Ilse Koch is sentenced to life in prison by Brigadier General Emil C. Kiel (back to camera) at the trial of former camp personnel and prisoners from Buchenwald.

Photograph | Digitized | Photograph Number: 43010

Overview

Caption: Ilse Koch is sentenced to life in prison by Brigadier General Emil C. Kiel (back to camera) at the trial of former camp personnel and prisoners from Buchenwald.
Date: 1947 August 14
Locale: Dachau, [Bavaria] Germany
Photo Credit: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of National Archives and Records Administration, College Park
Event History: On March 4, 1947, American forces at Dachau charged 28 former camp personnel, 2 former kapos, and 1 former prisoner with participating in the operation of the Buchenwald concentration camp. Among those charged were former camp doctors and SS officers, including Hermann Pister, who was commandant of the camp from 1942 to 1945; Josias Erbprinz zu Waldeck-Pyrmont, who was SS-Obergruppenfuehrer and head of judicial matters; and Ilse Koch, a former Aufseherin and the wife of Karl Koch, who was Buchenwald commandant from 1937 to 1941. The trial began on April 11 and the sentences were handed down on August 14, 1947. Altogether, 22 of the defendants were sentenced to death by hanging, 5 were sentenced to life in prison, and 4 received shorter sentences. Pister was sentenced to death and died in an American prison. Waldeck-Pyrmont was sentenced to life, but was released in December 1950 for health reasons. Ilse Koch was sentenced to life but was released in 1949. After strong pressue by the US Senate, a Greman court sentenced to life again in 1951.

https://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007145.

Photo Source: National Archives and Records Administration, College Park

Copyright: Public Domain

Source Record ID: 111-SC-289341 (Album 5581)

Keyword: COURTS/COURTROOMS DEFENDANTS GERMANS GUARDS JUDGES/TRIBUNALS KOCH, ILSE MILITARY POLICE SENTENCING SOLDIERS/MILITARY (AMERICAN) SPECTATORS/AUDIENCES/BYSTANDERS SS (SCHUTZSTAFFELN) TRIALS TRIALS (BUCHENWALD) WAR CRIMINALS/TRIALS WOMEN
Photo Designation: PURSUIT OF JUSTICE -- Concentration Camp/Atrocity Trials -- US Army Trials -- Buchenwald

Biography: Ilse (Koehler) Koch (1906-1967). Ilse Koch joined the Nazi party in 1932 and in 1936 went to work as a secretary at Sachsenhausen. She married Karl Otto Koch (1897-1945), head of the Sachsenhausen concentration camp, who in 1937 was assigned to build a new concentration camp in Buchenwald. While Karl Otto was known for his personal greed in the camps he worked in, Ilse was feared for her brutality. In Buchenwald she was known as the witch [Hexe]. In 1942 the Kochs received a punitive transfer to Majdanek. The following year Judge Josias Prince of Waldeck-Pyrmont ordered the investigation of the couple. SS judge Konrad Morgen lead the investigation and indicted them. Ilse was accused of the embezzlement of over 700,000RM. Karl Otto was charged with both embezzlement and the unauthorized murder of three prisoners. Though Ilse was acquitted, Karl Otto was convicted and shot in April 1945. Two years later Ilse was tried at the Buchenwald war crimes trial and sentenced to life imprisonment. Her sentence was initially commuted to four years, but after a general outcry, she was immediately indicted by a German court for instigation to murder in 135 cases. She was sentenced to life on January 15, 1951 and committed suicide in prison in 1967.

[Source: Encyclopedia of the Third Reich, Macmillan, New York, 1991, 1:507]