Karola Bierwisch came from Strasbourg in Alsace. Her parents were Paul Kleim, a senior civil servant, and Paula Laux. As a result of the First World War, the family left Alsace and moved via Hamburg to Lüneburg, where her father worked as an administrative officer. Karola Kleim attended grammar school and passed her Abitur exams in 1927. After school, she did an internship at the social welfare office of the city and district of Lüneburg. In 1929, she began studying law, but had to give it up after her father died in 1932. From then on, there was no longer enough money.
Although the family had to get by without their father’s full income, Karola Kleim worked as a secretary for a law firm without pay from 1933 to 1934. In 1934, she got an office job with the Reich Air Defence Association. At first, the office was located in Lüneburg, but then moved to Uelzen.
When the office was closed down, she began working as a secretary at the Lüneburg institution on 1 July 1936. She was 27 years old at the time. Until 1939, she worked in the so-called »hereditary biology department«. When the office manager was called up for military service, she became Max Bräuner’s chief secretary. She was sworn to secrecy and performed all her duties conscientiously.
During her interrogation in 1947, she was able to provide detailed information about the killing of patients in general, but claimed not to have noticed anything in Lüneburg. She also admitted to having been involved in the autopsies, but only out of scientific interest. She stated that she had once intended to study medicine. Her involvement in the crimes was never prosecuted. She was not questioned again in the subsequent investigation from 1962 to 1966.
She was friends with Willi Baumert and Max Bäumer and remained loyal to them in the post-war period. In 1946, she married Heinrich Bierwisch, a merchant from Hamburg. The marriage produced one daughter.
Karola Bierwisch died on 17 May 1983 in Lüneburg.
