WWII expert Kevin Prenger describes the special story of SS judge Konrad Morgen in his latest book. In the autumn of 1943 he visited the Auschwitz concentration camp. While millions of Jews were being murdered in the gas chambers of Nazi Germany, Konrad Morgen was busy collecting evidence of 'illegal' murders. On History an extensive excerpt from Kevin Prenger's book about the trial of Ilse Koch (1906-1967), the infamous wife of SS Colonel Karl Koch.
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A Judge in Auschwitz tells the story of SS judge Konrad Morgen. One of the cases he dealt with during the Second World War was that of Karl Otto Koch, the camp commander of Buchenwald from 1937 to 1941. SS judge Morgen was outraged by the facts he discovered during his investigation in his camp: together with several accomplices, Koch had robbed, abused and murdered prisoners without being ordered to do so. For these reasons, he and several co-suspects, including his wife Ilse, who was notorious among the prisoners for her cruelty, were brought to account by the SS. An SS court pronounced the death penalty against him. On April 5, 1945, while the Americans were approaching the camp, Koch was executed in Buchenwald by an SS execution squad.
Ilse Koch survived the war. Her name has been synonymous with the atrocities of the concentration camps since the American tribunal in Dachau, which took place from November 1945 to August 1948. The blonde wife of the camp commander was accused of the most heinous crimes and became infamous in Germany as Die Hexe von Buchenwald. In the American media she became known as The Bitch of Buchenwald.
In the camp she was notorious for her sadism; she is said to have often whipped prisoners while riding her horse. Morgen learned from witnesses that the commander's wife often walked around provocatively in "a short skirt and transparent blouse". She had male prisoners who dared to look at her punished by the sadistic camp guard Martin Sommer. The victims usually received twenty-five lashes; one prisoner is said to have died as a result of this beating. Tomorrow, Ilse Koch was arrested on suspicion of complicity in her husband's crimes on August 25, 1943. She then spent sixteen months in pre-trial detention in the Weimar police prison until she was acquitted by the SS court. In June 1945 she was arrested by the American army.