Elsa Koch can rightfully be called one of the most cruel women fascist Germany. Frau Lampshade is the nickname given to her by journalists who covered the post-war trials in the media.
Elsa Koch (nee Köhler) was born in 1906 in low-income family. The hardships of life fostered in young Elsa the understanding that life is not an easy thing. Elsa's parents could not provide a decent future for their daughter. Therefore, from an early age she learned to rely only on herself.
Pure gene pool
Although not particularly beautiful in childhood and adolescence, Elsa nevertheless had a high opinion of herself. Due to a strong desire to escape from the working environment, at the age of fifteen, Elsa entered accounting school and subsequently got a job in the accounting department as a clerk. The times were not the best: hunger reigned all around. Therefore, it is not surprising that Elsa developed sympathy for the new party in Germany and its leader, Adolf Hitler. Another ten years passed before Elsa Köhler decided to join the ranks of the NSDAP. In 1932, Elsa's idol, Adolf Hitler, came to power. And from that moment it begins to write new story states of Germany.
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At this moment, Elsa is already 26 years old and membership in the party gives her huge advantage- entering into a decent marriage. A party acquaintance introduces her to a divorced man, Karl Otto Koch. Her future husband also came from the lower strata of society, and in addition, in the past he was a thief and a swindler. For a short time he collaborated with the German police, acting as an informer, but thanks to party membership he quickly climbed the career ladder.
Mutual sympathy flares up between them and in 1936 they legalize their marriage. At first, their marriage proceeded as casually as possible against the backdrop of the formation of a new German society. But when her husband is appointed commandant of the German concentration camp Buchenwald, she follows him and her life begins to change dramatically.
"Camp Joys"
The “promising” party member that Elsa considered her husband to be, in fact turned out to be a sadist with pronounced homosexual inclinations. It seems that such tendencies should have bothered and even irritated Elsa, but she simply did not pay attention to it. And in this regard, each of them lived the way he wanted - Elsa Koch openly asserted herself with the help of power, and Karl Koch raped the imprisoned men. The Buchenwald prisoners feared Frau Koch much more than the Commandant himself.
Elsa became famous for her ingenuity. Under her close supervision, prisoners could spend the entire day scrubbing the camp's staging area with toothbrushes. Elsa could also whip herself with the whip that she always carried with her. She also liked to order her subordinates to select the most beautiful prisoners of the camp and bring them to her to satisfy her sexual needs. And Elsa’s needs were very specific: she liked to instill fear and horror in her victims, and she received her greatest pleasure in humiliating others.
Those who survived this terrible time in the concentration camp say that sometimes Frau Koch appeared accompanied by a large German shepherd and, with a smile on her lips, brought this animal down so that this creature could satisfy its hunger with human flesh. Often such entertainment ended in the death of one of the prisoners.
Lack of evidence or cruelty breeds cruelty
In 1943, Mr. and Mrs. Koch were taken into custody. Karl is convicted, and Elsa is released for lack of evidence. Frau Koch continued to live quietly until her arrest by the Americans, which occurred in June 1945. Her husband was less fortunate - Karl was shot a month before the fall of Berlin.
Elsa Koch was tried three times for the same crime, for which no evidence could be found. But at the last trial it was decided to find her guilty even in the absence of evidence.
During the Nuremberg trials, another terrifying fact is revealed that Elsa did while in Buchenwald - she tore off tattooed skin from prisoners (sometimes even from living ones) and made lampshades and handbags out of them, with which she later went out into the world. Ten witnesses confirmed these rumors, but none of the objects of her “creativity” were ever found. And after the publication of a new fact from Elsa’s life, journalists began to call her Frau Lampshade.
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This woman is considered one of the most brutal criminals of Nazi times. Journalists covering the post-war trials of war criminals nicknamed her the Bitch of Buchenwald and Frau Lampshaded. However, not all so simple...
Else Köhler, a resident of Dresden, was eight years old when the First World War began. World War. She was born in 1906 into an ordinary family that lived in cramped life circumstances. These hardships instilled in the girl the understanding that life is a complicated thing. Elsa's parents could not give her a secure future, and all her life she had to rely only on herself.
100% German
In the surviving photographs of her youth, Elsa looks far from beautiful. However, she had a high opinion of herself. To escape from the working environment, Elsa, at the age of fifteen, entered accounting school and then got a job as a clerk in the accounting department. The time was hard, hungry and sad. It is not surprising that Elsa immediately liked the new party that had appeared and its new leader, Adolf Hitler. But ten years passed years before Elsa joined the NSDAP. It was 1932. A year later, her idol Hitler came to power and a new life began.
Elsa was already 26 years old. Membership in the party gave her hope of finally entering into a decent marriage. Party comrades introduced her to the divorced loser Karl Otto Koch. Karl also came from the bottom of society, in the past he was a thief and a swindler, at one time he was used as an informer in the police, but thanks to the party he rose to the occasion and began to climb the career ladder.
Elsa liked Karl, Karl liked her. In 1936 they got married. Started usual life, except that it took place against the backdrop of special German realities. Compatriots began to be imprisoned and even exterminated. Elsa followed the party line in everything. And when Karl was appointed commandant of the German concentration camp Buchenwald, which was still intended for disloyal Germans and Jews, she followed her husband.
A picnic on the side of history
Life with Karl, however, did not work out. The “promising” party member turned out to be not only a sadist, but also a homosexual. Her husband’s special inclinations seemed to irritate Elsa, but she simply did not pay attention to it, and everyone lived as he liked - Karl raped male prisoners, and she discovered in herself an amazing desire for power. The prisoners feared their Frau Elsa, Mrs. Commandant, much more than Mr. Commandant.
She was an inventive woman. She came up with a variety of difficulties for the prisoners: she could force them to scrub the camp yard with toothbrushes, she could personally whip her with a whip, without which she did not go to the camp parade ground, she could order a young and handsome prisoner to be brought in for sexual entertainment - she liked to humiliate, she liked that she afraid, liked to instill a feeling of horror and attraction at the same time.
Survivors of Buchenwald told with a shudder that their witch got herself white horse, on which she traveled around the camp grounds and corrected the behavior of the unfortunate people with a whip. Often she appeared not on horseback, but on foot and with a huge shepherd dog, which with a sweet smile she released to tear the bodies of prisoners, often not only to the point of injury, but even to complete death.
To make their situation even more difficult for the prisoners, she appeared in front of her “racially impure men” in tight sweaters and incredibly short skirts and smiled with vindictiveness when she saw how it affected them. The prisoners did not evoke any pity from Mrs. Koch. For any violation that she considered significant, they were simply sent to die. No wonder on the gates of Buchenwald it was written: “To each his own.” The prisoners received theirs, and Elsa also took hers. It was here, in Buchenwald, that she began several affairs with SS men. Husband Karl also got his.
Since 1938, when the planned liquidation of Jews began and they began to arrive and arrive at the camp, Karl began to extort from the Jews cash. And, obviously, he was so successful in this matter that rumors of his enrichment in 1942 reached the Fuhrer’s headquarters. Everything might have worked out well if Karl had not ordered the murder of the doctor and the camp orderly, who knew Koch’s terrible secret - that he was a homosexual and that he had venereal diseases.
The investigation of the case was entrusted to SS officer Georg Conrad Morgen. In 1943, Commandant Koch was arrested and ended up in prison. Ms. Koch was also arrested. But if Karl was found guilty of both murder and conspiracy with the Jewish enemy, which instantly made him an enemy of the Reich, then Elsa was released for lack of evidence. And she lived quietly in freedom until June 1945, when the Americans arrested her. Karl was less fortunate: a month before the fall of Berlin he was shot in Munich.
Trials without evidence?
Elsa Koch was put on trial three times. And three times - for the same crime. A crime that could never be proven, but for which she was eventually sentenced to life imprisonment. The peculiarities of Mrs. Koch’s behavior in Buchenwald, against the backdrop of those numerous crimes that swept across all of Germany during the time of fascism, did not seem particularly serious: yes, she humiliated the dignity of prisoners, yes, she forced them to work beyond measure, yes, she beat or ordered them to be beaten, yes, she sent them to death, yes - provoked by sexual behavior. These were petty crimes.
After what was revealed at the Nuremberg trials, even the persecution by dogs and the rape of men by women did not seem particularly serious. In any case, these tricks of Mrs. Koch did not attract the death penalty. However, there was a special point for which she was accused - stripping skin from the bodies of prisoners and making souvenirs from it, in particular lamp shades. Having become acquainted with these “works of art,” journalists immediately nicknamed Elsa Frau Lampshade.
However, although witnesses willingly talked about leather and lampshades, there was no evidence. Just as they were not there in that memorable 1943, when Morgen lived for a whole month in Buchenwald, looking for the damned lampshades. Ten witnesses also persistently told him that they had seen with their own eyes how the commandant forced the prisoners to strip naked and carefully examined their skin. If I saw tattoos, I immediately noticed them. And she pointed the stack at the prisoner - they say, use this one.
Others, it seems, even witnessed how the lady personally tore off the skin with her favorite brand from a living person. And she did it in the hospital with the help of the doctor there. And then from this leather... Well, yes - lampshades. Three pieces, witnesses said, were seen in her house. Morgen investigated the rumors. However, the human lampshades turned out to be goat skin lampshades, and the issue of tattoos in the camp was dealt with by Dr. Kremer - the same one who was killed on the orders of Karl Koch.
The scientific work Kremer conducted involved a combination of criminal history and body tattoos. Obviously, the doctor included illustrative material in the research. True, here the witnesses swore that he did this only after death, that is, he tore the skin off the corpses. In 1943, Morgen abandoned this accusation as unpromising.
In 1947, when Elsa's first post-war trial took place, he acted as her defense attorney. He knew what they would immediately accuse her of. And thanks to his efforts, this accusation was swept aside. Although the American judges tried very hard to convince Morgen to admit that there was evidence. But Morgen insisted that it was not. And leather souvenirs were made in Buchenwald not in the camp, but at a local factory, and not from human skin, but from goat skin, like those lampshades. The only trouble is that the factory was bombed back then. And there was no evidence.
Morgen was beaten. But, as an SS officer, he withstood the beatings. As a result, Mrs. Koch was imprisoned for only a few years. And this court decision caused a storm of rage, after which her case was transferred to a German court. Now she has been sentenced to life imprisonment in full, without taking into account the lack of evidence.
In prison, Elsa managed to get pregnant and give birth to a son. A year later the boy was taken away, and only at the age of 19 did he find out who his real mother was. Instead of forgetting her and not remembering her, the young man began to visit Elsa. The last time he visited his mother was shortly before her birthday in 1967. But Elsa did not live to see her birthday - she hanged herself. She was about to turn 61 years old. After her death, her son disappeared and was never seen again.
Nikolay KOTOMKIN
In 1941, Ilse became the senior guard among female guards. She often bragged about how she tortured prisoners, as well as “souvenirs” made from human skin, to her colleagues. In the end, information about what the Kokh couple was doing reached senior management. The Kochs were arrested. They were tried in Kassel for “excessive cruelty and moral corruption.” But the couple managed to whitewash themselves, saying that they were victims of slander on the part of ill-wishers.
In September of the same year, Karl Koch was appointed commandant of the Majdanek camp, where the couple continued their sadistic “activities”. But already in July next year Karl was removed from office, accused of corruption.
In 1943, the Koch couple were arrested by the SS for the murder of doctor Walter Kremer and his assistant. The fact is that doctors treated Karl Koch for syphilis and could have let it slip... In 1944, a trial took place. The Kokhs were also accused of embezzlement and misappropriation of prisoners' property. IN Nazi Germany this was a serious crime.
In April 1945, Karl was shot in Munich, shortly before American troops entered there. Ilse managed to get away with it, and she went to her parents, who at that time lived in Ludwigsburg.
However, on June 30, 1945, she was arrested again. This time it's the American military. In 1947, she was tried, but Ilsa flatly denied all the charges, insisting that she was just a “victim of the regime.” She also did not recognize the fact of using human skin for crafts.
But hundreds of surviving former prisoners testified against the “Witch of Buchenwald.” For the atrocities and murders of prisoners, Koch was sentenced to life imprisonment. But several years later she was released at the request of General Lucius Clay, acting military commandant of the American occupation zone in Germany. He considered the accusations that, on the orders of Ilse Koch, people were killed in order to make souvenirs from their skin, unproven...
However, the public did not want to put up with the “Frau Lampshaded” excuse. In 1951, a West German court sentenced Ilse Koch to life imprisonment for the second time. She never expressed remorse for what she did.
On September 1, 1967, Ilse hanged herself with sheets in a Bavarian cell women's prison Ayhah. In 1971, her son Uwe, who grew up in an orphanage, whom she gave birth to in prison from German soldier, tried to restore good name mother by going to court and the press. But nothing worked out for him. Although the name of Ilse Koch was never forgotten. In 1975, the film “Ilsa, She-Wolf of the SS” was made about her.
Ilse Koch at the trial of former Buchenwald personnel
This cannot be forgotten. Ilse Koch: what the “Witch of Buchenwald” and “Frau Lampshaded” did
Frau Lampshaded wore underwear made of human skin.
Ilse Köhler was not known for her cruelty or sadism as a child. She was born in Dresden into the family of a factory worker: they lived not richly, but without poverty. Ilsa studied with excellent marks; eyewitnesses spoke of her as a cheerful and diligent child. After school, Fraulein Köhler went to work in the library. Visitors praised the new employee in unison: “sweet girl,” “helpful and friendly,” “pure angel.” However, demons had already gained the upper hand in the soul of the angel: in 1932, even before Hitler came to power, Ilse joined the National Socialist workers' party Germany (NSDAP), in 1934 she married SS officer Karl-Otto Koch (taking his last name), and in 1936 she got a job as a guard at the Sachsenhausen concentration camp. A year later, Koch was appointed commandant of the notorious Buchenwald: there, the “helpful and friendly” Ilse turned into a monster.
POW bra
Thirty-year-old Ilsa immediately drew attention to prisoners with tattoos, first of all, former criminals, and then sailors who had previously sailed to Japan or Malaya: they made drawings on the skin with red or green ink, unusual for that time. The “librarian” was also interested in gypsies: their tattoos often depicted devils, devils or mermaids. One fine day (in December 1940), Ilse Koch appeared at a Christmas reception for SS officers and boasted there of a brand new handbag with a drawing of a red monkey: she did not at all hide the fact that the handbag itself and the thin ladies’ gloves “included” were made... from human skin .According to the testimony of former prisoners of Buchenwald, Ilse launched a real hunt for people with tattoos in the concentration camp. The victims chosen by her, under the pretext of a medical examination, were taken to the camp infirmary and there they were killed by lethal injection: the commandant forbade the execution so as not to spoil the “picture” with a bullet. Pathologists “skinned” the corpse, and then the skin fell into the hands of dressing specialists (also from among the prisoners). The wives of SS officers gasped enviously when they came to Ilsa’s home: she showed off her leather lampshades self made, book bindings, paintings on the walls and even a tablecloth for kitchen table from the back of a Parisian cabaret singer. In 1941, the commandant's wife received the rank of senior matron: although her husband was transferred to Majdanek, she remained working in Buchenwald. For her terrible hobby, the “pure angel” received the nickname “Frau Lampshade” among the prisoners.
However, she generally had plenty of nicknames: “Red Witch” (for her love of tattoos in red ink), “The Beast of Buchenwald”, “The Butcher’s Widow”. In her addiction, she reached complete madness: Ilse Koch even made her underwear from human skin. The number of people killed by her cannot be counted: there were probably hundreds of them. After Germany’s attack on the USSR, Ilsa, in a conversation with her friends, rejoiced: Soviet prisoners of war began to arrive at Buchenwald, many had tattoos on their chests in the form of church domes or coats of arms Soviet Union. Such people were killed within 2-3 days after arriving in Buchenwald. Doctor Erich Wagner, bribed by Ilsa, helped hide the death, indicating a heart attack in the “cause of death” column.
Ilse Koch before the US military tribunal in Dachau, 8/7/1947
Poisoned pregnant women with a shepherd dog
Products made from human skin are not all that the commandant’s wife distinguished herself with. As a warden, she regularly beat the inhabitants of the camp with a whip, set a shepherd dog on pregnant women, receiving real sadistic pleasure from the sight of blood. According to Buchenwald prisoners, they were not as afraid of even the cruelest SS guards as they were of this crazy creature in a black uniform. In addition to murders and lampshade production, Ilse Koch was engaged in “earning money.” Both she and her husband stole jewelry from dead people sent to gas chamber: as a rule, these were gold teeth, earrings and wedding rings. In total, the SS couple stole gold worth a million Reichsmarks.The SS leadership turned a blind eye to the bloody massacres of prisoners in the concentration camp, but could not forgive the theft of finances. On August 24, 1943, Ilse and her husband were arrested on charges of “personal enrichment, causing economic damage to the Reich and physically eliminating witnesses to their crimes.” Frau Lampshaded was kept in prison for 16 months and eventually released: during this time, the camp priest, who promised to give the necessary testimony, died (from potassium cyanide). Soon the Red Witch became a widow: for the theft of “funds belonging to Germany,” Standartenführer Koch was sentenced to death penalty. The ex-commandant appealed to the judges, asking to be sent to a penal battalion for Eastern front, however, they did not hear the request: on April 5, 1945, Koch was shot.
Exhibition of human remains and artifacts recovered by the US Army from the SS-run pathology laboratory at Buchenwald. These items were used as evidence of SS atrocities in the Buchenwald war crimes trial
Disappearance of “souvenirs”
The American soldiers who liberated Buchenwald were shocked by the prisoners' stories about Ilse Koch. In addition, they discovered in the guards' house a collection straight out of horror films: human internal organs in beautiful jars, tied with ribbons, like gifts. On June 30, 1945, Ilse Koch was taken into custody by the American military administration, and in 1947 she was sentenced to life in prison. However, by this time she was eight months pregnant (she managed to get pregnant from a captured German soldier with whom she was sharing a cell).
Soon, General Lucius Clay, commandant of the US occupation zone in Germany, said: despite the testimony of dozens of eyewitnesses, there is no direct evidence that Ilse Koch skinned people and made handbags out of it. All "souvenirs" mysteriously gone. And, according to Clay, the main thing: “She did not kill American or other citizens of allied countries, so there is no reason to keep her behind bars.” And Ilsa herself calmly told the press: yes, she was fond of making leather items for the home, but only from goat skins.
Frau Lampshaded was released, and this led to such widespread outrage that in 1949, West German authorities arrested Ilse Koch. Four witnesses testified at the trial: they personally saw how, on the orders of the commandant, they killed tattooed prisoners and removed their skin; they observed with their own eyes lampshades sewn from it. The court did not believe them. However, there were enough other crimes: the former librarian from Dresden was never released. On September 1, 1967, sixty-year-old Ilse Koch rolled a rope out of a sheet and hanged herself in her cell at the Aichach women's prison. Shortly before her death, she complained of hallucinations: dead Buchenwald prisoners came to her through the walls and demanded her skin back. Frau Lampshaded has simply gone crazy.
Ilse Koch leaves the courtroom
From Karl-Otto Koch, Ilse gave birth to two sons. One of them subsequently (twenty years after the war) committed suicide, leaving a note: “I cannot live with the knowledge of my parents’ crimes.” The third son, named Ove (from a soldier-prisoner of war), gave several interviews to Western newspapers in 1971, declaring that he was going to “clear the name of his mother, who had turned into a monster.” Fortunately, it turned out that no one around him cared about his revelations. Warden Ilse Koch remained in history as she was: a mentally ill, sadistic killer in the service of the Nazi regime.
N.B. And after this and a million other completely stubborn criminals of the Nazi regime, some arrogant, stupid and fucking foreign minister of England was beyond belief... The height of moral ugliness. You have to be so bitter
This is a quote from this post
So what about lampshades?This creepy and very harsh picture, again circulating on the Internet in connection with certain attacks, led me to search for the primary background.
"Madame Lampshaded"
First, a few photos (not for the faint of heart).
Lampshade made from the skin of children - concentration camp prisoners
Another lampshade made from treated prisoners' leather
Soap made in a concentration camp from the bones of prisoners
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Gloves made of human skin. Buchenwald. 1943Gloves made from the skin of concentration camp prisoners
The story of the life and death of the famous “Madame Lampshade” Ilse Koch - one of the most cruel women of the 20th century, whose favorite pastime was making those same lampshades and other souvenirs from the skin of concentration camp prisoners.
This woman was born in Saxony in 1906.
The daughter of a laborer, she was a diligent schoolgirl, loved and was loved, and was popular with the village boys.
Before the war, she worked as a librarian.
Quite a pretty woman, right?
I present to your attention - Madame Lampshade (as her colleagues called her), or Buchenwald Bitch (as her prisoners called her). The incomparable Ilse Koch (née Kohler).
How did it happen that an excellent student, a girl with an angelic character, became a monstrous pervert, expelled even from the Gestapo for cruelty (this is not a joke).
Her future husband is a front-line soldier to the core. He fought a lot in the First World War, even though his mother pulled him out of the trenches with the help of her numerous connections, young Karl Otto Koch still went through the school of courage on the most intense sections of the Western Front.
The First World War ended for him in a prisoner of war camp.
After his release, he returned to his native and defeated Germany.
The former front-line soldier managed to get a good job. Having received the post of bank employee, he married in 1924.
However, two years later the bank collapsed, and Karl was left without a job. At the same time, his marriage also failed.
The young unemployed man found a solution to his problems in Nazi ideas and soon served in the SS.
They met in 1936, when the concentration camp system had already spread throughout Germany. Standartenführer Karl Koch served in Sachsenhausen.
Ilsa had a love affair with the boss, and she agreed to become his secretary.
In Sachsenhausen, Koch, even among his own people, acquired a reputation as an out-and-out sadist. Nevertheless, it was these qualities that helped him win Ilsa’s heart. And at the end of 1937 the marriage ceremony took place.
The authorities of the Reich Main Security Office, encouraging the concentration camp system, nominated Koch for promotion.
In 1939, he was tasked with organizing a concentration camp in Buchenwald, 9 km from Weimer (Bach’s birthplace, by the way).
The commandant went to his new duty station with his wife.
While Koch reveled in power, watching the daily destruction of people, his wife took even greater pleasure in the torture of prisoners.
In the camp they were more afraid of her than the commandant himself.
Frau Ilse usually walked around the camp, dispensing lashes to anyone she met wearing striped clothes.
Sometimes she took a ferocious shepherd dog with her and became delighted, setting the dog on pregnant women or prisoners with a heavy burden.
It is not surprising that the prisoners nicknamed Ilsa “the bitch of Buchenwald.”
When it seemed to the completely exhausted prisoners that there were no more terrible tortures, Frau Ilse invented a new idea.
She ordered the male prisoners to undress.
Those who did not have a tattoo on their skin were of little interest to Ilsa Koch.
But when she saw an exotic pattern on someone’s body, a carnivorous grin flashed in Frau Koch’s eyes.
Later, Ilse Koch was nicknamed “Frau Lampshade.”
She used the tanned skins of murdered men to create a variety of household utensils, of which she was extremely proud.
She found the skin of gypsies and Russian prisoners of war with tattoos on the chest and back most suitable for crafts.
This made it possible to make things very decorative.
Ilsa especially liked lampshades.
Bodies of “artistic value” were taken to the pathology laboratory, where they were treated with alcohol and the skin was carefully torn off.
Then it was dried, lubricated vegetable oil and packaged in special bags.
Meanwhile, Ilsa improved her skills.
She began to sew gloves and openwork underwear from the skin of prisoners.
It turned out that even for the SS this was too much.
This “craft did not go unnoticed by the authorities.
At the end of 1941, the Koch couple appeared before the SS court in Kassel on charges of “excessive cruelty and moral corruption.
Talk of lampshades and books leaked out of the camp and brought Ilsa and Karl to the dock, where they had to answer for “abuse of power.
However, that time the sadists managed to escape punishment.
The court decided that they were the victim of a slander on the part of ill-wishers.
The former commandant was for some time “an adviser in another concentration camp.
But soon the fanatical spouses returned to Buchenwald.
And then Frau Ilse turned around to the fullest.
Postcards made from the leather of prisoners of war (about 3,600 pieces), handbags and purses, hairpins, underwear and gloves, as well as leather book bindings were extremely interesting to fashionistas of those times.
Many of her friends and military wives placed orders and gladly purchased items from Frau Ilsa’s collection.
One of the prisoners, the Jew Albert Grenovsky, who was forced to work in the Buchenwald pathology laboratory, said after the war that prisoners selected by Ilsa with a tattoo were taken to the dispensary.
There they were killed using lethal injections.
There was only one reliable way Don’t fall into the “bitch’s lampshade” - disfigure your skin or die in a gas chamber.
To some, this seemed like a good thing.
I saw the tattoo that adorned Ilsa’s panties on the back of one of the gypsies from my block,” said Albert Grenovsky.
In 1944, Karl Koch was brought before a military tribunal on charges of murdering an SS man who had repeatedly complained of brazen extortion by the camp commandant.
It was discovered that most of The stolen valuables, instead of going to the Reichsbank safes in Berlin, ended up in the form of astronomical sums in the secret account of the Koch spouses in a Swiss bank.
Koch's reputation was at rock bottom.
And on a cold April morning in 1945, literally a few days before the liberation of the camp by the Allied forces, Karl Koch was shot in the courtyard of the very camp where he had recently controlled thousands of human destinies.
After the liberation of Buchenwald by the Allies, Frau Ilse managed to escape and was free until 1947.
In 1947, American intelligence agents took her.
Before the trial, she was kept in solitary confinement for more than a year.
Frau Ilse understood perfectly well that she was facing the death penalty, but at forty she really didn’t want to die.
There are several ways to avoid the death penalty, one of them is pregnancy.
Ilsa chose him.
But how can you get pregnant in a maximum security cell where not even a fly can penetrate?
During a meeting with friends or relatives, she was given a capsule with sperm, which Frau Ilse inserted into her vagina with her finger.
She was already in her second month at the trial.
For several weeks, many former prisoners, their eyes burning with anger, came to the courtroom to tell the truth about Ilse Koch's past.
« The blood of more than fifty thousand victims Buchenwald in her arms,” the prosecutor said, “and the fact that this woman is in this moment pregnant does not exempt her from punishment.”
But still, execution was avoided.
American General Emil Kiel read out the verdict: “Ilse Koch - life imprisonment.”
In 1951, a turning point came in the life of Ilse Koch.
General Lucius Clay, High Commissioner of the American occupation zone in Germany, with his decision shocked the world on both sides of the Atlantic - both the population of his country and Federal Republic Germany.
He granted Ilse Koch her freedom, saying that there was only “slight evidence that she ordered the execution of anyone, and there was no evidence of her involvement in making tattooed skin crafts.
When the war criminal was released, the world refused to believe the validity of this decision.
However, Frau Koch was not destined to enjoy freedom.
As soon as she left the American military prison in Munich, she was arrested by German authorities and put back behind bars.
240 witnesses testified in court.
They talked about Ilse's atrocities in the Nazi camp.
This time, Ilse Koch was tried by the Germans, in whose name the Nazi, in her conviction, truly served the “Fatherland.”
The war criminal was again sentenced to life imprisonment.
She was firmly told that this time she could not count on any leniency.
That same year, on September 1, in a Bavarian prison cell, she ate her last schnitzel and salad, wrote a farewell letter to her son, tied up the sheets and hanged herself.
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