Fritz Suhren was one of Nazi Germany’s most notorious concentration camp commandants. As commandant of Ravensbrück—the largest concentration camp for women in the Third Reich—he presided over systematic cruelty, forced labour, executions, and horrific medical experiments.
A high-ranking SS officer, Suhren began his concentration camp career at Sachsenhausen before taking command of Ravensbrück in 1942. More than 130,000 women passed through the camp system, and tens of thousands did not survive. Prisoners endured starvation, beatings, forced labour, executions, and pseudo-medical experiments carried out by Nazi doctors.
Women were deliberately wounded and infected as doctors attempted to reproduce battlefield injuries, while others underwent operations involving the removal of bone and muscle. Suhren also worked alongside figures such as Dorothea Binz and presided over a camp system in which violent abuse by SS personnel and female guards became part of everyday life.
As Nazi Germany collapsed, Suhren attempted to escape, taking British agent and Ravensbrück prisoner Odette Sansom with him in the hope that her status would protect him. His attempt ultimately failed. Suhren was captured, brought before a French military tribunal, and convicted for his crimes.
This documentary chronicles the rise and fall of Fritz Suhren—from SS officer to commandant of Ravensbrück and finally a convicted war criminal. It examines the atrocities committed against the women imprisoned under his authority and the postwar reckoning that eventually followed.
This episode is part of the series The Nazi Camp Commandants.
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