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The most cruel women in the history of mankind! The most brutal female killers in the history of mankind

These women entered the history of mankind thanks to their terrible atrocities. Queens and seemingly honorable ladies turned out to be cruel sadists and murderers.

Gertrud Baniszewski

This woman from Indiana left a terrible mark on American history. Gertrud Baniszewski, a seemingly decent mother, with her noble family for a long time scoffed at Sylvia Likens, whom she took up with her younger sister.

The real parents of the girls did not even suspect what hell they doomed their daughters to. Dislike for Sylvia arose immediately, as soon as she crossed the threshold of the Baniszewski house. At first there were the usual nit-picking, insults, then it came to assault. There were no bruises on the girl's body. Gertrude, in a frenzy, pursued Sylvia with a kind of bestial tenacity. The torture became more sophisticated every day. Once Sylvia was forced to bathe in a bath of boiling water: noble family watched her suffering with a smile. Gertrude Baniszewski's children made it a habit to constantly beat the unfortunate girl. It got to the point where even Jenny, Sylvia's younger sister, was forced to take part. The inhuman, sadistic attitude could not but affect the girl's body. And one day Sylvia died. It was necessary to see with what haste, with fear for punishment for their actions, the Baniszewski family covered their tracks.

When this scary tale became public, the entire American public demanded the death penalty for the executioner in the form of a woman. But Themis delivered an unexpectedly mild sentence to Gertrude - a life sentence. And nineteen years later, Baniszewski was released for good behavior. Her children, who participated in the mother's bloody deeds, did not suffer in any way either. They live peacefully and have families. And it seems that the ghost of the tortured Sylvia does not come to them at night...

Mary I Tudor (Bloody Mary)

She was born in the year of the height of the English sweat epidemic. And in the history of the British Middle Ages, unfortunately, left a sad mark. Mary the Bloody, aka Mary I Tudor, is considered a kind of symbol of the evil that was inflicted on the country. Although she never claimed the English throne, and by chance and circumstances, she received the crown of the queen. Maria the Catholic (so they called her at court) had no skills at all government controlled. Her education boiled down to the fact that in her free time the princess read stories about Christian saints, sat perfectly in the saddle and passionately loved falconry. By the way, she was afraid of men like fire: this fear was instilled in her by the holy fathers from childhood. And hardly anyone suspected in her the future thunderstorm of the Protestant rebels, with whom she would wage a merciless and cruel war. But the first victim of royal disgrace fell a relative of Mary - 16-year-old Jane Gray. Because of high state considerations, sometimes feeling pity, she sent her to the chopping block. And then Jane's husband and father-in-law fell into the hands of the executioner. A little time passed, and throughout England bonfires began to play ominously, in the fire of which hundreds of church fathers, who refused to accept Catholicism, died. For this, the people will call her Bloody Mary.

According to some historians, Mary I Tudor, in fact, was not a bloodthirsty ruler. It's just that, as they say now, the politicians at court used her as a puppet, achieving their own specific goals.

Elizabeth Bathory

Blood Countess Elizabeth Bathory experienced incredible pleasure when poor peasant girls were tortured before her eyes, subjecting them to the most sophisticated tortures. Czeide Castle in the Kingdom of Hungary, with its dark and deep cellars, was a place that kept well the gloomy deeds of a noble noblewoman. Among local residents even there were rumors that Elizabeth Bathory loves to take baths filled with the blood of murdered victims. When the crimes of the countess were revealed, a horrific picture was revealed: about a hundred tortured and killed girls were on her conscience. The surviving victims who survived the massacre were a pitiful sight. The Blood Countess committed her atrocities with the help of her faithful servants, three of whom were women. Last days Elizabeth Bathory ended her life in her own castle, in one of the rooms, tightly walled up. There was not even a ray of sunshine here. There were only openings in the room for serving food. The guards, on pain of death, never spoke to the Blood Countess.

Irma Grese

She was born in a simple German peasant family with four other children. Irma Grese clearly did not want to go to school, she was not attracted to high sciences. A fifteen-year-old girl is obsessed with power delusions in order to experience superiority over people. She joins the Union of German Youth, believing that this will be useful to her in the future. At first, changing one profession after another, Irma Grese rushes through life, not finding a worthy application for herself.

She meets the war with joy and joins one of the auxiliary units of the S. S. Irma, as if breaking free from the chain, goes headlong into new job concentration camp guards. This position will be just to the liking of a girl in whose soul a real monster woke up.

Time will pass, and the prisoners will call her the Angel of Death, the Blonde Devil, the Beautiful Beast. The senior warden of the Wirkenau concentration camp will sow horror and fear everywhere. Strange, but this girl, not without external attractiveness, will dream of a post-war career as a screen star. Even hardened Nazis were shy before her atrocities. They would never, for example, have thought of a hundred unfed angry dogs unleash on the prisoners. Irma Grese's favorite pastime is sitting on a chair and shooting women walking in a column. She also took pleasure in beating her victims to death with a heavy whip.

Irma Grese failed to escape punishment for her bloody deeds. During the Belsen trial, she was sentenced to hang. IN last night before the execution, the failed screen star laughed and had fun, singing songs with her friend Elisabeth Volkenrath - the same monster as she is.

Daria Saltykova

The "torturer and murderer" landowner Daria Saltykova could neither read nor write. And now you can’t understand why this illiterate noblewoman was warmly and friendly received in the enlightened houses of the Musin-Pushkins. Davydov, Tolstoy. Maybe they have never been to the Saltykov family estate, where there was a quiet diabolical pestilence? Neighboring landlords considered this place a plague and tried to bypass it. And in the rural cemetery of the estate of Darya Saltykov, more and more graves appeared. The local people kept complete silence, crushed by fear.

But in the spring of 1762, the secret of the estate of Darya Saltykova was revealed, and the case of Saltychikha, the lady executioner, began to quickly unwind. The serfs Savely Martynov and Yermolai Ilyin managed to get to St. Petersburg at the risk of their lives. It was they who handed over to Empress Mother Catherine II a complaint about the lawlessness and atrocities of Saltychikha, which she did against her peasants. The Empress, having received the paper and having read it, immediately ordered the opening of a criminal case against Daria Saltykova. During the investigation, it turned out that the landowner killed more than a hundred people. Moreover, she liked to subject the delinquent peasant woman to sophisticated torture during the day and night (and Saltychikha herself invented guilt). It cost nothing for her to splash boiling water in the face of the victim, set fire to her hair.

The empress herself was involved in compiling the text of the sentence to Saltychikha. And instead of a surname flashed following words: "freak of the human race", "inhuman widow". The court issued its decision, according to which Daria Saltykova was to spend her life in the prison of the Donskoy Monastery. And before that there was a "reproachful spectacle" on Lobnoye mesto Red Square. No one saw tears of remorse on Saltychikha's face ...

Mary Ann Cotton

Oddly enough, but the "laurels" of the first serial killer in England went to the woman Mary Ann Cotton. This eternal black widow sent a bunch of people to the next world, not even sparing her own children. And all for the sake of one goal: to be a secure, needless woman. Mary Ann was not a beauty, but she certainly had a certain charm that attracted men. She was born into a poor mining family, and after the death of her father, the sixteen-year-old girl moved for a better share in South Hatton. Over time, Mary Ann realized that you can’t earn a lot of money from the works of the righteous. Especially on a farm where sheer pennies were paid for the work. Therefore, for a start, she did not build herself a picky bride: she took and married miner William Mowbray. In marriage, Mary Ann gave birth to five children. But she did not feel maternal feelings for them: the prospect of living in need and in constant worries did not at all appeal to her. And children, one by one, died from a mysterious intestinal disorder. And then it was the turn of William Mowbray himself. According to some rumors, in order to console the widow, the kind-hearted doctor went on the advice of neighbors to the cemetery, where she was supposed to pour out her grief. What was his surprise when he saw Mary Ann in a new fashionable dress, and even dancing in addition ... The insurance received by her late husband Mowbray must have delighted her.

She continued to play her role as an eternal widow, sowing suspicious and mysterious deaths husbands, their own and others' children. For the time being, everyone attributed it to "gastric fever", which literally followed on the heels of the whereabouts of Mary Ann Cotton. Until stubborn journalists unearthed the truth. Autopsies of black widow victims showed the presence of arsenic in the tissues in quantities that could kill even a horse.

The court unanimously sentenced her to death. They say that the elderly executioner, in all likelihood a widower, deliberately pulled the rope around Mary Ann's neck incorrectly so that she would suffer a little ...

Ilsa Koch

As soon as she stepped onto the parade ground, everyone's heart sank with fear and horror. There was no more bloodthirsty and cruel creature in the concentration camp than Ilse Koch. As an executioner, a torturer, she surpassed even her husband, Karl Koch. The commandant of the Buchenwald concentration camp was clearly inferior to her in sophisticated atrocities, preferring to tear out gold crowns from dead and living prisoners with his own hands. Even colleagues were afraid of this sweet couple. Especially after the case when Karl Koch shot his subordinate - an SS officer. And another nickname soon stuck to Ilse: Frau Abuazhur. With diabolical ingenuity, she took up an unusual business: she sewed handbags and even underwear from human skin (and quite skillfully!) But she especially succeeded in lampshades in the house, which became the pride of Ilse Koch.

The exorbitant cruelty of the spouses aroused the indignation of the highest Hitlerite ranks. But perhaps the whole point was that Karl Koch did not share the loot, preferring to steal quietly. For this, the commandant of Buchenwald paid with his head: by a court decision, he was shot. And Ilse managed to escape punishment. When she fell into the hands of the Americans, the pregnant sadist even managed to trick the high commissioner of the occupation zone. He released her to freedom, guided by "high moral considerations." However, she was immediately arrested by the German police. And during the investigation, the court sentenced Ilsa Koch to life imprisonment. She committed suicide in prison on September 1, 1967, by hanging herself with a rope rolled from a sheet.

Sisters Gonzalez

This four-killer-sisters put the most notorious Mexican thugs into the belt. And it is known that Mexico, where Delfina, Maria del Jesus, Carmen and Maria Luisa Gonzalez Valenzuela were born, has always been distinguished by its strong criminal morals. The general passion for enrichment of the sisters was quite understandable: they were born into the poorest family, living from bread to water. And they began their infamous path with ordinary prostitution. The money earned was put into a common cauldron. But it could not last so long: it was impossible to achieve the cherished goal in this way. And one day one of the sisters came up with the idea to open their own brothel on a ranch in the state of Guanajuato. Having promised the peasant girls mountains of gold, they did not know the end of those who wished. If only local beauties knew what hands they fell into! Time passed, and the girls, intoxicated with alcohol and illegal substances, began to call the Gonzalez sisters' ranch a "hellish brothel." For any offense, young prostitutes were beaten to death, tortured. It was useless to contact the local police, bribed by the sisters. And the officials themselves willingly used the services of a brothel. It seemed that there would be no end to the criminal lawlessness of the sisters-killers. Beautiful girls abducted directly from the villages and nearby towns. When the investigation began, a horrifying picture of what had happened was revealed. It turned out that the Gonzalez crime family brought to the grave about a hundred girls. The sisters were tried, each received a long prison term. Of these, only survived younger sister Maria, who, after being released, disappeared in an unknown direction.

November 9, 2010, 18:30

Queen Mary I, 1516-1558 The daughter of Henry VIII and his first wife went down in the history of England as a monarch who tried to return the country to the bosom of the Roman Catholic Church after her father, having quarreled with the Pope, declared himself the head of the new Anglican Church. The restoration took place against the backdrop of brutal executions of Protestants, persecution and murder of innocent people, for which the people nicknamed the Queen Bloody Mary. Under this name, she went down in history. Myra Hindley, 1942-2002 A serial killer who, along with her accomplice Ian Brian, received the nickname "English Bonnie and Clyde." For several years, criminals kidnapped, abused and tortured to death five minor children aged 10 to 17 years. The bodies of the victims were later found by police in the swamps near Manchester. To the horror and disgust of the whole country, it turned out that the newly-minted Bonnie and Clyde were making audio recordings and photographs "for history", perpetuating their crimes. Having received a life sentence (the death penalty in England was abolished literally in a month of the arrest of a criminal couple), neither Hindley nor Brian repented of their deeds. On the day of the announcement of the verdict, Myra calmly ate ice cream in anticipation of the beginning of the session. The British court ruled that criminals do not have the right to commit suicide, so Brian, who had begun a hunger strike, was force-fed by introducing physiological saline. Myra Hindley died in a prison hospital from a heart attack, saving herself from further imprisonment, and the world from a terrible criminal. Isabella of Castile, 1451-1504 Isabella of Castile and her husband Ferdinand of Aragon stood at the origins of the unification of Spain and the formation of a strong state: royal marriage led to the union and unification of Castile and Aragon into one kingdom - Spain. The Queen is also known for her patronage of the famous traveler Christopher Columbus. Notorious for her cruelty towards non-Catholics: a passionate and devout Catholic, she appointed Tomás Torquemada as the first Grand Inquisitor of the infamous Spanish Inquisition and ushered in an era of religious purges. The Inquisition persecuted heretics, Moors, Marans, Moriscos. Under Isabella of Castile, most of the Jews and Arabs left Spain - about 200 thousand people, and the rest were forced to accept Christianity, which, however, rarely saved the converts from death at the stake. Beverly Ellit, b. 1968 An English nurse in the children's department, nicknamed the "angel of death", in 1991 killed four small hospital patients and seriously harmed the health of five more. A serial killer injected children with insulin or potassium to induce severe heart attacks and mimic natural demise. Motives for the crime are still unknown. Bell Gunnes, 1859-1931 A Norwegian-American woman has become the most notorious female killer in US history. She killed both her husbands, her own daughters, several admirers and lovers. The main goal is to receive payments for life insurance. Over several decades, Gunnes killed about 30 people. Mary Ann Cotton, 1832-1873 Poisoned about 20 people with arsenic. The police became interested in her when it turned out that all her closest relatives not only constantly die, but also die from the same disease - stomach colic. Throughout her life, the criminal killed several husbands, her children and even her own mother. The executioner, who led her hanging, deliberately prolonged her torment, "forgetting" to knock out a stool from under the condemned woman's feet. Elsa Koch, 1906-1967 Elsa Koch, better known as the "Witch of Buchenwald", was the wife of a concentration camp commandant. She tortured prisoners, beat them with a whip, mocked and killed them. After that, a terrible collection did not remain: pieces of human skin with tattoos. She committed suicide in prison in 1967. Irma Grise, 1923-1945 One of the most cruel women's guards concentration camps Nazi Germany. In torturing the prisoners, she resorted to both physical and psychological abuse, beat women to death and amused themselves by shooting prisoners. She starved her dogs to set them on her victims, and personally selected hundreds of people to be sent to the gas chambers. Grese wore heavy boots, she always had, in addition to a pistol, a wicker whip. She was sentenced to death by hanging. Katherine Knight, b. 1956 First woman in Australian history to be sentenced to life in prison. In October 2001, during family quarrel beat her roommate with a meat knife, after which she abused the dead body so that Chikatilo would have vomited. Elizabeth Bathory, 1560-1614 Hungarian Countess, better known as the Bloody Lady. She tortured and killed servants and peasant women: she severely beat them, burned their hands, faces and other parts of the body with red-hot iron, skinned still living victims, starved them, mocked and raped them. In 1610, she was placed under house arrest on charges of murder, heresy, and witchcraft. During the process, the servants of the castle could not name the exact number of victims of the sadist: the close countesses, who found themselves in the dock, spoke of four to five dozen killed, the rest of the servants assured that they carried out hundreds of corpses. Bathory died a natural death in 1614, and her name was soon overgrown with legends no less sinister than those of Count Dracula.

Often many positive human qualities - compassion, love, care, sensitivity - are considered distinctive features the female psyche, and negative ones - cruelty, aggression, insensitivity - are attributed to men. But

history knows examples when women showed cruelty, in comparison with which a forgotten wife's birthday present is an insignificant trifle.

11. Daria Nikolaevna Saltykova ("Saltychikha"), 1730-1801.

Daria Nikolaevna Saltykova, nicknamed "Saltychikha" (Birth year: 1730; Year of death: 1801), is a sophisticated sadist and murderer of at least 139 people, mostly women, girls and girls. She was sentenced to death, which was later commuted to imprisonment in a monastery prison. One could talk about the influence of the place: the city estate of Darya Saltykova was located not far from the Ivanovsky Monastery, at the intersection of the Kuznetsky Bridge with the infamous Bolshaya Lubyanka, but most of the murders took place on her estate in Troitsky near Moscow. One could talk about bad blood, but she was the daughter of a pillar nobleman, who was related to the Davydovs, Musin-Pushkins, Stroganovs and Tolstoy. Enough long time V love relationships the grandfather of the poet Fyodor Tyutchev was with her. True, he married, as you know, another - for which Saltychikha almost killed him along with his young wife.

Daria was only 26 years old when she became a widow, and about 600 peasant souls came into her undivided possession. The next seven years of the life of those who depended on her were filled with pain and blood: people were flogged, poured with boiling water, starved, their hair was burned on their heads, they were kept naked in the cold. The nickname "Saltychikha" gave rise to the image of a heavy, unwashed, vile old woman in my head. But she committed all her crimes in quite a young age. Catherine II received the first complaint against her almost immediately after accession to the throne - it was 1762, Saltychikha at that time was 31 years old. Who knows how the investigation against Saltychikha would have turned out if Catherine II had not used her case as a show trial that marked a new era of legality.

10. Queen Mary I, 1516-1558.

Queen of England, fourth crowned monarch of the Tudor dynasty. Bloody Mary (the one whose name the popular cocktail is named after). The day of her death was celebrated in the country as National holiday because her reign was accompanied massacres. Her father, Henry VIII, declared himself head of the church, for which he was excommunicated by the Pope. Mary went to manage a poor country that needed to be raised out of poverty.

Mary was no different. good health(her father suffered from syphilis), but she was active and unforgiving - she could bring those who had opposed her just yesterday, but not the Protestants, closer to her. Almost 300 Protestants were burned at the stake of the Inquisition, 3000 lost their seats and most of them chose to flee the country. It is unlikely that this was the punishment of the Lord, but in family life Mary was unhappy.

Her husband Philip, son of Charles V, was eleven years her junior, had no official say in the government, did not inherit the crown, and was unable to give her a child. Therefore, of his own free will, he left for Spain, then returned to England, and three months later he fled home again. Sick by nature, Mary became homesick, fell ill, and died. Buried "Bloody Mary" in Westminster Abbey. There is not a single (!) monument to this queen in the country.

Mira, a pretty, poisoned blonde, has got a boyfriend, Ian Brady. Ian, a strong drinker, idealizing Hitler, Bonnie and Clyde, reading "Mein Kampf", "Crime and Punishment", the history of the Marquis de Sade attracted the attention of Mira with his unusualness. He was her first man, but he quickly taught her such sexual entertainments that people who have been married for forty years are not aware of.

They loved to beat, bind each other - with ropes, chains - and take pictures. Soon these entertainments were not enough. Mira and Yen planned to rob banks, but in the meantime they caught children, mocked them, raped, tortured, recorded screams for mercy on film, photographed and killed. They killed disgustingly, with everything that got on their hands - knives, shovels, telephone wires. 11 child victims of a criminal couple. At the trial, Mira said that the cause of everything was disappointment in Catholicism. But crimes did not fall under the article of "spiritual quest". During the process, she showed extreme composure, bordering on arrogance.

Being already in prisons, Mira and Ian planned to get married, corresponded, but this request was refused. Not all the bodies of the children they killed were found, in connection with this, Mira, unlike Brady, who never wanted to leave prison, insisted that she should have been set free over the years, and even made an unsuccessful attempt to escape. She died at the age of 60, about two weeks before, despite all the court conflicts, she could be released. Someone unknown pinned a note to her coffin: "Send to hell." Some feature films was removed based on the crimes of this couple.

8. Isabella of Castile, 1451-1504.

1492, a landmark year for Isabella, was marked by the largest historical events: the capture of Granada, which marked the end of the Reconquista, the patronage of Columbus and the discovery of America by him. Another event took place in this year, which is the reason why we mention Isabella today.

Thomas de Torquemada - born in 1420, a monk of the Dominican order, founded in 1215 by the Spanish monk Domingo de Guzman and approved by a papal bull on December 22, 1216. This Order was the main support in the fight against heresy. Isabella wished to have Torquemada as her confessor, and Torquemada considered this a great honor. He infected the queen with his religious fanaticism, received the title of Grand Inquisitor and headed the Spanish Catholic Tribunal.

In Spain, Torquemada resorted to auto-da-fé much more often than the inquisitors of other countries: in 15 years, 10,200 people were burned on his orders. The victims of Torquemada can also be considered 6800 people sentenced to death in absentia. More than 97,000 people were subjected to various punishments. First of all, baptized Jews were persecuted - Marranos, accused of adherence to Judaism, as well as Muslims who converted to Christianity - Moriscos, suspected of secretly practicing Islam. In 1492, Torquemada persuaded Isabella to expel all Jews from the country. By the way, in Catholic Church believes that Isabella has considerable merit before the Church.

7. Beverly Ellit, b. 1968.

A serial killer, a nurse referred to as the "Angel of Death", has killed four children and made nine murder attempts. Sentenced to 40 years in prison. All of her crimes were committed between 1991 and 1993. She thought - perhaps (possibly, since it has not been proven), this is due to mental disorder Beverly, that the children who were in the hospital and complained about their poor health were simply trying to attract her attention so as not to be bored.

Nurse Evil gave the children who pissed her off insulin injections to make it look like the children died of natural causes. Fortunately, not all of her crimes were crowned with success, but they struck people with the fact that they were committed by a representative of one of the most humane professions and against those for whom we are responsible - children.

6. Bell Gunnes, 1859-1931.

1.83 m tall and 91 kg in weight - this American of Norwegian origin was quite an impressive physique. The American "Bluebeard", except perhaps female, she killed her two husbands, her three daughters, all those who suspected her and those who fell into her zone of attention. It is believed that more than twenty people are on her conscience. She set fires, poisoned with poison, imperceptibly dropped huge meat knives on the heads of the victims.

She came from Norway hoping to find mountains of gold in America, but she worked as a maid in rich houses, desperately jealous of those she served. Money was her idfix. She insured the lives of her husbands and did everything to ensure that the insurance turned into cash, witnesses were mercilessly killed. Covering her tracks, she set fire to her house in 1908, in which her children died, but those remains that should have been considered her remains were not identified as the former Belle. In 1931, Esther Carlson was arrested in Los Angeles for killing her husband in order to obtain insurance ($ 2,000). She died in prison before trial, but outward signs could be identified as Belle Gunness. Death freed her from it.

5. Mary Ann Cotton, 1832-1873.

Perhaps Belle got the idea for this diabolical form of enrichment from Mary Ann Cotton. This fine-looking woman was married three times, in total she spent forty years in a married state. It was a time when there were no remedies for the treatment of many diseases, and infant death was not a rare occurrence. Mary had children of her own by her husbands, but she married widowers with a considerable number of children from a previous marriage.

All were doomed to death. Mary insured all members of her families, then went to the pharmacy, bought arsenic and gradually, without attracting much attention, poisoned her children, and at the same time her husbands, clearing her way to a new marriage. Her impudence let her down when, after death last husband she sent two adopted sons and immediately went to claim the insurance reward. Before that, she carelessly, a few weeks before the murders, bought arsenic in a pharmacy. An investigation was carried out, an autopsy was carried out, the test for arsenic was positive.

Then they began to conduct research on the bodies of relatives who died at the hands of Mary - there was arsenic in each corpse. At the trial, she had the only argument: “So what, you don’t execute those who get rid of children in the womb. I did the same, but a little later and for money.” In prison, she had a daughter from her last husband, who was lucky to stay alive. Before the execution, this fragile-looking woman prayed, and a second before the black flag was raised over the prison, confirming the execution of the sentence, she said: "Heaven is my home." Not likely, Mary. Hardly. On your account either 12 or 15 human lives.

4. Elsa Koch, 1906-1967.

Elsa was born in 1906 in Dresden. Little is known about her first years, but when she married Karl Koch in 1937, she was already working in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp. The husband is promoted - they are appointed head of the Buchenwald concentration camp, and Friendly family goes there. In the camp, Elsa does not get bored, playing the role of a wife. She is the camp supervisor. Elsa became "famous" for her cruel treatment of prisoners. She loved to flog or beat people herself. If she came across a prisoner with an interesting tattoo, these were the last hours of his life. Elsa collected a collection of tattooed human skin. Samples with interesting natural marks also got there. Household items could also be made from this skin - for example, a chandelier. Even the bag that Elsa went out with was made from it.

Elsa's husband was arrested in 1944, later executed, and she hid from the authorities, knowing that while they were catching more " big fish". Elsa's turn came in 1947, during the investigation she managed to get pregnant, hoping to avoid punishment. But the prosecutor said that Elsa had more than 50,000 victims on her conscience, and pregnancy did not exempt her from anything. She was tried by the Americans in Munich, the investigation was ongoing almost four years Elsa claimed that she was just a "servant of the regime".

Incredibly, in 1951 she was released from prison. Not for long, because she was immediately arrested by the German authorities, who noted during the investigation her special sadism and sentenced to life imprisonment. The son, who was born in prison, did not know who his mother was for a long time, but when he found out, he did not treat her like a "Buchenwale bitch" and visited her in prison. In 1967, Elsa ate her last schnitzel and hanged herself without remorse.

3. Irma Grise, 1923-1945.

If not for the war, perhaps Irma would have become a pretty German peasant woman. But when she was 13, her mother committed suicide, and a couple of years later Irma dropped out of school. Her father had joined the NSDAP by this time. Irma lacked education, but she showed herself in the organization - the female analogue of the Hitler Youth. She worked as a nurse, and in 1942 she entered the service in the SS, despite the displeasure of her father, and was immediately sent to work in the Ravensbrück concentration camp, then there was Auschwitz (Birkenau), where she was very quickly appointed to the position of senior warden - this was the second person in camp hierarchy.

She was 20 years old and she was very cruel. She beat women to death, shot prisoners according to the principle - "whoever gets hit." She starved dogs, and then set them on prisoners. She herself selected those whom she sent to death in the gas chamber. Under Grez, in addition to the pistol, there was always a wicker whip. Irma Grese, known as the most cruel woman of the Third Reich, the prisoners called her "beautiful beast". She developed a reputation as a nymphomaniac who sexually abused prisoners and prisoners. Among the German staff, she also had enough "fans", one of them was the infamous "Dr. Death", Josef Mengele.

In 1945, she was taken prisoner by the British at the next "working" place - in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. Irma Grese was found guilty and sentenced to hang. On the last night before the execution, Grese laughed and sang songs with her accomplices. When a noose was thrown around Irma Grese's neck, not even a trace of remorse flickered across her face. Her last word was "Faster" addressed to the executioner.

2. Katherine Knight, b. 1956.

On November 9, 2001, the harshest sentence possible in Australia was announced. Katherine Knight became the first woman in the country to be sentenced to life in prison marked "without the right to review the sentence." Perhaps her decision on how to punish her husband's alleged infidelity may have been influenced by the fact that she worked in a slaughterhouse, with a particular interest in decapitating pigs. The first time she tried to kill her husband was on her first wedding night, when he "failed to fulfill her expectations."

As a warning to her husband and his alleged lover, Katherine caught the woman's dog and, in front of her eyes, cut out her throat with a single movement of a knife. In a few days she will strike 37 knife wounds already to a man - her husband, after which he will dismember his body, put his head in a saucepan and, adding vegetables, cook broth from it. Catherine tried to cook the meat of her murdered husband for the children for dinner. Thank God, at least the police prevented her from doing this. During the trial, she pleaded guilty. But how can a simple confession wash away the guilt of a terrible crime, unthinkable for a civilized society?

1. Erzhebet Batory, 1560-1614.

The Guinness Book of Records calls her the most "prolific" serial killer. Whether her cruelty was natural or acquired - now this is no longer clear. But it is known that this Hungarian woman was the wife of Ferenc Nadasz. Ferenc showed tremendous cruelty towards the captured Turks, with whom there was a war at that time, for which he received the nickname "Black Bek". As a wedding gift, "Cherny Bek" gave the "Bloody Countess" the Chakhtitsky Castle in the Slovak Lesser Carpathians, where she gave birth to five children and killed 650 people.

According to legend, Elizabeth Bathory once hit her maid in the face. Blood from the maid's nose dripped onto the skin of the countess, and it seemed to Elizabeth that her skin began to look beautiful in those places where drops of blood fell. Rumor has it that Elizabeth had a Nuremberg maiden in the cellars of the castle, in which the victim bled, this blood filled the bath, which Elizabeth took. The cruelty of the Black Countess was fully manifested after the death of her husband. And first of all, girls and young women suffered from the temper of Elizabeth. Erzsébet's brother was the ruler of Transylvania (remember where Count Dracula was from?), so she never stood trial and did what she wanted until her death.

What caused the cruelty of these women - not even psychiatrists figured out everything. It can be assumed that mental illness, or a combination of mental immaturity and the opportunities that power gives, is behind such aggressiveness. One way or another, this quality was shown by both the goddesses and real women. But, in my opinion, often the cause of rigidity is a lack of sincere love in human life - men, women. Do not hide your love - and there will be less cruelty and more kindness on Earth.

To be honest, after reading this article, I was shocked. I never thought that women could be so cruel... Why were they like that? What caused their cruelty? Even psychiatrists cannot answer this question accurately. It can be assumed that mental illness is behind such aggressiveness. But it seems to me that often the cause of cruelty is the lack of sincere love in a person's life - men, women ...

1. Daria Nikolaevna Saltykova ("Saltychikha"), 1730-1801.

Daria Nikolaevna Saltykova, nicknamed "Saltychikha" (Birth year: 1730; Death year: 1801), is a sophisticated sadist and killer of at least 139 people, mostly women, girls and girls. She was sentenced to death, which was later commuted to imprisonment in a monastery prison. One could talk about the influence of the place: the city estate of Darya Saltykova was located not far from the Ivanovsky Monastery, at the intersection of the Kuznetsky Bridge with the infamous Bolshaya Lubyanka, but most of the murders took place on her estate in Troitsky near Moscow. One could talk about bad blood, but she was the daughter of a nobleman who was related to the Davydovs, Musin-Pushkins, Stroganovs and Tolstoy. For quite a long time, the grandfather of the poet Fyodor Tyutchev was in a love relationship with her. True, he married, as you know, another - for which Saltychikha almost killed him along with his young wife.

Daria was only 26 years old when she became a widow, and about 600 peasant souls came into her undivided possession. The next seven years of the life of those who depended on her were filled with pain and blood: people were flogged, poured with boiling water, starved, their hair was burned on their heads, they were kept naked in the cold. The nickname "Saltychikha" gave rise to the image of a heavy, unwashed, vile old woman in my head. But she committed all her crimes at a fairly young age. Catherine II received the first complaint against her almost immediately after accession to the throne - it was 1762, Saltychikha at that time was 31 years old. Who knows how the investigation against Saltychikha would have turned out if Catherine II had not used her case as a show trial that marked a new era of legality.

2. Queen Mary I, 1516-1558.

Queen of England, fourth crowned monarch of the Tudor dynasty. Bloody Mary (the one whose name the popular cocktail is named after). The day of her death in the country was celebrated as a national holiday, because her reign was accompanied by massacres. Her father, Henry VIII, declared himself head of the church, for which he was excommunicated by the Pope. Mary went to manage a poor country that needed to be raised out of poverty.

Maria was not distinguished by good health (her father suffered from syphilis), but she was active and unforgiving - she could bring those who had opposed her yesterday, but not the Protestants, closer to her. Almost 300 Protestants were burned at the stake of the Inquisition, 3000 lost their seats and most of them chose to flee the country. It is unlikely that this was the punishment of the Lord, but in family life Mary was unhappy.

3. Myra Hindley, 1942-2002.

Mira, a pretty etched blonde (although in the photo she is clearly a brunette :)) got herself a boyfriend, Ian Brady. Ian, a hard drinker, idealizing Hitler, Boni and Clyde, reading Mein Kampf, Crime and Punishment, the history of the Marquis de Sade attracted the attention of Mira with his unusualness. He was her first man, but he quickly taught her such sexual entertainments that people who have been married for forty years are not aware of.

Being already in prisons, Mira and Ian planned to get married, corresponded, but this request was refused. Not all the bodies of the children they killed were found, in connection with this, Mira, unlike Brady, who never wanted to leave prison, insisted that she should have been set free over the years, and even made an unsuccessful attempt to escape. She died at the age of 60, about two weeks before, despite all the court conflicts, she could be released. Someone unknown pinned a note to her coffin: "Send to hell." Several feature films were made based on the crimes of this couple.

4. Isabella of Castile, 1451-1504.

1492, a landmark year for Isabella, was marked by major historical events: the capture of Granada, which marked the end of the Reconquista, the patronage of Columbus and the discovery of America by him. Another event took place in this year, which is the reason why we mention Isabella today.

In Spain, Torquemada resorted to auto-da-fé much more often than the inquisitors of other countries: in 15 years, 10,200 people were burned on his orders. The victims of Torquemada can also be considered 6800 people sentenced to death in absentia. More than 97,000 people were subjected to various punishments. First of all, baptized Jews were persecuted - Marranos, accused of adherence to Judaism, as well as Muslims who converted to Christianity - Moriscos, suspected of secretly practicing Islam. In 1492, Torquemada persuaded Isabella to expel all Jews from the country. By the way, the Catholic Church believes that Isabella has considerable merits before the Church.

5. Beverly Ellit, b. 1968.

A serial killer, a nurse referred to as the "Angel of Death", has killed four children and made nine murder attempts. Sentenced to 40 years in prison. All of her crimes were committed between 1991 and 1993. She believed - perhaps (perhaps, since it has not been proven), this is due to Beverly's mental disorder, that the children who were in the hospital and complained about their poor health were simply trying to attract her attention so as not to be bored.

6. Bell Gunnes, 1859-1931.

1.83 m tall and 91 kg in weight - this American of Norwegian origin was quite an impressive physique. The American "Bluebeard", except perhaps female, she killed two of her husbands, her three daughters, all those who suspected her and those who fell into her zone of attention. It is believed that more than twenty people are on her conscience. She set fires, poisoned with poison, imperceptibly dropped huge meat knives on the heads of the victims.

She came from Norway hoping to find mountains of gold in America, but she worked as a maid in rich houses, desperately jealous of those she served. Money was her idfix. She insured the lives of her husbands and did everything to ensure that the insurance turned into cash, witnesses were mercilessly killed. Covering her tracks, she set fire to her house in 1908, in which her children died, but those remains that should have been considered her remains were not identified as the former Belle. In 1931, Esther Carlson was arrested in Los Angeles for killing her husband in order to obtain insurance ($ 2,000). She died in prison before trial, but she could be identified as Belle Gannes by appearances. Death freed her from it.

7. Mary Ann Cotton, 1832-1873.

Perhaps Bell got the idea for this diabolical form of enrichment from Mary Ann Cotton. This fine-looking woman was married three times, in total she spent forty years in a married state. It was a time when there were no remedies for the treatment of many diseases, and infant death was not a rare occurrence. Mary had children of her own by her husbands, but she married widowers with a considerable number of children from a previous marriage.

All were doomed to death. Mary insured all members of her families, then went to the pharmacy, bought arsenic and gradually, without attracting much attention, poisoned her children, and at the same time her husbands, clearing her way to a new marriage. Her impudence let her down when, after the death of her last husband, she sent two adopted sons to the next world and immediately went to claim an insurance reward. Before that, she carelessly, a few weeks before the murders, bought arsenic in a pharmacy. An investigation was carried out, an autopsy was carried out, the test for arsenic was positive.

8. Elsa Koch, 1906-1967

Elsa was born in 1906 in Dresden. Little is known about her first years, but when she married Karl Koch in 1937, she was already working in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp. The husband is promoted - he is appointed head of the Buchenwald concentration camp, and the friendly family goes there. In the camp, Elsa does not get bored, playing the role of a wife. She is the camp supervisor. Elsa became "famous" for her cruel treatment of prisoners. She loved to flog or beat people herself. If she came across a prisoner with an interesting tattoo, it was the last hours of his life. Elsa collected a collection of tattooed human skin. Samples with interesting natural marks also got there. Household items could also be made from this skin - for example, a chandelier. Even the bag that Elsa went out with was made from it.

Elsa's husband was arrested in 1944, later executed, and she hid from the authorities, knowing that while they were catching more "big fish". Elsa's turn came in 1947, during the investigation she managed to get pregnant, hoping to avoid punishment. But the prosecutor said that Elsa has more than 50,000 victims on her conscience, and pregnancy does not free her from anything. She was tried by the Americans in Munich, the investigation went on for almost four years. Elsa claimed that she was just a "servant of the regime."

Incredibly, in 1951 she was released from prison. Not for long, because she was immediately arrested by the German authorities, who noted during the investigation her special sadism and sentenced to life imprisonment. The son, who was born in prison, did not know for a long time who his mother was, but when he found out, he did not treat her like a “Buchenwale bitch” and visited her in prison. In 1967, Elsa ate her last schnitzel and hanged herself without remorse.

9. Irma Grise, 1923-1945

If not for the war, perhaps Irma would have become a pretty German peasant woman. But when she was 13, her mother committed suicide, and a couple of years later Irma dropped out of school. Her father had joined the NSDAP by this time. Irma lacked education, but she showed herself in the organization - the female analogue of the Hitler Youth. She worked as a nurse, and in 1942 she entered the service in the SS, despite the displeasure of her father, and was immediately sent to work in the Ravensbrück concentration camp, then there was Auschwitz (Birkenau), where she was very quickly appointed to the position of senior warden - this was the second person in camp hierarchy.

She was 20 years old and she was very cruel. She beat women to death, shot prisoners according to the principle - "whoever it hits." She starved dogs, and then set them on prisoners. She herself selected those whom she sent to death in the gas chamber. Under Grez, in addition to the pistol, there was always a wicker whip. Irma Griz is known as the most cruel woman of the Third Reich, the prisoners called her "beautiful beast". She developed a reputation as a nymphomaniac who sexually abused prisoners and prisoners. Among the German staff, she also had enough "fans", one of them was the infamous "Dr. Death", Josef Mengele.

In 1945, she was taken prisoner by the British at the next "working" place - in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. Irma Grise was found guilty and sentenced to hang. On the last night before the execution, Griz laughed and sang songs with her accomplices. When the noose was thrown around Irma Grise's neck, not even a trace of remorse flickered across her face. Her last word was "Faster" to the executioner.

10. Katherine Knight, b. 1956.

On November 9, 2001, the harshest sentence possible in Australia was announced. Katherine Knight became the first woman in the country to be sentenced to life in prison marked "without the right to review the sentence." Perhaps her decision on how to punish her husband's alleged infidelity may have been influenced by the fact that she worked in a slaughterhouse, with a particular interest in decapitating pigs. The first time she tried to kill her husband was on her first wedding night, when he "failed to fulfill her expectations."

As a warning to her husband and his alleged lover, Katherine caught the woman's dog and, in front of her eyes, cut out her throat with a single movement of a knife. In a few days, she will inflict 37 stab wounds on a man - her husband, after which she will dismember his body, put his head in a saucepan and, adding vegetables, will cook broth from it. Catherine tried to cook the meat of her murdered husband for the children for dinner. Thank God, at least the police prevented her from doing this. During the trial, she pleaded guilty. But how can a simple confession wash away the guilt of a terrible crime, unthinkable for a civilized society?

11. Elizabeth Batory, 1560-1614.

The Guinness Book of Records calls her the most "prolific" serial killer. Whether her cruelty was natural or acquired is now impossible to find out. But it is known that this Hungarian woman was the wife of Ferenc Nadasz. Ferenc showed tremendous cruelty towards the captured Turks, with whom there was a war at that time, for which he received the nickname "Black Bek". As a wedding gift, "Cherny Bek" gave the "Bloody Countess" the Chakhtitsky Castle in the Slovak Lesser Carpathians, where she gave birth to five children and killed 650 people.

Usually, when mentioning the cruelty of monarchs, only male names, But..

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But history knows the facts about the rulers, whose names have become synonymous with fury and ruthlessness.

This review presents 5 women's historical figures remembered for their cruel deeds.

Duchess Olga

IN AND. Surikov. Princess Olga meets the body of Prince Igor.

Duchess Olga. Ruled in Rus' in the 10th century. She was remembered for her peremptory revenge on the Drevlyans for the death of her husband, Prince Igor.

After the murder of the prince, the Drevlyans sent matchmakers to her with a proposal for a future marriage with their prince Mal. The chronicle indicates that Princess Olga ordered the matchmakers, along with the boat on which they arrived, to be thrown into a pit and buried alive.

The vengeful widow did not stop there. Immediately she asked to send to her best husbands Drevlyans, they willingly agreed. Upon arrival, the guests were invited to bathe in the bathhouse, where everyone was burned.

Then the princess went to the place of her husband's death, in order, according to custom, to perform a funeral rite - a feast. About 5 thousand drunken Drevlyans were killed.

And at the end of her revenge after winning the battle with the Drevlyans, instead of tribute, Olga asked the inhabitants of Iskorosten for three doves and a sparrow from each yard. Going outside the city, Olga gave the order to tie a piece of sulfur to each bird and let it go. Of course, the birds returned home and the city broke out.

Bloody Mary (Mary I Tudor)

Queen of England Mary I Tudor.

Mary I Tudor I remember more stories like Bloody Mary. In England, not a single monument was erected to her, and the inhabitants of the country celebrated the day of her death as a national holiday.

The merciless queen was known as a fanatical Catholic, fighting the Protestants. Maria mocked noble people objectionable to her with particular cruelty, cutting off their genitals, and then forcing them to eat them. After that, the queen herself watched as the victims, tortured to a pulp, were burned at the stake.

During the reign of Bloody Mary, more than 3,000 clerics were deprived of their seats, and another 300 lost their lives at the stake. During the uprisings, people were tortured, beheaded, burned. Many fled outside of England. All the atrocities committed by Mary I ceased only with the onset of her death.

Chinese Empress Ci Xi

Chinese Empress Ci Xi, who ruled for 50 years.

The smart, perspicacious and merciless Ci Xi. A 16-year-old girl wove intrigues, bribed eunuchs and did not disdain anything, just to get into the chambers of the Chinese emperor.

After the birth of an heir (according to some versions, not even their son at all), Ci Xi immediately took the leading place in the harem, despite the fact that the ruler already had a wife. Over time, the woman increased her influence on the emperor and informally took part in the government of the country.

After his death, Ci Xi became regent. The woman brutally suppressed uprisings, pursued an aggressive policy towards neighboring and Western countries. Rumor has it that the Empress had many young lovers, whom she ordered to be killed after the nights spent. For 50 years of reign, this woman ruined the country and left only negative memories of herself.

Isabella of Castile - Queen Inquisitor

Isabella of Castile. 1490.

The medieval fight against heresy in the 15th century was zealously supported by Isabella of Castile(ruler of Castile and Leon, which later became part of Spain).

During the years of her reign, the queen-inquisitor "gave the go-ahead" for the burning of more than 10,000 people and the torture of almost 100,000 more. As the ruler herself noted, all her deeds were committed in the name of faith, for which she was nicknamed Isabella the Catholic.

Landowner Daria Saltykova

Sadistic landowner Daria Saltykova.

Although this woman did not belong to the number of rulers, the degree of crimes committed by her is enormous. landowner Daria Saltykova(Saltychikha) personally tortured to death several dozen serfs.

Having been widowed at the age of 26, Darya Nikolaevna received 600 serfs in her possession. She soon began to have seizures. uncontrollable anger. The landowner often beat her servants with logs, allegedly for wrongdoing. In addition, Saltychikha starved people, burned their hair, and left them naked in the cold.

Numerous complaints of people about her atrocities had no response in the authorities, since the landowner generously paid off. Only when Catherine II ascended the throne, Saltykova's case was set in motion.

It was established that 138 peasants were tortured in her village, most of which the landowner killed herself. The empress changed her death sentence to eternal exile in Ivanovo convent. Did not enter the room where Daria Saltykova was placed sunlight and she was not allowed to speak to anyone.