Ilse Koch was the wife to Karl Otto Koch, a commander at Sachsenhausen in 1936 and then Buchenwald later from 1937 until 1942. Ilse Koch herself was an overseer and remained so even after her husband left for Majdanek in late 1942, but she remained at Buchenwald and did not go with her husband.
On the 24 August, 1942, Ilse and Karl were arrested by Josias von Waldeck-Pyrmont, head of the SS for Weimar, Germany, upon the charges of private enrichment, embezzlement, and the murder of prisoners. Ilse Koch was investigated by the SS for eight months by Dr. Georg Konrad Morgan, an SS officer who had been assigned in 1943 to investigate the case but no evidence of her involvement had been found and thus was released with no charges. Her husband however was found guilty of murdering prisoners and was sentenced to death by the SS Court of Munich via firing squad on April 5th, 1945, a week before the Americans arrived at the camp. Even after her release, Ilse was arrested again by the U.S. on 30 June, 1945 and was brought back into court, even though she had been under trial by the SS.
The former inmates at Buchenwald were admiment on telling the horror stories of her activities such as making human lampshades out of skin and using shrunken heads as trophies. It was by this time that the U.S. authorities forced local residents to view what she had done by visiting Buchenwald and setting up a table of her contents.
The entire set up was a rouse; it was the U.S. Psych-Ops team who went in first upon the liberation of the camp along with hollywod director Billy Wilder who had created Buchenwald to look like a movie set.
“Well, it turned out that it was goat flesh but at the trial, it was still human flesh. It was almost impossible for her to have a fair trial.”
- General Lucius D. Clay, 1976 interview
The accusations against her were baseless, her trial was conducted by a Jewish court, and they imprisoned her under pressure by public outrage, not upon evidence. There is a long story to Ilse Koch, the woman who was abused by the victors, and this is only a short testimony to understanding the truth of what happened to her.
