Execution of Karl Otto Koch Nazi Commandant of Sachsenhausen, Buchenwald & Majdanek Concentration. Karl-Otto Koch was born on the 2nd of August 1897 in Darmstadt, then part of the German Empire. In 1931 Karl-Otto Koch joined the Nazi Party and the SS. The Nazi Party, founded in 1920, sought to woo German workers away from socialism and communism and commit them to its antisemitic and anti-Marxist ideology.
In the new Nazi Germany, Karl Otto Koch served in senior positions at several concentration camps. Among these was Esterwegen, located near the German-Dutch border, where Karl-Otto Koch arrived in April 1936.
In October 1936, he became a camp commandant of Sachsenhausen concentration camp.
In August 1937 Karl Otto was assigned to build a new concentration camp in Buchenwald. While in the camps that he worked in, Karl-Otto was known for his personal greed, Ilse was feared for her brutality.
Buchenwald was one of the largest concentration camps established within German borders.
At Buchenwald, Karl-Otto and Ilse lived in the largest villa on the site known as “ Villa Koch” together with their three children – Artwin, Gisela and Gudrun who were born in the camp between 1938 and 1941. Gudrun died unexpectedly before her first birthday while on a skiing holiday.
One of the prisoners who survived the war recalled how Karl-Otto Koch welcomed them in Buchenwald: “So now you are here, you Jewish pigs. Once you get in this camp, there is no way out. Remember that – you won't get out of here alive.”
Periodically, the SS physicians conducted selections throughout the Buchenwald camp system and dispatched those too weak or disabled to work to so-called euthanasia facilities.
Karl-Otto Koch, as the camp’s commandant was responsible for all the atrocities within the camp, including the ones committed by his wife Ilse who became known as the “Witch of Buchenwald”.
She was obsessed with tattoos and used to ride her horse around the Buchenwald looking for tattooed prisoners. When she found one, she sent them to their death but before they were killed and burned, she would carve out the part of their skin where the tattoo was located. She used to call these pieces of skin her “ trophies”.
She would go on to collect lampshades and book covers as well as gloves a handbags – all made of human skin.
She shared her obsession with tattoos with Dr. Erich Wagner, allegedly her lover, who wanted to find the connection between tattoos and criminal tendencies.
Despite having 3 on her own children, she hated pregnant women and she used to beat them with whip along the entire length of which pieces of a razor were inserted.
Koch also found pleasure in beating child inmates. She would laugh loudly when seeing them going to the gas chambers.
At the end of 1941, through Himmler's intervention, Koch was transferred from the Buchenwald to the Majdanek concentration camp, where he again became the camp commander. At Majdanek, just as he had done at Buchenwald, Karl-Otto Koch fell back in his sadistic ways and established the same reign of terror. In the winter of 1941-1942, Majdanek camp authorities began to use Zyklon B gas to murder prisoners too weak to work in a makeshift gas chamber. Mass murder operations using poison gas began at Majdanek in October 1942 and continued until the end of 1943. There appear to have been three gas chambers at Majdanek; at least two were shower rooms reconfigured for use of Zyklon B gas. At least one of these two was used to kill human beings.
Majdanek also contained storage facilities for clothing and personal items stolen from the Jews before their deaths in the Belzec, Sobibor, and Treblinka II killing centers.
On the 24th of August 1943, Koch was finally arrested again by the Gestapo for corruption and the murder of three prisoners. His wife Ilse was also arrested. The couple was taken to the police prison in Weimar. Karl Otto Koch confirmed the accusations against him.
In September 1944, the trial against the accused began.
Karl Otto Koch was 47 years old when he was executed by firing squad on the 5th of April 1945, one week before American allied troops arrived to liberate the camp. His last words were: "Boys, shoot well!"
His body was subsequently burned in the camp's crematorium.
There were no tears shed for Karl-Otto and Ilse Koch.
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