ilse Koch

lse Koch (German:  Margarete Ilse Köhler; 22 September 1906 – 1 September 1967, known as the Witch of Buchenwald) was the wife of Karl Otto Koch commandant of the Nazi concentration camp Buchenwald (1937–1941) and Majdanek (1941–1943). In 1947, she became one of the first prominent Nazis tried by the US Military .

She 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 laciviousness toward prisoners. In  English, she is referred to as: "The Beast of Buchenwald","Queen of Buchenwald", "Red Witch of Buchenwald", "Butcher Widow"While at Buchenwald, Koch allegedly engaged in a gruesome experiment, where it was claimed that she ordered selected tattooed prisoners to be murdered and skinned to retrieve the tattooed parts of their bodies. It was allegedly done to help a prison doctor, Erich Wagner , in his dissertation on tattooing and criminality.

Koch and 30 other accused were arraigned before the American military court at Dachau (General Military Government Court for the Trial of War Criminals) in 1947. Prosecuting her was future   The United States Court She was charged with "participating in a criminal plan for aiding, abetting and participating in the murders at Buchenwald".

Koch announced in the courtroom that she was eight months pregnant but on 19 August 1947, she was sentenced to life imprisonment for "violation of the laws and customs of war" She was sentence in life in prison she hung herself in 1967 she had three children one commited suicide and the others lived in hiding.