Ilse Koch

Ilse Koch (22 September 1906 – 1 September 1967) was a German war criminal who was an overseer at Nazi concentration camps run by her husband, commandant Karl-Otto Koch. Working at Buchenwald (1937–1941) and Majdanek (1941–1943), Koch became infamous for her sadistic, brutal treatment of prisoners. In 1947, she became one of the first prominent Nazis tried by the U.S. military.

After the trial received worldwide media attention, survivors' accounts of her actions resulted in other authors describing her abuse of prisoners as sadistic, and the image of her as "the concentration camp murderess" was current in post-war German society.[1]

Koch was accused of taking souvenirs from the skin of murdered inmates with distinctive tattoos, although those claims were rejected at both of her trials. She was known as "The Witch of Buchenwald" (Die Hexe von Buchenwald) by the inmates because of her cruelty and lasciviousness toward prisoners. She has been nicknamed "The Beast of Buchenwald",[2] the "Queen of Buchenwald",[3][4] the "Red Witch of Buchenwald",[5][6] "Butcher Widow",[7] and "The Bitch of Buchenwald".[8]