Anna Friederike Mathilde Klein ( Plaubel; sometimes referred to as Anna Klein-Plaubel; 4 March 1900 – 8 February 1990) was a Nazi German concentration camp guard and chief warden at the Ravensbrück concentration camp.In the concentration camp system, the highest rank ever received by two women—Anna Klein and Luise Brunner—was the rank of Chef Oberaufseherin (chief senior inspector). She was tried for her role in the Holocaust, but acquitted due to lack of evidence.
Atrocities in Nazi concentration camps On 14 September 1939, she arrived in Ravensbrück. In August 1943, she was promoted to the highest rank of Chef Oberaufseherin (Chief senior supervisor), with control and the responsibility of monitoring all of Ravensbrück camp, including slave labor, medical experiments, and death of inmates, the majority of whom were female political prisoners.
Klein reached the highest rank that the Nazis allowed a woman in a camp; she received a higher salary, better housing, better food (which was not cooked by detainees, but by other Schutzstaffel (SS) women), the best clothes, more power, and this hierarchical title of honour. She oversaw all guards at Ravensbrück until the SS assigned her to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp in September 1944. There, she served as a supervisor, with the same rank until the liberation of the camp by the Allies in April 1945.
Trial and acquittal For the period of August 1943 to August 1944, in Ravensbrück, Klein was charged with mistreatment of inmates and participation in the selection of inmates for the gas chamber in the seventh Ravensbrück Trial in Hamburg. This trial lasted from 2 July to 21 July 1948. She was acquitted on 21 July 1948 due to lack of evidence.
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