A Libran Exception: Irma Grese

A look at one daughter of Libra who flew against the usual personality patterns associated with this zodiac sign. She's also a far cry from those "superwomen" I've featured recently.

This woman, with natal Libra Sun, Venus and Saturn, most certainly didn't live up to the reputation of charm, tact, diplomacy and the easy-going, often indecisive nature associated with this sign. Irma Grese, also known as The Beautiful Beast, Bitch of Belsen, Angel of Death, was the most notorious and brutal of all young female guards employed in Nazi prison camps. She was 18 when she took up her duties, and 22 when she was hanged, after trial by a British Military Tribunal.

"Another product of the Nazi’s final solution, Irma Grese or the “Bitch of Belsen” was a guard at concentration camps Ravensbrück, Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen. Transferred to Auschwitz in 1943, (she must have shown particular enthusiasm and dedication to the job), she was promoted to Senior Supervisor, the 2nd highest ranking female in camp, by the end of the year. In charge of over 30,000 Jewish female prisoners, she reveled in her work. Her work included; savaging of prisoners by her trained and half starved dogs, sexual excesses, arbitrary shootings, sadistic beatings with a plaited whip, and selecting prisoners for the gas chamber. She enjoyed both physical and emotional torture and habitually wore heavy boots and carried a pistol to facilitate both."
From Top Ten Most Evil Women.

WARNING: skip this paragraph if you are of delicate disposition:

"Irma Grese apparently gave orders to other soldiers asking them to remove the breasts of Jewish and gypsy women in the camps or to ask that specific women be gased or killed for her so that she could collect their skins. Irma made lampshades, bookcovers, and other household items from the human skins of the prisoners at Auschwitz" (From here)

A stellium (cluster of planets) in Libra: Sun, Venus and Saturn afford a good helping of Libran flavour. She was said to be quite beautiful, in a typically Ayrian way, blonde with blue-eyes, so it's a physical fit, for Libra is ruled by Venus, planet of beauty.

Mercury and Mars in Virgo add little that would portray such a brutal character. One might expect a harsh turn of phrase, a little aggression on occasion, but in discerning Virgo, this would usually be tightly controlled. Grese's birth time at Astrotheme is stated as 12 noon, without the usual note that actual time is unknown. I think it unlikely to be an accurate time, especially as it produces Sagittarius rising. The only rising sign I can imagine fitting this woman would be one with the malefic Fixed Star Algol sitting right on it (which would mean 25 Taurus). That's just my view though.

There's a Grand Trine in Water signs harmoniously linking Uranus in Pisces, Jupiter in Scorpio and Pluto in Cancer. Again, this hardly fits what we know of Grese. In most cases I'd look on this as an indication of a creative, highly sensitive and emotional individual.

Okay. There has to be something which could turn a beautiful young woman into one who could be called "Beast". Saturn and Venus are conjoined in Libra. Venus rules Libra so would have been unsullied in its own domicile, were it not strongly challenged, modified even, by Saturn one of the so-called "malefics", which could account for the way the reflection of her Libran planets seems to deviate from the norm. Likewise, Mercury (in its own sign, Virgo) and Mars are close enough to be in conjunction, with Mars' aggression modifying Virgoan restraint. It's as though the two planets thought of traditionally as "malefics" have zeroed in on two personal planets in their own domiciles and "sucked the goodness out of them" leaving a much changed picture.

The Moon, in early Virgo at 12 noon, would have been in late Leo if birth time was around 1 or 2 am. It's impossible to judge which is more likely.

Chiron "The Wounded Healer" lies in Aries, opposite the Venus/Saturn conjunction. Neither Grese nor her victims were ever healed (a reflection of this opposition), all were sorely wounded, they by her unspeakable brutality, and she by the dogma and brainwashing inflicted by Hitler's inhuman regime.

Astrology is sometimes eerily accurate, other times, as here, not so much. There is some astrological evidence for the way in which Irma Grese developed. It has to be remembered that she was but a teenager when it all started, lacking in relevant experience and judgement, gullible, a young farm girl, possibly short on education and intellect. There was potential for her to have developed into a very different character under different circumstances. Here is more evidence that astrology isn't the only, or even prime, element in personality. The planets provide a hint of potential, and just one strand in a complicated web.