The Witch of Buchenwald
IIse took a sadistic pleasure in her job. She rode about the camp on horseback, tormenting and brutalizing the prisoners. She deliberately wore tight sweaters or short skirts and behaved in an openly sexual manner to provoke a reaction in the men. “She was a very beautiful woman with long red hair,” recalled, Kurt Glass, one of the former inmates of Buchenwald and Ilse Koch’s gardener, “but any prisoner who was caught looking at her could be shot,” Ilse also took great delight in having the men beaten. Her cruelty earned her the name of Hexe von Buchenwald: The Witch of Buchenwald.
In 1941, Karl Otto Koch was transferred to Lublin, to help establish the Majdanek extermination camp. However, Ilse stayed behind, still living in the commandant’s house and continuing her duties at Buchenwald. By this time, she was reputedly having an affair with Buchenwald’s deputy commander Hermann Florstedt. However, IIse also had another reputed lover: Dr.in Waldemar Hoven. For in 1942, Buchenwald had become a medical research center of the Waffen SS, run by Hoven. Its specialism was typhus and virus research- and the prisoners acted as human guinea pigs. Some of the doctors, however also had other interests.
One doctor, in particular, was researching links between tattoos and criminality. So Ilse was tasked with searching for prisoners with tattoos- and delivering them to the unit. Soon, sinister rumors began to spread amongst the prisoners that she was collecting tattooed human skin and making it into various personal articles. “She got the idea she would like lampshades made of human skin,” recalled Kurt Glass. “One day….we were all ordered to strip to the waist. The ones who had interesting tattoos were brought to her, and she picked out the ones she liked. Those people were killed, and their skin was made into lampshades for her. She also used mummified human thumbs as light switches in her house.”
Dr. Waldem Hoven, Ilse Koch’s reputed lover. Wikimedia Commons. Public Domain.
However, rumors of the cruelty of Ilse and her husband had begun to reach the Nazi authorities- and they were not amused. All punishments and executions had to be authorized by SS central office at Oranienburg, and it was becoming evident that the Kochs had been acting independently. So, the SS placed SS officer Dr. George Konrad Morgen in charge of investigating allegations of cruelty and fraud undertaken by the couple. In August 1943, the SS arrested Ilse and Colonel Koch for murder and embezzlement.
The charge against Koch was based on evidence that he had ordered the unauthorized execution of two hospital orderlies, to cover up his treatment for syphilis. Koch was found guilty. However, the investigation also revealed he was siphoning off vast sums of money from prisoners that should have ended up in Nazi party’s pockets. Koch was executed by firing squad on April 11, 1945. As for Ilse, Morgen investigated the charges of cruelty against her thoroughly. However, he could find no evidence of anything made of human skin. So she was freed and went to live with her surviving two children with family in Stuttgart.