Karl-Otto Koch

Karl-Otto Koch
SS-Sturmbannführer Koch
Born	August 2, 1897(1897-08-02) Darmstadt, Grand Duchy of Hesse
Died	April 5, 1945(1945-04-05) (aged 47) Buchenwald concentration camp, Germany
Allegiance	German Empire (to 1918) Weimar Republic (to 1933) Nazi Germany
Service/branch	Schutzstaffel
Years of service	1916-1945
Rank	SS-Standartenführer
Commands held	Esterwegen concentration camp Sachsenhausen concentration camp Buchenwald concentration camp Majdanek concentration camp
Awards	WWI Iron Cross 2. Class WWI Observer's Badge WWI Wound Badge in Black

Karl-Otto Koch (August 2, 1897 – April 5, 1945), a Standartenführer (Colonel) in the German Schutzstaffel (SS), was the first commandant of the Nazi concentration camps at Buchenwald and Sachsenhausen, and later also served as a commander at the Majdanek concentration camp.

Early life

Koch was born in Darmstadt, Grand Duchy of Hesse on August 2, 1897. His father worked in local registrar's office and died when Karl was only eight years old. After completing elementary school in 1912, Koch began studying business and worked as a messenger and an apprentice in a bookkeeping department in a local factory. In 1916, he volunteered to join the army and fought on the Western Front until he was captured by the British in 1918. Koch spent rest of the war as a POW and returned to Germany in 1919. As a soldier he conducted himself well and was awarded the Iron Cross Second Class, the Observer's Badge and the Wound Badge in Black. Following World War I, Koch worked as an accounting supervisor in a bank and later also in the same role in an insurance company. In 1931, Karl-Otto Koch joined the NSDAP and the Schutzstaffel.

Service with the SS

Buchenwald survivors. Elie Wiesel is on the second row from the bottom, seventh from the left.

Koch served with several SS-Standarten until June 13, 1935, when he became commander of the Columbia concentration camp in Berlin-Tempelhof. In April 1936 he was assigned to the concentration camp at Esterwegen. Four months later he was moved to Sachsenhausen.

On August 1, 1937, he was given command of the new concentration camp at Buchenwald. He remained at Buchenwald until September 1941, when he was transferred to the Majdanek concentration camp for POWs. That was largely due to an investigation based on allegations of his improper conduct at Buchenwald, which included corruption, fraud, embezzlement, drunkenness, sexual offences and a murder. Koch commanded the Majdanek camp for only one year; he was relieved from his duties after 86 Soviet POWs escaped from the camp in August 1942. Koch was charged with criminal negligence and transferred to Berlin, where he worked at the SS Personalhauptamt and as a liaison between the SS and the German Post-Office.

Prosecution and death

Koch's actions at Buchenwald first caught the attention of SS-Obergruppenführer Josias, Prince of Waldeck and Pyrmont in 1941. In glancing over the death list of Buchenwald, Josias had stumbled across the name of Dr. Walter Krämer, a head hospital orderly at Buchenwald, which he recognized because Krämer had successfully treated him in the past. Josias investigated the case and found out that Koch, in a position as the Camp Commandant, had ordered Krämer and Karl Peixof, a hospital attendant, killed as "political prisoners" because they had treated him for syphilis and he feared it might be discovered. Waldeck also received reports that a certain prisoner had been shot while attempting to escape. By that time, Koch had been transferred to the Majdanek concentration camp in Poland, but his wife, Ilse, was still living at the Commandant's house in Buchenwald. Waldeck ordered a full scale investigation of the camp by Dr. Georg Konrad Morgen, an SS officer who was a judge in a German court. Throughout the investigation, more of Koch's orders to kill prisoners at the camp were revealed, as well as embezzlement of property stolen from prisoners. It was also discovered that a prisoner who was "shot while trying to escape" had been told to get water from a well some distance from the camp, and he was shot from behind. He had also helped treat Koch for syphilis. A charge of incitement to murder was lodged by Prince Waldeck and Dr. Morgen against Koch, to which were later added charges of embezzlement. Other camp officials were charged, including Koch's wife. The trial resulted in Koch being sentenced to death for disgracing both himself and the SS. Koch was executed by firing squad on 5 April 1945, one week before American allied troops arrived to liberate the camp.

Marriage

Ilse Koch

Koch first married in 1924 and had one son; however, his marriage ended in divorce 1931, due to his infidelity.

On May 25, 1936 Koch married Ilse Köhler with whom he had a son and two daughters. Köhler later became known as "The Witch of Buchenwald" (Die Hexe von Buchenwald), usually rendered more alliteratively in English as "The Bitch of Buchenwald." When Koch was transferred to Buchenwald, Ilse was appointed an Oberaufseherin (overseer) by the SS and thus had an active, official role in the atrocities committed there. There have been many unverified rumors about a lampshade made from human skin, which has become an often repeated legend since the war, but no one could testify that they had actually seen such a thing during Ilse's trial.

At the Nuremberg International Military Tribunal, on December 13, 1945, the US prosecution introduced Exhibit #253, which consisted of three pieces of tanned human skin that had been removed from prisoners by doctors at Buchenwald. A forensic report confirmed that it was human skin. Although this skin had not been fashioned into a lampshade, US prosecutor Thomas Dodd claimed that Ilse Koch had ordered tattooed human skin to be made into lampshades for her home. Exhibit #254, also introduced by Dodd, was a shrunken head, allegedly used by Ilse Koch as a paperweight, which Dodd claimed was the head of a Polish prisoner at Buchenwald.

General Clay,the American military governor, felt, in 1948, that Ilse Koch had been unjustly sentenced to a life term in 1947 by the international American military court. On September 16, he commuted that sentence to four years' time. As he explained on September 23: "There was no convincing evidence that she selected inmates for extermination in order to secure tattooed skin or that she possessed any articles made of human skin." Eventually, she was tried by a German court on charges of her having abused and killed German inmates; her previous trial had included only inmates of other nationalities. In this second trial, she was convicted and sentenced to life.

She was sentenced to life for: "one count of incitement to murder, one of incitement to attempted murder, five of incitement to severe physical mistreatment of prisoners, and two of physical mistreatment."

"The court found no proof that anyone at Buchenwald had been murdered for his tattooed skin, but it expressed no doubt that skin lampshades had been made and that human heads had been shriveled and preserved at the camp." She spent the rest of her life in prison until she committed suicide in 1967.

See also

• Buchenwald Resistance
• Phil Lamason

Bibliography

• Benoît Cazenave, L’exemplarité du commandant SS Karl Otto Koch, Revue de la Fondation Auschwitz, Bruxelles, 2005.

Military offices
Preceded by SS-Oberführer Alexander Reiner	Commander of K.L. Columbia-Haus 13 June 1935 - 1 April 1936	Succeeded by SS-Oberführer Heinrich Deubel
Preceded by SS-Oberführer Hans Loritz	Commander of K.L. Esterwegen 20 April 1936 - August 1936	Succeeded by absorbed into Sachsenhausen K.L.
Preceded by SS-Obersturmbannführer Michael Lippert	Commander of K.L. Sachsenhausen October 1936 - 1 August 1937	Succeeded by SS-Oberführer Hans Helwig
Preceded by SS-Sturmbannführer Jacob Weiseborn	Commander of K.L. Buchenwald 1 August 1937 - July 1941	Succeeded by SS-Standartenführer Hermann Pister
Preceded by none	Commander of K.L. Majdanek July 1941 - 24 August 1942	Succeeded by SS-Sturmbannführer Max Kögel