At the International Military
Tribunal at Nuremberg, it was
proven that the Nazis made from
the skins of their victims:
At one of the subsequent United
States controlled trials of Nazi war criminals held at Dachau
concentration camp, Ilse Koch, the wife of the former commandant of
Buchenwald concentration camp, was proven to have had tattooed prisoners
executed, so she could have their skin made into lampshades and covers
for her photograph albums. She was sentenced to life
imprisonment in August 1947.
Following these sensational
allegations against Koch, she became a household name in the United
States. She was dubbed by the US media; The Bitch of
Buchenwald, the Red Witch of Buchenwald (she had
reddish hair), Queen of Buchenwald, Butcher Widow and the Lady of the
Lampshades. In the decades following, she has been the
inspiration for numerous fictional characters in films and adult comics.
In June 1948 her
sentenced was reduced to four years, or time already served, by General
Lucius D. Clay, the interim military governor of the American Zone in
Germany, on the grounds "there
was no convincing evidence that she had selected
inmates for extermination in order to secure tattooed skins, or that
she possessed any articles made of human skin."
When news of her sentence broke, there
was allegedly "uproar" in the US and de-Nazified Germany.
More likely, this was just the hype of the Jewish
controlled press and an American lawyer
named William Denson, who described General Clay's decision
to reduce the sentence as "a mockery of the administration of justice." He
wrote to newspapers across the country, and was invited to speaking
events and interviews. William
Denson had been
chief prosecutor at 4 separate trials of Nazi war criminals in the
American Zone in Germany, which convicted 173 of the 177 Nazis tried,
and sentenced 134 to death.
Two perfect examples of the standards
of these trials:
A member of Denson's prosecution team;
lawyer Joseph Kirschbaum, an
American Jew, personally tortured an eighteen year old enlisted German named
Hans-Georg Huebler, by repeatedly kicking him in the testicles
over a period of several days, forcing him to sign a
statement dictated to him by Morris Ellowitz, another Jew,
which implicated Huebler's company commander and comrades
into acts of murder.
During one of the trials, Jewish
torturer Joseph Kirschbaum, accused a German
of having murdered a man, who was only not dead,
but was actually present in the court room, and was pointed
out by the defendant to the huge embarrassment of
Kirschbaum.
more
on this
Ilse Koch only received a life sentence and not a death
penalty because
she became pregnant whilst in US custody, and was eight months gone
when convicted. The father of her son, was never revealed, though there
were rumours it was Jewish torturer Joseph Kirschbaum.
Re-Arrest & Re-Tried
Ilse Koch was re-arrested in 1949 by
the West Germans, and a new trial began in November 1950.
Over 250 witnesses had appeared at
her second trial, including 50 for the defence.
Peter Planiseck
Testified that he once saw Ilse order
a prisoner to strip so she could see his tattoos; then
she wrote down the prisoner's number. That night he was executed.
Richard Gryc
Testified that Ilse told another
prisoner. "What a lovely tattoo
you have." Shortly after, the
prisoner was poisoned.
Ludwig Tobias
Said Ilse kicked out 13 of his teeth.
Six witnesses
Testified that Ilse rode her horse
through a group of prisoners, lashed them with her whip.
Wilhelm Gellinick
Said he heard Ilse tell her husband:
"My little pigeon, I think it is time for that old man [in a working
party] to grovel a bit." The old man, said Gellinick, was made to roll
up & down a hill several times, later died as a result.
Gellinick testified that he worked in
Buchenwald's pathology laboratory, saw human skin
brought in and worked into lampshades for presentation to Ilse's
husband.
Joseph Ackermann
Another former laboratory worker,
said the director ordered a "very special present" for Koch's
birthday, a lamp of human skin and bone. "The light was switched on by
pressure against
the little toe of one of the three human feet which formed the stand."
Mentally Unwell
Gathering from very unsympathetic reports, Ilse Koch
suffered a psychological breakdown during her second trial.
Time Magazine, Monday December 25th,
1949 reports that during the previous week she collapsed "in a
hysterical heap" the courtroom, was carried out and taken to a mental
hospital for observation
On Monday January 11th, during the
prosecution's 2.5 hour final summing up, Isle Koch "threw a fit." The
judge, Georg Maginot ordered: "Carry her out as the carried out the dead
men of Buchenwald." Two policemen carried Ilse Koch on her chair, out of
the courtroom "to the loud cheers of the public." Out side the court 200
hundred protesters, carried placards calling for Ilse Koch's
condemnation.
On the evening of Tuesday January
12th. She had another episode in her cell at Augsburg prison, shrieking
and raging "like a mad woman" - this led her to be immediately
transferred to the women's prison in Aichach were she could be examined
by doctors. Several doctors diagnosed she was suffering
from temporary insanity, others claimed she was faking it.
Conviction
Isle Koch was not present in court
when she was convicted on January 15th, 1951 of:
Inciting the murder of one prisoner
Inciting the attempted murder of
another
Inciting serious injury to five
others
Lesser injury of two inmates
She was acquitted of personally
assisting in any killings, and the charge that she had lampshades made
from the skins of prisoners was actually dropped by the prosecution,
which said it could not prove the charge.
She was, again sentenced to life
imprisonment.
Suicide or Murder
Isle Koch was found dead in her cell on September 1,
1967, her death by hanging, was ruled as suicide. She had recently been
contacted by her son, who was conceived in custody, and they were
building up a relationship.
more on this
In 1973, the Washington
National Records Center in DC, discovered in their possession two of
Ilse Koch's photograph albums, supposedly covered in human skin.
Nine years later in May 1982, these
were sent to the Department of Basic Science in Tanning
Research of the University of Cincinnati. Having conducted testing
on the "human skin" photograph albums, they discovered
that they were actually covered in suede from an animal.
