Survivors and researchers usually present the concentration camp as the ultimate example of a total institution. The terror so zealously applied by the employees of the Schutzstaffel SS, protection squadron in the camps was indeed meticulously planned by the leaders of the SS — first and foremost Heinrich Himmler Sofsky, ; Armanski, ; Herbert, Orth and Dieckmann, ; Benz and Distel, Nonetheless, the idea that all terror was systematically organised is somewhat misleading.
Camp regulations certainly gave the guards, like SS officers, the authority to punish prisoners. SS guards never officially had the right to use violence on prisoners arbitrarily, still less the right to kill them service pistols were only to be used in self-defence.
On the contrary, they had to follow a strict code of punishments. But despite these regulations and the prohibition on assaulting prisoners, the guards carried out their daily tasks brutally and bloodily.
There was a considerable gap between rules and practice. In January she was transferred to the concentration and extermination camp of Majdanek.
Braunsteiner and Ehlert are good examples because they were among the first female guards and went on to hold senior positions at Majdanek. What led them to a concentration camp? How did they perform their guard duties? What made them remain in the camps for six and a half years? How did the female guards exercise power over the prisoners? What role did physical violence have in the interplay of actors? Rather than analysing power from the point of view of its internal rationality, we will examine power relations by contrasting different strategies.
