Voting Station

Herta Bothe

Please vote to return to collections.

Military Personnel

The Resume

    (January 8, 1921- )
    Born in Teterow, Germany
    Concentration camp guard at Ravensbruck-Stutthof (1942-44) and Bergen-Belsen (1945)
    Served five years in prison for war crimes (1946-51)

Why she might be annoying:

    She was nicknamed the Sadist of Stutthof.
    She shot at prisoners as they carried food from the kitchen to their huts.
    She picked out girls to beat with a stick.
    When the Allied soldiers who liberated Bergen-Belsen forced her and other guards to bury the dead prisoners, she complained that their emaciated bodies were still heavy enough to cause her back pain.
    She served a short sentence for the kinds of crimes that got other guards executed.
    People who interviewed her in later years said she expressed no remorse.

Why she might not be annoying:

    She was a nurse in a German hospital before becoming a concentration camp guard.
    She and the other guards were not provided with gloves when burying the Belsen dead, potentially exposing them to typhus.
    Documentary filmmaker Maurice Philip Remy said, 'Bothe didn't even seem aware of her role in the Holocaust.... She had horrible memories of the concentration camps, but no capacity to make sense of her role in them.'

Credit: C. Fishel


Featured in the following Annoying Collections:

Year In Review:

    In 2023, Out of 73 Votes: 67.12% Annoying
    In 2022, Out of 15 Votes: 66.67% Annoying
    In 2021, Out of 13 Votes: 100% Annoying
    In 2020, Out of 18 Votes: 44.44% Annoying
    In 2019, Out of 11 Votes: 27.27% Annoying
    In 2018, Out of 16 Votes: 25.00% Annoying
    In 2017, Out of 20 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2016, Out of 22 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2015, Out of 39 Votes: 51.28% Annoying
    In 2014, Out of 48 Votes: 52.08% Annoying
    In 2013, Out of 29 Votes: 55.17% Annoying
    In 2012, Out of 164 Votes: 79.88% Annoying