The post-war trials of Ilse Koch, the wife of the Commandant of Buchenwald
Ilse Koch was the wife of the SS Commandant of Buchenwald and one of the few female NS perpetrators to have been convicted. The historian Alexandra Przyrembel sketches out her life in an informed search through the evidence, describing the trial and international reports on it as well as the time Koch spent in the women's prison in Aichach and the support of the secret 'Stille Hilfe' network.
Ilse Koch (1906 - 1967) joined the NSDAP already in 1932. In 1936 she married the later Commandant of Buchenwald. And in 1947 she was placed before a US court in Germany, and in 1950/51 she stood before a German court, which condemned her to lifelong imprisonment. The international press reported extensively on the 'Witch of Buchenwald', who was considered to have been especially cruel. From the National Socialist era to the trial of Koch to her suicide in 1967, Przyrembel reconstructs the various narratives on Ilse Koch. In the process, she reveals how the concepts of violence, gender, and guilt became crystalized in her person, and why.
For the post-war German societies it becomes clear: the more cruelly Ilse Koch was depicted, the more possible it was for Germans to distance themselves from her and to excuse themselves. A clever, enlightening study of personalized evil, which is located beyond the human sphere.
