Ilse Koch

About Ilse Koch

Who is it?: Nazi Concentration Camp Overseer
Birth Day: September 22, 1906
Birth Place: Dresden, Saxony, German Empire, German
Other names: The Witch of Buchenwald
Known for: Atrocities committed at Buchenwald and Majdanek concentration camps Wife of camp commandant chief overseer
Spouse(s): Karl-Otto Koch (1936–1945, his death)

Ilse Koch

Ilse Koch was born on September 22, 1906 in Dresden, Saxony, German Empire, German, is Nazi Concentration Camp Overseer. Ilse Koch was the wife of Karl-Otto Koch, the chief of the Nazi concentration camps in Buchenwald and Majdanek. She was one of the first well-known Nazis tried by the U.S. military. The trial was majorly broadcast. While her husband was notorious for his materialist greed, his wife was famous for her inhuman cruelty towards the Jewish. The survivors of nazi camps confirmed her to be a sadisctic woman, “the concentration camp murderess”. She and her husband lived in a luxurious house within the grounds of the Buchenwald camp. Karl-Otto Koch had created a special horseback arena for his wife’s entertainment and she used to ride through the camp and whip any prisoner that came in her way. Ilse Koch was also a nymphomaniac and the couple held orgies for the political soldiers of the Nazi party. She was fond of torturing the prisoners by making them do excruciatingly strenuous tasks. A witness at The Nuremberg Trials confirmed that she used to collect lampshades, book covers and gloves made from the tattooed skins of the dead inmates. The prisoners used to call her ‘Die Hexe von Buchenwald’ (‘The Witch of Buchenwald’) because of her brutality and libidinousness towards prisoners. Her other names include The Beast of Buchenwald", "Queen of Buchenwald", "Red Witch of Buchenwald", "Butcher Widow" , and "The Bitch of Buchenwald".
Ilse Koch is a member of War Criminals

Does Ilse Koch Dead or Alive?

As per our current Database, Ilse Koch has been died on 1 September 1967(1967-09-01) (aged 60)\nAichach, West Germany.

🎂 Ilse Koch - Age, Bio, Faces and Birthday

When Ilse Koch die, Ilse Koch was 60 years old.

Popular As Ilse Koch
Occupation War Criminals
Age 60 years old
Zodiac Sign Libra
Born September 22, 1906 (Dresden, Saxony, German Empire, German)
Birthday September 22
Town/City Dresden, Saxony, German Empire, German
Nationality German

🌙 Zodiac

Ilse Koch’s zodiac sign is Libra. According to astrologers, People born under the sign of Libra are peaceful, fair, and they hate being alone. Partnership is very important for them, as their mirror and someone giving them the ability to be the mirror themselves. These individuals are fascinated by balance and symmetry, they are in a constant chase for justice and equality, realizing through life that the only thing that should be truly important to themselves in their own inner core of personality. This is someone ready to do nearly anything to avoid conflict, keeping the peace whenever possible

🌙 Chinese Zodiac Signs

Ilse Koch was born in the Year of the Horse. Those born under the Chinese Zodiac sign of the Horse love to roam free. They’re energetic, self-reliant, money-wise, and they enjoy traveling, love and intimacy. They’re great at seducing, sharp-witted, impatient and sometimes seen as a drifter. Compatible with Dog or Tiger.

Some Ilse Koch images

Famous Quotes:

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 goatskin. 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.

Biography/Timeline

1932

Koch was born in Dresden, Germany, the daughter of a factory foreman. She was known as a polite and happy child in her elementary school. At the age of 15, she entered an accountancy school. Later, she went to work as a bookkeeping clerk. At the time the economy of Germany had not yet recovered from Germany's defeat in World War I. In 1932, she became a member of the rising Nazi Party. Through some friends in the SA and SS, she met Karl-Otto Koch in 1934, marrying him two years later.

1936

In 1936, she began working as a guard and secretary at the Sachsenhausen concentration camp near Berlin, which her fiancé commanded, and was married the same year. In 1937 she came to Buchenwald when her husband was made Commandant. While at Buchenwald, Koch allegedly engaged in a gruesome experiment, where it was claimed that she ordered selected tattooed prisoners to be murdered and skinned to retrieve the tattooed parts of their bodies. It was allegedly done to help a prison Doctor, Erich Wagner (de), in his dissertation on tattooing and criminality.

1943

In 1940, she built an indoor Sports arena, which cost over 250,000 reichsmarks (approximately $62,500), most of which had been seized from the inmates. In 1941 Karl Otto Koch was transferred to Lublin, where he helped establish the Majdanek concentration and extermination camp. Ilse Koch remained at Buchenwald until 24 August 1943, when she and her husband were arrested on the orders of Josias von Waldeck-Pyrmont, SS and Police Leader for Weimar, who had supervisory authority over Buchenwald. The charges against the Kochs comprised private enrichment, embezzlement, and the murder of prisoners to prevent them from giving testimony.

1945

Ilse Koch was imprisoned until 1944 when she was acquitted for lack of evidence. Her husband was found guilty and sentenced to death by an SS court in Munich, and was executed by firing squad on 5 April 1945 in the court of the camp he once commanded. She went to live with her surviving family in the town of Ludwigsburg, where she was arrested by U.S. authorities on 30 June 1945.

1947

Koch announced in the courtroom that she was eight months pregnant but on 19 August 1947, she was sentenced to life imprisonment for "violation of the laws and customs of war".

1948

Gen. Lucius D. Clay was the interim military governor of the American Zone in Germany, and he reduced the judgment to four years imprisonment on 8 June 1948, after she had served two years of her sentence, 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". News of the reduced sentence did not become public until 16 September 1948, and Clay stood firm despite the ensuing uproar. Jean Edward Smith reported in his biography Lucius D. Clay: An American Life that the general maintained that the leather lamp shades were really made out of goat skin. The book quotes a statement made by Clay years later:

1950

Under the pressure of public opinion Koch was re-arrested in 1949 and tried before a West German court. The hearing opened on 27 November 1950 before the District Court at Augsburg and lasted seven weeks, during which 250 witnesses were heard, including 50 for the defence. Koch collapsed and had to be carried from the court in late December 1950, and again on 11 January 1951. At least four separate witnesses for the prosecution testified that they had seen Koch choose tattooed prisoners, who were then killed, or had seen or been involved in the process of making human-skin lampshades from tattooed skin. However, this charge was dropped by the prosecution when they could not prove lampshades or any other items were actually made from human skin.

1951

On 15 January 1951, the Court pronounced its verdict, in a 111-page-long decision, for which Koch was not present in court. It was concluded that the previous trials in 1944 and 1947 were not a bar to proceedings under the principle of ne bis in idem, as at the 1944 trial Koch had only been charged with receiving, while in 1947 she had been accused of crimes against foreigners after 1 September 1939, and not with crimes against humanity of which Germans and Austrians had been defendants both before and after that date. She was convicted of charges of incitement to murder, incitement to attempted murder and incitement to the crime of committing grievous bodily harm, and on 15 January 1951 was sentenced to life imprisonment and permanent forfeiture of civil rights.

1952

Koch appealed to have the judgment quashed, but the appeal was dismissed on 22 April 1952 by the Federal Court of Justice. She later made several petitions for a pardon, all of which were rejected by the Bavarian Ministry of Justice. Koch protested her life sentence, to no avail, to the International Human Rights Commission.

1967

Koch hanged herself at Aichach women's prison on 1 September 1967 at age 60. She suffered from delusions and had become convinced that concentration camp survivors would abuse her in her cell.

1971

In 1971, her son Uwe sought posthumous rehabilitation for his mother.

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