The HORRORS Of The Concentration Camp Princess Execution JJ

Inside of the concentration camps of World War II, people from all over Europe were locked up and were made to suffer by the brutality of the SS guards. This included people who ran countries before the Nazis came to power and even spies who found themselves locked up waiting for the day that their inevitable execution would come.

But inside of Buchenwald concentration camp in August 1944, a 41-year-old princess, who was actually the second daughter of the king of Italy, succumbed to a horrifying ordeal. The circumstances of Princess Mafalda of Savoy’s death was completely horrific. The Allies had bombed Buchenwald’s ammunition factory.

She was then injured, but at the hands of barbaric Nazi doctors, an operation performed upon her arm led to a terrible death. And of course, the medical treatment she faced was practically an execution itself, as Princess Mafalda was given virtually no care despite being considered a very high-profile prisoner. So, why was her demise and death so terrible? Mafalda Maria Elisabetta Anna Romana was born in November 1902 in Rome, and she was the second child born to King Victor Emmanuel III and Queen Elena of Italy.

She was a princess from birth and had a number of other royal siblings. She was as a young girl very close to her mother, and the pair bonded over a love of the arts and also music. But as a princess, Mafalda as she got older was involved in royal affairs. As Italy entered World War I, she was actually present visiting Italian military hospitals close to the front lines along with her mother the queen.

And this endeared her to the Italian population even while she was just a teenager. After the end of the conflict, she traveled around Europe with her family, and she also met many other royals, including the future King Edward VIII, a man who was of course linked to the Nazis during World War II, despite being the abdicated King of Britain.

For every princess in Europe, marriage was something that was considered incredibly important, especially for the King of Italy, as he sought to gain an alliance for his nation. In September 1925, Mafalda married Prince Philip of Hesse, the grandson of German Emperor Frederick III. The pair had met previously to garden party.

However, Prince Philip and his brother Christoph were known to have been members of the Nazi party. Mafalda’s brother-in-law, Prince Christoph, would later become an SS-Oberführer in the German SS, and he was actually during World War II killed in a plane crash. Princess Mafalda at this point then adopted German citizenship through her marriage, but she remained a princess in Italy.

The marriage placed her husband in a very strong position politically. He was acting as an intermediary, a go-between, for the Nazis and also Mussolini’s fascist government in Italy, which had been given control following Mussolini’s 1922 March on Rome. Hitler and Mussolini would of course become very good friends and allies, and Mussolini would later in his final years rely on the support that the Nazis gave him.

But because of this, Princess Mafalda became involved in a number of high-profile meetings and events with the Nazis. In March 1935, she was invited to a diplomatic dinner hosted by Hitler at Hermann Göring’s house inside of Berlin. This was before World War II, and specifically Mafalda was sat next to British Foreign Affairs Minister of the time and future Prime Minister Anthony Eden.

Mafalda and her husband, Prince Philip, were often guests at Carinhall, too, the lavish hunting lodge of Hermann Göring’s, and they were regularly invited to parties. Within these events, Mafalda spoke with many top Nazi wives and rubbed shoulders with other foreign dignitaries. Göring’s house was covered with stolen artwork, which he began to build up after entering power, and Carinhall is often considered to have been one of the main places associated with debaucherous and crooked Nazis.

She continued to mix with important European politicians and rulers, but as the Second World War erupted, Hitler’s opinion of the Italian princess soured greatly, and he began to consider that she was actually working against the Nazis and was causing more problems for them. Specifically, Hitler called the princess the blackest carrion in the Italian royal house, and his propaganda minister and close friend Joseph Goebbels also referred to her as the biggest female dog in the entire Italian royal house, and that’s putting it nicely.

It’s not known for certain why Hitler’s opinion of her changed. Maybe she was more outspoken. However, as the war rolled on, things continued to deteriorate between the Nazi leadership and Princess Mafalda, and specifically her husband, Prince Philip. He tried to leave his role working for Hitler, but was not allowed to do so.

And because of this, Philip began to subvert the Nazis, and he even acquired passports for persecuted people, which allowed them to escape the Reich. This, of course, was a crime which was, technically in the Nazis’ eyes, treason. But the Italian war effort stuttered greatly. Italy were, of course, part of the Axis alliance.

However, they suffered defeat after defeat. When Mafalda was informed about the Italian surrender to the Allies, she was informed that her husband was being held under house arrest, and that her children were being taken to the Vatican for their safety. Now, Hitler believed that the princess had been involved in negotiations for Italy to surrender to the Allies, and the Gestapo were ordered to seize her and arrest her.

She reported to the German embassy and was then arrested. Mafalda was accused of being a spy for the now Italian And Mafalda was then sent to Munich for questioning before being moved to a Gestapo interrogation center in Berlin. She gave over very little information and frustrated the Nazis. We don’t even know if she was involved in anything, and because of this, she was transferred to Buchenwald concentration camp.

When she arrived there, many of the other Italian prisoners recognized her and knew exactly who she was, and they were amazed that the princess was amongst their ranks as an ordinary prisoner. She was known to have been very kind to fellow inmates and regularly shared the increased food rations she received for being a privileged inmate with the other prisoners.

However, less than a year after entering Buchenwald, Princess Mafalda of Italy would be dead. On the 24th of August, 1944, the Allies, who were now targeting many armaments factories inside of the Reich, bombed an ammunition factory by aircraft, which was found within the Buchenwald complex. The devastation was huge as the bombs hit.

There was a huge explosion, and 400 prisoners were killed as the Allied aircraft dropped their payload, and it wasn’t intended to kill prisoners, but Princess Mafalda, who was relatively nearby, was seriously injured. She was locked up in a cell close to the bombed factory, and after the explosion, her cell block collapsed on her.

And she was left with huge amounts of debris covering her. And she suffered very bad burns to her left arm. She mentioned to prisoners who helped lift the debris off her that, I quote, “I’m dying. Remember me not as a princess, but as your Italian sister.” After she was pulled from the rubble, her arm became incredibly infected quickly because of the dirt, filth, and terrible conditions found within Buchenwald.

After a quick examination, quack SS doctors decided, rather than to try and treat the infection, it was best if they tried cutting the arm off and amputating it. At the time in the war within the concentration camps, there was very little anesthetic used for operations and treatment of prisoners. And the amputation would have been done without possibly any medication being given to Mafalda to survive.

The big danger initially was the shock of the pain that would cause her to die as the doctors attempted the amputation. However, during the operation, Mafalda bled profusely and doctors could not stop the bleeding. She was a high-profile prisoner, so attempts may have been made to save her, which is more than most other prisoners who were just left to die.

Some fellow inmates believed that to begin with Mafalda was denied treatment as it was just convenient in the eyes of the SS to allow her to die on the operating table as she was a high-profile prisoner. There are different accounts as to what happened next to her body. One account claims that her body was smuggled out of the camp and was then buried in a nearby Weimar cemetery in a coffin numbered 262.

It was then claimed that the coffin was removed and was reburied in Kronberg Castle. Another account claims that her corpse had been thrown out and was recognized and that fellow prisoners quickly cremated her and they took a lock of her hair, which was then smuggled out of the camp and sent to her German relatives.

The fact that Princess Mafalda was locked inside of a concentration camp was in itself a death sentence imposed by the Nazis. She suffered when the allies struck the ammunition factory and sustained catastrophic injuries from this. But the fact the doctors may have refused medical treatment initially and practically allowed infection to take hold and gangrene to set in condemned her.

From the very moment she received the injury at the hands of the SS guards, there was very little chance she was ever going to make it out of the camp alive. As the the World War continued on, she possibly would have been executed by firing squad as the Germans and SS set about liquidating concentration camps of their prisoners.

But the fate of Princess Mafalda of Italy was horrific and upon the personal request of Adolf Hitler himself, she was dealt with terribly. Thanks for watching. If you found this video interesting, maybe click subscribe. Once again, thank you so much for giving your time to watch one of these videos.