Who Was the ‘Witch of Buchenwald?’

Ilse Koch was married to Karl Otto Koch, the Nazi commander of Buchenwald concentration camp, where at least 56,000 prisoners died during World War II. Koch became a lurid media sensation during two postwar trials in which she was portrayed as a sadistic nymphomaniac who collected items made from the skin of murdered Jews, specifically lampshades. Newspapers gave her several nicknames, including the “Witch of Buchenwald" and the “Butcher Widow.”  

Koch joined the Nazi Party in 1932 and was a true believer in Adolf Hitler’s antisemitic demagoguery. Alongside her husband, she strove to raise the ideal Aryan family. In 1937, Karl was assigned as Kommandant (commanding officer) of the Buchenwald concentration camp, a “work camp” for political prisoners, Jews, Jehovah’s Witnesses and Romani, where everyday horrors included starvation, torture, medical experimentation and murder.

The Kochs lived on site at Buchenwald in a luxurious villa where prisoners were forced to work as servants. They threw lavish parties and cultivated an aristocratic image. Ilse insisted that her servants call her eine gnädige Frau (“a gracious lady”). She became such a feared and powerful figure at Buchenwald that she was known as the Kommandeuse.  

When put on trial, Ilse claimed she knew nothing of the crimes committed right under her nose, and that she was just a normal German wife, mother and caregiver.  

In 1947, Ilse Koch stood trial as the only woman alongside 30 other Buchenwald officers and officials. Her husband was already dead—executed by the Nazis in 1945 for embezzlement and murder. In the 1947 trial, a slate of witnesses described Ilse Koch’s alleged sadistic behavior: 

The trials provoked a media frenzy. No detail was too lurid. A former Nazi judge was quoted describing Ilse as “a hussy who rode on horseback in sexy underwear in front of the prisoners and then noted down for punishment the numbers of those who looked at her.” The lead American prosecutor called Ilse “no woman in the usual sense but a creature from some other tortured world.” 

Koch became infamous for notorious allegations that she commissioned lampshades made from human skin. Years later, the serial killer Ed Gein allegedly took inspiration from Koch when he used the skin of his victims to make masks, body suits and decorative bowls. Koch may have also been the inspiration for the brutal female guard in Lina Wertmüller’s film Seven Beauties.

After the 1947 trial, Koch was sentenced to life in prison, but it was reduced to four years. The governor of the occupied American Zone found “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.” 

Her release sparked an uproar, and Koch was swiftly arrested and tried a second time by West German authorities. More witnesses came forward claiming that Koch had received a lampshade as a gift that was made from human skin, and that she had personally chosen the victim who was murdered.  

Many of the most grotesque accusations against Koch—including her sexual abuse of prisoners and her ownership of objects made from human skin—were ultimately dismissed as hearsay. But Koch was found guilty of “incitement to murder” and sentenced again to life in prison. She took her own life in 1967 while imprisoned.