It is one of the most sensational trials of the post-war period: In 1947, Ilse Koch, known as the “Witch of Buchenwald,” stood trial for the first time in Dachau. Her real name: Ilse Koch. She was described as “sexually obsessed,” said to have had a “pronounced penchant for sadistic torments,” and to have ordered the “skinning of prisoners.” Who was the wife of the concentration camp commandant really?
Horrific stories surround the wife of Karl Koch, the commandant of Buchenwald concentration camp. Newspapers from the time of the 1947 Dachau trial portrayed her as a “prime example of perversion.” Evidence of her alleged “abnormality” was said to be a lampshade made from human skin — an object that would continue to occupy researchers for decades. Witnesses testified after the war that Ilse Koch had personally reported prisoners, who then had to endure severe punishments. There were also accounts of sexual obsessions that she allegedly acted out on the prisoners.
Ilse Koch’s Path as the Commandant’s Wife to Buchenwald
Ilse Koch, born Ilse Köhler on September 22, 1906, in Dresden, was the daughter of simple workers. After school, she trained as a stenotypist. In 1932, she joined the NSDAP. Two years later, she met SS-Hauptsturmführer Karl Otto Koch, who was ten years her senior. At the time, he was building up the SS special command in Saxony, whose task was to convert “wild concentration camps” into regular penal camps. His tough and uncompromising approach with the troops earned him the position of commandant of Buchenwald concentration camp.
More than a quarter of a million prisoners passed through Buchenwald during its eight years of existence. It was an all-male camp. The prisoners were exploited as slave laborers; some also served as “guinea pigs” in medical experiments. Between the camp’s establishment in 1937 and its liberation in 1945, more than 56,000 people died there.
A Cozy Home on the Ettersberg
For years, Ilse Koch lived with her family — her husband, son Artwin (born 1938), and daughters Gisela and Gudrun (born 1939 and 1940) — in the commandant’s villa on the Ettersberg, just a ten-minute walk from the camp. During the 1947 trial, Ilse Koch stated: “With a man like mine, it was impossible for me to concern myself with camp matters. He would certainly have objected. In his eyes, my main task was to be a good mother, and I always tried to create a cozy home for him in the evenings.”
Was Ilse Koch Really the “Witch of Buchenwald”?
If that were truly the case, why did she stand trial again in 1947 and 1951? Factually, Ilse Koch held no official SS rank and therefore had no command authority. However, as the commandant’s wife, she is said to have incited her husband to commit acts of violence against prisoners in a particularly perfidious way. According to more than 1,500 witness statements, Koch allegedly “walked along the camp fence lightly dressed” to draw the prisoners’ attention. The consequences of these “games” can be seen in the files of Herman Hackmann, a friend of the Kochs. He described how prisoners were flogged for “indecently approaching the commandant’s wife.” The punishment catalog also included “three to 42 days in a standing cell. During the day standing up. Bread and water. Complete darkness.” This cell was known as the “bunker.” Denounced prisoners were not only locked up here but also tortured and, in some cases, beaten to death.
Nevertheless, many of the witness statements that earned Ilse Koch the nickname “Witch of Buchenwald” cannot be definitively proven today. It is often unclear whether they are true, based on misinterpretations of causal connections, or mere rumors. Her informal influence as the commandant’s wife is difficult to reconstruct. What is certain is that she was present at physical punishments in the camp.
“She Could Have Had a Career in Film”
The Buchenwald camp doctor, August Heinrich Bender, described Ilse Koch in his handwritten memoirs as “highly educated” and “a beauty.” He recalled her “slightly reddish long curls” and “snow-white skin.” “She could have had a career in film,” he wrote. During the Buchenwald trial, Bender had claimed not to know Ilse Koch. He was sentenced to ten years in prison at the time but released after three years and lived for decades as a general practitioner in a small village in North Rhine-Westphalia. In 1993, the former SS-Sturmbannführer wrote down his memories, which reached the Federal Archives in Koblenz after his death in 2005.
Karl Koch Sentenced to Death: “Boys, Shoot Straight”
In 1943, Ilse Koch’s privileged life as the commandant’s wife on the Ettersberg came to an end. In August of that year, Karl Koch was arrested by a special commission for receiving stolen goods and embezzlement and taken to the Gestapo headquarters in Weimar. Ilse Koch was arrested the next day as an alleged accomplice. There were 25,000 Reichsmarks in her account. However, she was acquitted by the SS court in 1944 for lack of evidence; it could not be proven that she had enriched herself as “camp commandantress.” Her husband, on the other hand, was sentenced to death for receiving stolen goods, murder, and fraud, and was executed in Buchenwald in April 1945. His last words are said to have been: “Boys, shoot straight.”
When American troops liberated the camp in April 1945 and forced the horrified residents of Weimar to visit it and bury the bodies, Ilse Koch was already staying with relatives in Ludwigsburg. She was arrested there by the Americans in June 1945.
Lampshade Made of Human Skin: Myth or Reality?
In April 1947, Ilse Koch stood trial in Dachau for the first time. She denied any involvement in or knowledge of mistreatment or the murder of camp inmates. She was also asked whether she had ever owned “gloves made of human skin” or a “lampshade made of human material.” She denied it.
The background to the question: Shortly after the camp’s liberation, on April 16, 1945, a large number of tanned tattooed skins, two shrunken heads, and a lampshade made of human skin were displayed on a table.
In the first exhibition on the history of Buchenwald in 1954, the small, simply made bedside lamp shade was labeled a “lampshade made of human skin.” It had been handed over by Karl Straub, a former prisoner, and clearly came from the camp. After 1990, doubts arose, and a report was produced that was gratefully seized upon by historical revisionists. The assessment by the Institute of Forensic Medicine at the Medical Academy Erfurt dated July 6, 1992, stated: “Specimen IV (lampshade) could not be serologically identified as human. It may be a plastic material that was produced for lampshades at around the same time. Ultimately, however, it cannot be entirely ruled out that it is nevertheless biological material.”
The lampshade remained in the Buchenwald Memorial’s collection for about 30 years before being examined again by the well-known forensic biologist Mark Benecke using scientific techniques such as DNA analysis to determine the actual material.
Mark Benecke’s Verdict
According to Benecke, the material shows patterns that “can only be human.” Memorial director Jens-Christian Wagner said the exhibit shows “that the SS was completely dehumanized.” For ethical reasons, the lampshade has not been publicly displayed for more than 30 years, but it remains in the memorial’s archives to document the crimes of the National Socialists. There is no evidence that Ilse Koch personally owned such a lampshade; it remains the subject of countless myths.
Ilse Koch Takes Her Own Life: Suicide in the Women’s Prison
In April 1947, the pregnant Ilse Koch was found guilty in the trial of participating in, supporting, and inciting crimes in Buchenwald and sentenced to life imprisonment. Her son Uwe was born in October 1947.
Ilse Koch appealed the verdict and was tried again, this time before a German court. In this second trial in 1951, she was definitively sentenced to life imprisonment. She fought for her release and saw herself as a victim. She received support from the aid organization “Stille Hilfe,” which assisted former NS perpetrators and their relatives. In 1967, she took her own life in Aichach women’s prison in Bavaria.
The Myth of the “Witch of Buchenwald”: Repressing German Guilt
Ilse Koch’s story shows how strongly gender double standards and stereotypical ideas about women shaped public perception. Koch, who held no official function in the concentration camp system, was stylized in international reporting as a demonic lone perpetrator.
The witch motif — a woman who transforms her femininity into dark power and seductive force — further reinforced this myth. Her alleged sadism and sexual abnormality led to a particularly negative public perception, which likely contributed to Koch being judged and punished more harshly than many male Nazi perpetrators.
According to historian Alexandra Przyrembel, this myth not only had shocking symbolism but also a relieving function. It helped divert attention from the responsibility of many German perpetrators (male and female) within the Nazi system. This also exonerated other wives of SS men, the German housewife in general, and, by extension, their husbands. It helped post-war German society repress its own complicity.
The article was first published in 2015 and updated in 2024.