cm wide. When she was led up to the post, she lost her calm composure and Hertha began to scream and shout for her life and she even fell to the floor as her knees began to shake so much.
She had to be carried to the execution post by the guards who were with her. Hertha wore a short dress to her execution and she continued to cry and scream as she was led up to the execution post. The executioners seeing her panic began to work quickly but they also made sure that everything would be performed correctly and professionally.
With pole hanging, it relied on a number of steps and they fastened a leather strap around her chest which held her in place and in position in the air on the post briefly. The executioner then secured the rope around her legs and passed it through a pulley system, as well as making sure that Hertha Kašparová’s arms were secured together to prevent a clean a small drop.
He then secured the noose around her neck and then checked his work before he signaled that he was ready. The hangman was stood on the step behind her post and the sign was given to the assistant to release the drop and he did so. The executioner guided Hertha’s neck with his hand and dislocated her neck and with this she began to twitch and move side to side.
But there was a problem as her head began to move significantly and it took a number of minutes for her to be confirmed dead. A number of Czech doctors came over to her remains and they checked for heartbeat, but there was nothing. With this Hertha was then cut down and she was placed inside of a cheap coffin that lay under the pole and within the coffin some person had even placed a number of flowers within the wooden box for her.
Her remains were carried into the central cemetery in Jihlava and she was interred alongside a number of German soldiers who had died in the local area fighting during the war. And it’s interesting that she was buried in this place as they saw her as the enemy even in her death. The execution of Hertha Kašparová was a huge event for the people in the town of Třešť and people even bought tickets to secure the best position to see her death.
It was almost like a medieval carnival and for those inside of the Czech town, she was seen as the enemy and someone who carried out the evils of the German army and helped the Nazis with their persecuting work. In the translation work she completed for the Gestapo, she was complicit in the torture of many people and her work helped the Gestapo to execute many accused of resistance.
She was executed herself for the collaboration, but also for the fact she actively chose 11 men to be executed and many of those were those people who mocked her at school. She had vengeance for this taunting in the most barbaric way, and Hertha Ehlert contributed to a number of war crimes also. But, her execution was a huge spectacle, and it was one of the final public executions carried out inside of Czechoslovakia.
Ruth Elfriede Hildner was born on the 1st of November, 1919, inside of Germany. As a teenager and a young woman, her life would have been influenced by the Nazis significantly with the rise of Adolf Hitler to the position of the Führer. Hildner was most probably a member of the Nazi youth groups for women, such as the BDM or the League of German Maidens.
In this group, young teenagers were subjected to a significant amount of indoctrination and brainwashing. And, they were schooled in the Nazi policies for women. They were ordered to one day marry an SS man, and then have as many children for the Third Reich and Hitler as possible. And, the young girls were told that their place was in the home.
But, eventually a number of young women were conscripted to go and work inside of the concentration camps. Around 1943 and 1944, there was an army of young women who went to train as female concentration camp guards or Aufseherinnen, as they were known. Typically, these women were young women who had spent many years inside of the youth groups, such as the League of German Maidens, and they were incredibly devoted to the Third Reich and the Nazi regime.
Ruth Elfriede Hildner was conscripted to work in the concentration camps in July, 1944, to patch up for the fact that many male guards had been sent to fight and repel the Soviet advancement in the East and the Allies who had invaded from Normandy. Hildner was sent to Ravensbrück concentration camp, an all-female site, and she was fast-tracked through training to become a female guard.
And she was, to begin with, trained as a camp matron, as in someone who would work in the infirmary or the hospital. After a few weeks, the then 24-year-old Hildner was moved on to Dachau concentration camp. This was the first camp that opened inside the Third Reich, and Dachau was a terrible site of torture, slaughter, and execution.
Hildner here became a female overseer, and she switched from working as a matron in the infirmary to wield power and brutality over prisoners. She was then moved on to the Agfa-Camerawerk, a subcamp of Dachau, and she would then move on to serve in other subcamps, too. In December 1944, she was sent to a tiny subcamp of Flossenbürg, known as Helmbrechts.
Whilst at this camp, Ruth gained a notorious and terrible reputation for herself, and the prisoners were scared of her violent nature. She regularly took weapons to the inmates and battered them brutally if they did not work as hard as she wanted. And it’s believed that she also killed many with her bare hands.
She was most certainly a very dangerous woman, but let’s remember, she was in her mid-20s when she was demonstrating monstrous behavior every single day. After remaining at Helmbrechts for around 5 months, in April 1945, with the Allies, and in particular the US Army on the horizon, Helmbrechts was evacuated by the SS and the Nazis.
The women were moved away quickly, and Hildner was one of a number of guards who oversaw the death march, the forceful transfer of hundreds and thousands of prisoners from one site to another. Hildner on the death march was involved in the beating and murder of a number of young girls who were killed as she took her baton and weapons to them.
These women were too weak to walk, and Hildner was involved in the slaughter. She went with the group of prisoners to Schwandorf, another subcamp of Flossenbürg, actually found within Czechoslovakia. For many of the SS guards, male and female, they knew that the Second World War was coming to an end, and they also knew that they would be hunted at the end of the conflict for their crimes and actions.
Ruth Hildner, after a number of days of being at Schwandorf, realizes too, and she then fled the camp with a number of other female guards and overseers. There was at the time huge amounts of refugees fleeing and moving in and out of Czechoslovakia. And with this, the scores of people gave Hildner the perfect escape route to try and blend in and then hide.
She managed to live out for just under 2 years inside of Czechoslovakia. And as the war had come to an end, Hildner kept looking over her shoulder. She knew that she was wanted and was being hunted, but Czech police in March 1947 identified her, and with this she was arrested and was then put into prison. It’s not known why the former female guard did not make an attempt to travel back into Germany or German lands.
She may have believed it was more dangerous for her to do this, and that she may have risked capture. In May 1947, Ruth Hildner was brought to the Extraordinary People’s Court in Písek in Czechoslovakia, and her trial took place. The courtroom heard from many people who were locked up inside of the Nazi concentration camp systems and the specific camp where Ruth Hildner worked, and they testified about the brutal guard that she truly was.
Because of this, the courtroom judges were very shocked, and they wondered how a woman who was in her early 20s could have such a terrible history of violence, sadism, and murder, despite the fact she’d only worked at the camp for roughly over a year. With all of the evidence that was heard, Hildner was sentenced to death after being found guilty of war crimes, and she was then taken to a prison nearby for her execution to be carried out.
She was actually executed on the very same day that she was condemned and found guilty. Inside of Psec prison’s courtyard, there were a number of execution posts, and Ruth Hildner, being tried in Czechoslovakia, was to be pole hanged. This method, it was believed and claimed, could be quicker than using a gallows to bring about death.
Hildner was led up to the 3-m post, and her execution followed this process. Firstly, she was placed next to the pole, and a rope was attached around her feet, and it was then passed through a pulley at the bottom of the pole. Ruth was then hoisted to the top of the pole, and a chest sling around her middle secured her off the ground, holding her in place.
Then a noose was looped around her neck, and this was placed over a hook, and the executioner and his assistant then got ready. They released the chest sling, and the executioner had his hand under Ruth’s neck and tried to force her head to one side to dislocate her neck. But as she plunged downwards, the noose snapped taut around her neck, and the executioner’s assistant also guided her fall.
Ruth Elfrieda Hildner was executed on the execution pole or post, and she was someone who had a very dark history inside the concentration camps. She had been serving within the sites for roughly a year, but during this time, Hildner developed a reputation for herself, which was brutal and barbaric, and she was known to have inflicted terror, especially upon female prisoners, every single day.
For this, she paid the ultimate price and was executed inside a dark Czech prison. After the end of the war, inside of Hungary, there were many executions that took place outside the Academy of Music in Budapest. This building became synonymous with the executions of former politicians who had plunged the country into a tragic and terrible war that saw the land closely allied with the Nazis.
Hungarians would fight alongside German soldiers and they would be rocked by huge deportations of people from their lands to concentration camps. The truth was that there were many politicians who became Prime Minister quickly and came within power and they collaborated with the Nazis and with Hitler and Mussolini.
And after the war, a number of these politicians, including Béla Imrédy, were executed in Budapest outside the Academy of Music. Thousands would flock to witness these executions and to see what they believed justice being carried out. However, what is the story of the woman who was executed inside of Budapest in the same place, it’s believed, as the former Prime Ministers.
Mária or Mansi Nagy was a World War criminal who’d been taken to a People’s Tribunal or trial. These were held to deal with those who were accused of crimes against humanity and of causing huge suffering inside concentration camps. Those members of the army who committed atrocities were also tried in this way and following her trial, Mária or Mansi, was then condemned to death.
But what did she do? It’s believed that as she was a Second World War war criminal, she was known for torturing young Jewish women. This leads to the possibility that she was actually a woman who worked inside of the concentration camps. There were many women who became guards for the SS inside of camps within the Third Reich, such as Auschwitz or Bergen-Belsen.
And a number of them were condemned for their crimes. But usually women like Irma Grese were executed in private within prison cells and execution chambers, well away from the eyes of the public. The name associated with the condemned woman, Manci, is short for Margaret in Hungary. And what is strange is that little documented evidence, except from pictures and photographs, remain regarding her fate and execution.
She is considered an unknown war criminal. But from the images, it’s clear that she is a woman who was rather elderly. She looks rather respectable and is wrapped in a sweater, but looks petrified as she makes her way to her execution. But there is another possibility as to why she was executed. In the final days of the Second World War in Hungary, there was large-scale killing and looting as the Soviet Red Army invaded and took city after city before moving to Budapest.
It’s possible that Manci was one of those who stole the property of displaced people or that she attacked women who were already suffering. For her to be sentenced to death, it’s clear she must have done something that was very, very serious. She could also have been someone who was a collaborator with the Germans and who passed information on to the Nazis, the Gestapo or the SS about possibly the locations of Jewish women or prisoners.
There were people who were paid to hunt Jews across Europe and they acted off tip-offs from neighbors and local people to do this. Perhaps Manci was one of those collaborators who were considered the lowest of the low inside of society. In Holland, there was one young woman who was executed for this crime as she was deemed to have been a war criminal on the same level as the SS who were deporting Jews to concentration camps.
She was willingly giving over Jews to the enemy and they would then be exterminated as soon as they arrived at sites such as Auschwitz. For Mansi Nagy to be executed in front of a crowd inside of Budapest, her offense and crime must have been incredibly serious and also shocking. The witnesses that day would have known that they were seeing the death of a war criminal.
The events of her execution were in keeping with the executions of prominent Hungarians throughout the war. She was led out from her prison and was taken to an execution post and would be executed using the pole hanging method. With this, a noose was attached to a pole or a large wooden stake through a hook which was then fed through an eyelet to the executioner who was stood behind the condemned.
When the wooden planks someone standing on was removed, the executioner would pull on the noose and strangle the condemned against the pole. Death usually occurred in a few minutes. Maria or Mansi Nagy was accompanied by a priest who remained with her for her final moments and the preparations for her execution were done by the executioner who was wearing a suit and a hat and also his assistant who helped him.
These two, it’s quite clear, were also the ones who performed the killing and she would not be alone in her final moments. On the pole next to her was a white sheet in which a previously executed person was covered up in their final moments. This person would have been executed minutes before and their body was then kept out of view of Mansi as she approached the stake.
With her legs tied and her arms tied and the rope passed around her middle, she then climbed on top of the wooden box or step as the executioner fastened the noose and the rope around her neck. The step was then removed and she was left and within minutes she was executed by the executioner. The story of Mansio Maria Nagy is one which is shocking.
What did this elderly woman do that was so offensive and evil that she would be taken in front of a crowd in Budapest and would be executed in public? Judging by the shape of the windows and the brickwork behind her, the execution must have occurred outside the Academy of Music where former ministers and politicians were also executed.
These sometimes were executed by firing squad however. Former Prime Minister Ferenc Szálasi, who was one who was considered one of the country’s worst war criminals, would be executed on the same stakes and in the same manner as this elderly woman. It’s believed that she did and would have collaborated with the Nazis and Germans and may have given up Jewish women who were hiding out and they were then taken to extermination centers and were killed.
But the sight of the elderly lady making her way to her death is one which has still puzzled historians as we do not know too much about her crime. But the aging lady in her sweater, in the eyes of the Hungarian officials and the witnesses and the people of Budapest, must at the time have deserved her execution for whatever she did.