Ilse Koch

From Metapedia

Ilse Koch, born Ilse Köhler (September 22, 1906 – September 1, 1967), was the wife of Karl Otto Koch, the commandant of the labour camps Buchenwald from 1937 to 1941 and Majdanek from 1941 to 1943.

[edit] Biography

Born in Dresden, Germany, she was the daughter of a farmer. She was known as a polite and happy child in her elementary school. At the age of fifteen she left school and went to work at a factory. Later, she went to work as a librarian. At the time the economy of Germany had not yet recovered from Germany's surrender in World War I.

In 1936 she began working as a guard and secretary at the Sachsenhausen camp near Berlin. There she met and married the commandant Karl Otto Koch. In 1937 she came to Buchenwald not as a guard, but as the wife of the commandant. There, influenced by her husband and her power, she began torturing the inmates of the camp. In 1940 she built an indoor sports arena. In 1941 Ilse became an Oberaufseherin ("chief overseer") over the few female guards who served at the camp.

In 1941 Karl Otto Koch became the commander of Majdanek. In 1943 both he and Ilse were arrested by the Gestapo for embezzlement and other crimes. Ilse was imprisoned until late 1944 or early 1945 in Weimar. In early 1945 Karl Otto was sentenced to death by an SS court in Munich. He was executed in April 1945. Ilse was acquitted by the Party and went to live with her surviving family in the town of Ludwigsburg. She was arrested by U.S. authorities on June 30, 1945.

She was tried by a war crimes tribunal and sentenced to a life term in 1947, later commuted to four years, by reason of "insufficient evidence". After being released in 1951, she was immediately re-arrested and tried by a German court again due to the large number of protests against the decision, and was sentenced to a life term. She committed suicide by hanging herself at Aichach women's prison on September 1, 1967 after writing a final letter to her son.