Ilse Koch

Ilse Koch (born September 22, 1906, Dresden, Germany—died September 2, 1967, Aichach, West Germany) was a German war criminal who became notorious for her perversion and cruelty while her husband was commandant (1937–41) of Buchenwald concentration camp. Known as the “Witch of Buchenwald,” she was arrested after World War II, and her trial was highly publicized given the gruesome allegations against her. She notably was accused of ordering prisoners with “interesting” tattoos to be killed and their skin turned into artifacts such as lampshades. Koch was sentenced to life in person, and she died by suicide in 1967.

Buchenwald and war crimes

On May 29, 1937, she married Karl Otto Koch, a colonel in the SS who was commander of the Sachsenhausen camp. In the summer of 1937 he was transferred to Buchenwald, then a new concentration camp near Weimar. There Koch acquired her reputation as a sadist and nymphomaniac, beating prisoners with her riding crop and forcing them to perform physically exhausting activities for her own amusement. Koch and her husband enjoyed a lavish lifestyle in an elegant house on Buchenwald’s grounds, and he had a large horseback-riding arena built especially for her. Although the inmates were forced into starvation, the Kochs had all the food and alcohol they wanted, and they are alleged to have held orgies at their house for their SS staff.

Koch had three children with her husband—son Artwin and daughters Gisele and Gudrun; Gudrun died in infancy. Koch’s husband, suspected of corruption and enriching himself by skimming profits from the camp that should have gone to the SS, was relieved of command at the end of 1941. An SS court convicted him of corruption and graft, and he was executed by the SS in 1945.

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Arrest, conviction, and death

After World War II, Koch and her children went to live in Ludwigsburg, a suburb of Stuttgart, but the Allies arrested and jailed her to await trial. In 1947 a sensational Allied military tribunal held at the former Dachau concentration camp tried her and 30 others connected with Buchenwald. She was charged with several crimes, including abusing prisoners and ordering those with “interesting” tattoos to be killed and their skin turned into artifacts such as lampshades, book covers, gloves, and so on. Despite the testimony of former prisoners who were forced to make such grisly objects, prosecutors could not conclusively prove her involvement in committing such crimes. However, she was convicted of being a part of the “common design” to abuse prisoners and was sentenced to life in prison. At the Landsberg Prison in October 1947, she gave birth to a son, Uwe, likely fathered by a fellow prisoner, Fritz Schäffer.

Koch’s sentence was reduced by U.S. military authorities to time already served, because of Cold War politics and the growing discontent among some West Germans over ongoing harsh sentences handed out to Nazi war criminals, and she was released from prison on October 17, 1949, despite a storm of controversy in the United States. The West German government arrested her the same day and charged her with having abused German citizens during her time at Buchenwald. She was convicted and sentenced to life in prison. In 1967 she hanged herself with bedsheets in her cell at the women’s prison in Aichach, Germany.