In recent years, Irma Grese has become a cult figure among the neo-Nazis. She is considered by them to be a heroine because of her stoicism at her trial and the perception that she showed great courage in going bravely to her death. She is regarded by the neo-Nazis as a martyr, who died for her country, since they don't believe that she was the sadistic, sexually-depraved killer that she was portrayed to be by her accusers.
Albert Pierrepoint, an experienced professional hangman, was flown over from Great Britain to hang the 11 condemned prisoners from the Belsen trials. On December 12, 1945, the condemned were weighed and measured so that the hangman could calculate how to adjust the gallows for each one. Pierrepoint wrote an autobiography in which he described the circumstances surrounding the execution of Irma Grese.
Two paragraphs from Pierrepoint's autobiography are quoted below:
"At last we finished noting the details of the men, and RSM O'Neil ordered 'bring out Irma Grese. She walked out of her cell and came towards us laughing. She seemed as bonny a girl as one could ever wish to meet. She answered O'Neil's questions, but when he asked her age she paused and smiled. I found that we were both smiling with her, as if we realised the conventional embarrassment of a woman revealing her age. Eventually she said 'twenty-one,' which we knew to be correct. O'Neil asked her to step on to the scales. 'Schnell!' she said - the German for quick."
"The following morning we climbed the stairs to the cells where the condemned were waiting. A German officer at the door leading to the corridor flung open the door and we filed past the row of faces and into the execution chamber. The officers stood at attention. Brigadier Paton-Walsh stood with his wrist-watch raised. He gave me the signal, and a sigh of released breath was audible in the chamber. I walked into the corridor. 'Irma Grese,' I called. The German guards quickly closed all grills on twelve of the inspection holes and opened one door. Irma Grese stepped out. The cell was far too small for me to go inside, and I had to pinion her in the corridor. 'Follow me,' I said in English, and O'Neil repeated the order in German. At 9.34 a.m. she walked into the execution chamber, gazed for a moment at the officials standing round it, then walked on to the centre of the trap, where I had made a chalk mark. She stood on this mark very firmly, and as I placed the white cap over her head she said in her languid voice 'Schnell'. The drop crashed down, and the doctor followed me into the pit and pronounced her dead. After twenty minutes the body was taken down and placed in a coffin ready for burial."
Reference: Scrapbook pages
After execution, her corpse was buried with the corpses of other war criminals in a mass grave within the grounds of Hamelin prison.
In March 1954, the German prison authorities set about exhuming the bodies from the prison yard, identifying the remains, and putting them in separate coffins for reburial in individual plots. A total of 91 bodies were reburied in hallowed ground in Hamelin's Am Wehl Cemetery, including the remains of Irma Grese.
Some German newspapers at the time referred to the Germans as 'alleged war criminals' implying their guilt was not proven.
