Ilse Koch
Ilse Koch | |
---|---|
Deceased | |
Spouse | |
Children | 4 |
War crimes (1947) West Germany Incitement to murder Incitement to attempted murder Incitement to infliction of grievous bodily harm (5 counts) Incitement to infliction of bodily harm (2 counts) | |
Criminal penalty | U.S. Military Life imprisonment; commuted to 4 years imprisonment (1947) West Germany Life imprisonment (1951) |
Ilse Koch (22 September 1906 – 1 September 1967) was a German
Because of the egregiousness of her alleged actions, including that she had selected tattooed prisoners for death in order to fashion lampshades and other items from their skins, her 1947 U.S. military commission court trial at Dachau received worldwide media attention, as did the testimony of survivors who ascribed sadistic and perverse acts of violence to Koch – giving rise to the image of her as "the concentration camp murderess".
However, the most serious of these allegations were found to be without proof in two different legal processes, one conducted by an American military commission court at Dachau in 1947, and another by the West German Judiciary at Augsburg in 1950–1951.[2] Harold Kuhn and Richard Schneider, two U.S. Army lawyers tasked with conducting the official review of her conviction at Dachau, noted that "in spite of the extravagant statements made in the newspapers, the record contains little convincing evidence against the accused... In regard to the widely publicised charges that she ordered inmates killed for their tattooed skin, the record is especially silent".[3]
That the wild claims were dismissed as lacking evidence did little to sway public opinion. She was known as "The Witch of Buchenwald" (Die Hexe von Buchenwald) by the inmates because of her suspected cruelty and lasciviousness toward prisoners. She has been nicknamed "The Beast of Buchenwald",[4] the "Queen of Buchenwald",[5][6] the "Red Witch of Buchenwald",[7][8] "Butcher Widow",[9] and "The Bitch of Buchenwald".[10]
She died by suicide at Aichach women's prison[11] on 1 September 1967 at age 60.[12]
Early life
Koch was born Margarete Ilse Köhler in
In 1936, she followed Koch to Sachsenhausen concentration camp near Berlin, where he had been posted as Commandant. The couple married the following year.[14] In July 1937, Karl gave up his post at Sachsenhausen in order to establish and take command of Buchenwald.[15]
War crimes
Following the war, she was accused of having selected tattooed prisoners to be killed, in order to have decorative objects such as lampshades and book bindings made from their skins. For example, two inmates, Josef Ackermann and Gustav Wegerer, testified in 1950 that they had witnessed (circa August 1941) a lampshade being prepared from human skin to be presented to Ilse Koch.[16] This crime, however, has been said to be apocryphal.[17] While various objects fashioned from human skins were discovered in Buchenwald's pathology department at liberation, their connection to Koch was tenuous, given that she had not been at the camp since the summer of 1943. The more likely culprit was SS doctor Erich Wagner, who wrote a dissertation while serving at Buchenwald on the purported link he saw between habitual criminality and the practice of tattooing one's skin.[17]
However, authoritative testimony from numerous witnesses at Koch's postwar trials firmly established that she had made extensive use of slave labor at the camp, had assaulted inmates on several occasions, and had reported inmates to the camp
SS investigation and trial
In 1941,
Trial before the US Military Commission Court at Dachau
Following her arrest by American occupation authorities, Koch was chosen to stand trial alongside 30 other defendants accused of having committed war crimes at Buchenwald. The defendants would be tried by an American military court at Dachau in 1947 and be prosecuted by Lt. Col. William Denson for the single charge of "participating in a common design to commit war crimes."[22] According to this expansive charge, the prosecution was not required to show that Koch or any of her codefendants had committed any specific act of violence or atrocity, but only that they had in some fashion aided and abetted the functioning of the murderous criminal enterprise that was Buchenwald.[23] Like each of her codefendants at the Buchenwald trial, Ilse Koch was ultimately found guilty by the court on 14 August 1947; she was sentenced to life imprisonment.[24]
Sentence reduction and controversy
Following Koch's conviction at Dachau, her sentence was subjected to various levels of mandatory judicial review, before going to Gen.
Upon receiving the reports of the War Crimes Review Board and his legal staff, and after reviewing the trial record himself, Judge Advocate Col. J.L. Harbaugh noted, "I can't see anything on which we honestly can hold the accused. There is no question but that she was tried in the newspapers, and suffered both before and during her trial from her unique position as the only woman at the camp." Harbaugh labelled her sentence "excessive" and recommended that General Clay reduce her sentence to four years.[26] Heading the recommendations of the U.S. Army's judicial branch, Clay reduced the sentence on 8 June 1948, on the grounds that "there was no convincing evidence that she had selected inmates for extermination in order to secure tattooed skins, or that she possessed any articles made of human skin".[27]
However, Clay also suggested that Koch could be tried under West German law: "I hold no sympathy for Ilse Koch. She was a woman of depraved character and ill repute. She had done many things reprehensible and punishable, undoubtedly, under German law. We were not trying her for those things. We were trying her as a war criminal on specific charges."[28]
The reduction of Koch's sentence to four years resulted in an uproar, when it was made public on 16 September 1948, but Clay stood firm by his decision.[29] Years later, Clay stated:
There was absolutely no evidence in the trial transcript, other than she was a rather loathsome creature, that would support the death sentence. I suppose I received more abuse for that than for anything else I did in Germany. Some reporter had called her the "Bitch of Buchenwald", had written that she had lamp shades made of human skin in her house. And that was introduced in court, where it was absolutely proven that the lampshades were made out of goat skin. In addition to that, her crimes were primarily against the German people; they were not war crimes against American or Allied prisoners [...] Later she was tried by a German court for her crimes and sentenced to life imprisonment. But they had clear jurisdiction. We did not.[29]
News of Koch's sentence reduction created major controversy in the United States. Editorial pages in major newspapers asked whether the US Army had lost its capacity for sound judgment, while continuing to assert that Koch was a sexual deviant who had killed prisoners for their skins. The Miami Herald demanded to know "in the name of basic human justice and decency, what 'further' does the army need to slap Ilse into jail and keep her there?"[30] The New York Post labeled the reduction of Koch's sentence "Clay's counter-atrocity," and described it as "almost beyond credence."[30] Ed Sullivan, writing for the New York News, pondered whether "the Army reduced [Koch's] sentence... so she could get back into the lampshade business."[31]
Such protests in the press found their parallel on the streets of American cities. Rallies were organized by both veterans associations and the American Jewish Congress, while General Clay, who visited the United States in the midst of the controversy, was picketed by protesters, some of whom carried lampshades and demanded his removal from European command.[32]
With pressure mounting from both the public and the press, a group of U.S. Senators resolved to investigate the circumstances of Koch's sentence reduction. The Senate investigation, led by Homer S. Ferguson, culminated in hearings at which major participants at Koch's Dachau trial were called to testify. Dachau trial chief prosecutor William Denson was particularly insistent that Koch's sentence reduction was unjust and that the witness testimony he drew upon was sufficient to secure her conviction and life sentence.[33] Ultimately, the Senate investigation resulted in a recommendation that Koch be tried again – not by the U.S. Army, but by the newly independent West German judiciary. According to the committee's final report, in "being a woman," and in acting independently, Koch's perpetration of violence had been "more unnatural and more deliberate."[34] It was, the report concluded, "highly important that Ilse Koch receive the just punishment she so justly deserves without further doing violence to long-established safe-guards of democratic justice..."[35]
Trial at Augsburg
At the urging of the U.S. government, the West German judiciary put Koch on trial for crimes against German nationals, something over which the American military court at Dachau had not had jurisdiction. The U.S. government further instructed the military to give full assistance to West German investigators.[36]
Koch was immediately re-arrested following her release from
On 15 January 1951, the Court pronounced its verdict, in a 111-page-long decision, for which Koch was not present in court.
Koch appealed to have the judgment quashed, but the appeal was dismissed on 22 April 1952 by the
Family
Ilse and Karl Koch had a son named Artwin (b. 1938), and two daughters, Gisela (b. 1939) and Gudrun (b. 1940). Gudrun died of
Suicide
Koch hanged herself[11] at Aichach women's prison on 1 September 1967 at age 60.[12] She experienced delusions and had become convinced that concentration camp survivors would abuse her in her cell.[45] Her suicide note was written to her son Uwe: "There is no other way. Death for me is a release."[46]
In 1971, her son Uwe sought posthumous rehabilitation for his mother. Via the press, he used clemency documents from her former lawyer in 1957 and his impression of her based on their relationship in an attempt to change people's attitude towards Koch.[47]
In popular culture
- Woody Guthrie wrote "Ilsa Koch", a song about her abuses in Buchenwald, her imprisonment and release; it was recorded by The Klezmatics.[48]
- Koch was the inspiration for a series of Nazi exploitation films,[49] such as Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS (1975).
- Some scholars have contended that Koch was the inspiration for the character portrayed by the novel from which the film was adapted, declined to confirm this suggestion.[50]
See also
- Female guards in Nazi concentration camps
- Irma Grese
- Aribert Heim
- Phil Lamason, the senior officer in charge of 168 allied airmen taken to Buchenwald
- Maria Mandl
- List of people who committed suicide by hanging
References
- ISBN 9780674249189.
- ^ ISBN 9780674249189.
- ^ ISBN 9780674249189.
- ^ Alban, Dan (10 November 2005). "Books Bound in Human Skin; Lampshade Myth?". Harvard Law Record. Retrieved 22 September 2008.
- The Milwaukee Journal. p. 2. Retrieved 16 December 2012.
- The Evening Independent. 4 July 1949. p. 15. Retrieved 16 December 2012.
- ^ "Ilse Koch, Red Witch of Buchenwald, on Trial". Los Angeles Times. 28 November 1950. p. 5. Archived from the original on 6 November 2012. Retrieved 16 December 2012.(subscription required)
- Lewiston Evening Journal. 15 January 1951. p. 6. Retrieved 16 December 2012.
- The Evening Independent. 29 September 1948. p. 3. Retrieved 16 December 2012.
- ISBN 0-671-72868-7.
- ^ ISBN 9780486479620p. 476
- ^ ISBN 9780813333632.
- ISBN 9780674249189.
- ISBN 9780674249189.
- ^ "The Holocaust Chronicle". 1937: Quiet Before the Storm. Holocaustchronicle.org. p. 117. Retrieved 7 June 2011.
- ^ "Lampenschirme aus Menschenhaut?". Buchenwald Memorial (in German). Archived from the original on 29 November 2014. Retrieved 5 October 2020.
- ^ ISBN 9780674249189.
- ISBN 9780674249189.
- ISBN 9780674249189.
- ISBN 9780674249189.
- ISBN 9780674249189.
- ISBN 9780674249189.
- ISBN 9780674249189.
- ISBN 9780674249189.
- ISBN 9780674249189.
- ISBN 9780674249189.
- ^ a b c "GERMANY: Very Special Present". Time. 25 December 1950. Archived from the original on 31 January 2011. (subscription required)
- ^ Norman, Abby (12 April 2016). "The Concentration Camp Guard Who Made Lampshades From The Skin Of Her Prisoners". All That's Interesting. Retrieved 30 August 2022.
- ^ a b Jean Edward Smith, Lucius D. Clay: An American Life.
- ^ ISBN 9780674249189.
- ISBN 9780674249189.
- ISBN 9780674249189.
- ISBN 9780674249189.
- ISBN 9780674249189.
- ISBN 9780674249189.
- ISBN 978-1-4165-6630-4.
- ISBN 9780674249189.
- ^ "Woman decides against suicide Life demanded for Ilse Koch". The Spokesman-Review. 12 January 1951. p. 2. Retrieved 16 December 2012.
- ^ Gettysburg Times. 15 January 1951. p. 2. Retrieved 16 December 2012.
- ISBN 978-3-412-10693-5.
- ISBN 9780674249189.
- ^ "Ilse Koch on trial at Dachau for making human lamp shades at Buchenwald". www.scrapbookpages.com. Archived from the original on 11 September 2020. Retrieved 31 October 2017.
- ISBN 9780674249189.
- ISBN 9780674249189.
- ^ Nikolas Wachsmann, 'KL: A History of the Nazi Concentration Camps' (New York: F, S & G, 2015), p. 618, citing a Feb. 1967 note in her prison file.
- ISBN 9780674249189.
- ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 16 August 2023.
- ^ Contents of album of Woody Guthrie songs at discogs
- ^ Ryan M Niemiec, Danny Wedding: Positive Psychology at the Movies: Using Films to Build Virtues and Character Strengths, Publisher Hogrefe Publishing, 2013
ISBN 9781616764432, p. 209
- ^ Syal, Rajeev; Luck, Adam (17 January 2009). "Nazi behind Winslet film role is revealed". The Guardian. Retrieved 1 January 2022.
Sources
- Jardim, Tomaz (2023). Ilse Koch on Trial: Making the 'Bitch of Buchenwald'. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. ISBN 9780674249189.
- Massimiliano, Livi (2008). "Ilse Koch". In Pugliese, Elizabeth; Hufford, Larry (eds.). War Crimes and Trials: A Historical Encyclopedia, from 1850 to the Present. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO. ISBN 9781576078907.
- Gutman, Israel, ed. (1995). Encyclopedia of the Holocaust. Macmillan. pp. 809–810. ISBN 9780028645285.
- Lacqueur, Walter; Baumel, Judith Tydor, eds. (2001). The Holocaust Encyclopedia. ISBN 9780300084320.
- ISBN 9780671728687.
External links
- Media related to Ilse Koch at Wikimedia Commons
- Adams, Cecil (4 June 2004). "Did the Nazis make lampshades out of human skin?". The Straight Dope.
- Ilse Koch (1906–1967) (dailymotion). The Most Evil Women in History. Discovery Channel. Retrieved 17 March 2017.
- Newspaper clippings about Ilse Koch in the 20th Century Press Archives of the ZBW