Customer Reviews

The Beautiful Beast: The Life & Crimes of Ss-Aufseherin Irma Grese

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1 star:		(1)

 

 

I found this book extremely interesting because not much in general is known about female SS. The fact that Miss Grese was so young, physically attractive, yet an ordinary girl, makes it all the more perplexing that she became entangled in Hitler's evil web. The author does a fine job of trying to explain Miss Grese's motives for becoming an aufseherin. She was basically limited intellectually, and seemed pathetic to this reader. One can never explain the capacity for the sub-human, barbarous treatment that these guards imposed upon their fellow man. It continues to frighten and deeply trouble me that these events did indeed take place. I highly recommend this book to anyone that is interested in reading about the horrors of the holacaust.

I was expecting more in-depth exploration of the subject. The author spent a whole lot of time telling the reader that not much was known about the subject because people who would be in position to know her personally have not spoken out. It seems as if the author had attempted to write an in-depth look, was not able to secure interviews that would accomplish this, even after travelling extensively . He then just seemed to quote other author's works to complete the book. I just don't feel he had enough information to have written and advertised this work as the "life and crimes of Irma Grese".

In The Beautiful Beast author Daniel Brown tells the story of "The Life and Crimes of SS-Aufseherin Irma Grese". Grese was perhaps the most notorious female overseer of various wartime concentration camps, principally Auschwitz Birkenau. She was captured when the British liberated Bergen Belsen in May of 1945, and in November of that year was tried, found guilty, and hanged.

It is a story of the banality of evil - a none too intelligent or capable girl indoctrinated in darkness and then given life and death power to exercise at her will. The result was senseless and sickening cruelty; a window into the depravity of the human soul.

Brown, who teaches history at Moorpark College, has attempted a scholarly work replete with many references and an extensive German bibliography. The result, however, is difficult to connect with. The author presupposes an understanding of the Nazi system and institutions and therefore largely omits a discussion of the context in which Grese and those like her were hatched. Instead he substitutes amateurish analysis such as, "...one might wonder what impact a tremendously lowered self-image would have regarding latter-day camp excesses".

Lowered self-image? Excuse me if this doesn't resonate as a precursor to unimaginable brutality.

The Beautiful Beast is an interesting and comprehensive narrative of the life of Irma Grese, one of the most notorious female guards in the Nazi concentration camps. Dan Brown has done an excellent job of researching her life, activities, and the consequences in this book. As one who researches women in the Holocaust, I strongly recommend this book to all who are interested in this era.

I got a very interesting look into the life of one of the persons belonging to the low ranks of the helpers to SS. As a testimony of what one of this helpers were capable doing - which led to her hanging after after The Belsen Trial in Germany - it should not be underestimated. This Grese has become some sort of cult figure among the neo nazis although they claim the Holocaust never existed or is undervalued. Strange that neo nazis undervalue what the Führer, Himmler and others like Grese did. Read it!

Voltaire once said, "Those who can make you believe absurdities can make
you commit atrocities." This volume is a short but well written biograph-
ical account of a single human element integral to the reality of state
sponsored genocide. Indeed, without such apostles of idealogical absurdity
such as Irma Grese and others of her ilk, the murder machine of the Third Reich could never have existed. Mr. Brown does a commendable job of presenting the historical facts necessary for one to join him in an engaging analysis of cause and effect with regards to the reader's understanding of that synergy inherent to the dynamic transgressions of the human mind.

Although its an interesting read, not enough detail at all very short didnt really go into specifics of her treatment of the prisoners etc i was dissapointed but its not totally boring just wasn't what i was looking for.

A beautiful farm girl becomes an SS guard at a notorious concentration camp. Her brutality included choosing who would go to the gas chamber, beatings, whippings, and perverted, bi-sexual pleasures. Hung at the age of 22, she proclaimed her innocence to the end saying she was only carrying out orders of her superiors.

Overall this was a fair book. Could have been more in depth and specific. Almost a general overview of the subject. Have read other, more detailed acounts of concentration camp demons. Quick read, gossip type. Would like to know more. Seemed to rely heavily on foot note info. Had more questions after reading than before.

I thought this book was a acurate book of the concratration camps. This was a very deep book and had to be one of the greatest books I've ever read