Transfixed by an image: Ilse Koch, the 'Kommandeuse of Buchenwald'

German History

Volumn 19, Issue 3, 2001, Pages 369-399

  Przyrembel, Alexandra ^a  

^a TECHNISCHE UNIVERSITÄT BERLIN   (Germany)

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EID: 61049454826     PISSN: 02663554     EISSN: 1477089X     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1191/026635501680193915     Document Type: Article

References (99)

1. The German title of this essay, 'Der Bann eines Bildes', borrows from an essay by Alf Lüdtke, 'Der Bann der Wörter: Todesfabriken', WerkstattGeschichte, 13 (1996), pp. 5-18
2. Egon W. Fleck and Edward A. Tenenbaum, 'Buchenwald: ein vorläufiger Bericht vom 24.4.1945', in Lutz Niethammer (ed.), Der gesäuberte Antifaschismus. Die SED und die roten Kapos von Buchenwald. Dokumente (Berlin, 1994), pp. 180-98, 195
3. BAW, RG 153
4. 'German Civilians Forced to See SS Horror Camp by Patton', Washington Post, 4 June 1945, in BAW, RG 153
5. See also Claudia Benthien, 'Häutungen. Folter - Enthüllung - Gestaltwandel. Zur Kulturgeschichte einer "Entdeckung"', Paragrena, 6 (1997), pp. 197-217
6. Ulrich Herbert, 'Einleitung', in Ulrich Herbert, Karin Orth and Christoph Dieckmann (eds.), Die nationalsozialistischen Konzentrationslager. Entwicklung und Struktur, Vol. I (Göttingen, 1998), pp. 18-19
7. On the meaning of the concentration camps for political education analysing the example of 'Anne Frank trips' to Bergen-Belsen, see Alexandra Przyrembel, 'Die Tagebücher Victor Klemperers und ihre Wirkung in der deutschen öffentlichkeit', in Johannes Heil and Rainer Erb (eds.), Geschichtswissenschaft und Öffentlichkeit. Der Streit um Daniel J. Goldhagen, (Frankfurt/Main, 1998), pp. 312-27
8. Alf Lüdtke, 'Die Fiktion der Institution. Herrschaftspraxis und Vernichtung der europäischen Juden im 20. Jahrhundert', in Reinhard Blänkner and Bernhard Jüssen (eds.), Institutionen und Ereignis. Über Praktiken und Vorstellungen gesellschaftlichen Ordnens (Göttingen, 1998), pp. 357-79
9. Against this background it would be interesting to know more about how the SS guards Irma Grese, Dorothea Binz and Maria Mandel were perceived in the British military courts and the Polish courts. The three women were hanged, in November 1945 and in 1947. Instructive in this sense are the first contributions on the trial and reception of the SS guards Grese, Hildegard Lächert and Hermine Ryan-Braunsteiner by Martina Ehlert, '"Umerziehung zur Demokratie". Der erste Bergen-Belsen-Prozeß in Zeitungsberichten', in Claus Füllberg-Stollberg et al. (eds.), Frauen in Konzentrationslagern. Bergen-Belsen und Ravensbrück (Bremen, 1994), pp. 251-9
10. see also Ingrid Müller-Münch, Die Frauen von Majdanek. Vom zerstörten Leben der Opfer und Möderinnen (Reinbek, 1982)
11. On Irma Grese see also Daniel Patrick Brown, The Beautiful Beast: The Life and Crimes of SS-Aufseherin Irma Grese (Ventura, 1996)
12. For a particularly striking example see the research of Insa Eschebach, who notes in her study of the East German state security service reports on former SS guards at Ravensbrück concentration camp that they largely reproduce the Ministry of State Security's normative images of femininity and have little to say about the biographies of this group of female perpetrators. See Eschebach, '"Negative Elemente". Ermittlungsberichte des MfS über ehemalige SS-Aufseherinnen', in Annette Leo and Peter Reif-Spirek (eds.), Helden, Täter und Verräter. Studien zum DDR-Antifaschismus (Erfurt and Berlin, 1999), pp. 197-210
13. The first attempt to evaluate trials of Nazi perpetrators from a gender-specific perspective was undertaken by the literary scholar Sigrid Weigel in the mid-1990s. See her 'Erinnerung vor Gericht. Zum Opfer-Täter-Diskurs über den Nationalsozialismus in Helga Schuberts "Judasfrauen" und ihren Gerichtsquellen', in her Bilder des kulturellen Gedächtnisses. Beiträge zur Gegenwartsliteratur (Dülmen-Hiddingseel, 1994), pp. 198-231
14. See, most recently, Insa Eschebach, 'Interpreting Female Perpetrators: Ravensbrück Guards in the Courts of East Germany, 1946-1955', in Ronald Smelser (ed.), Lessons and Legacies V: Law Evidence and Context (Chicago, forthcoming)
15. On Ilse Koch see the monographs by Arthur L. Smith, Die Hexe von Buchenwald: Der Fall Ilse Koch (Cologne, 1983; 2nd edn, 1994; references are to the edition of 1994)
16. and Pierre Durand, Die Bestie von Buchenwald (Berlin, 1985)
17. French original, La Chienne de Buchenwald (Paris, 1982)
18. Die Zeit, 36 (1967), p. 8
19. Norbert Frei, Vergangenheitspolitik. Die Anfänge der Bundesrepublik und die NS-Vergangenheit (Munich, 1996), p. 397
20. See also Ulrich Brochhagen, Nach Nürnberg. Vergangenheitsbewä ltigung und Westintegration in der Ära Adenauer (Hamburg, 1994)
21. Frei, Vergangenheitspolitik, p. 219
22. On the 'phantasmagoria' associated with Ilse Koch see Herbert, 'Einleitung', p. 18
23. That the destruction of the myth surrounding Koch can just as easily turn into an apology for Nazi crimes is evident in Armin Mohler's essay 'Erstes Intermezzo: Ilse Koch, die "meistgehaßte Frau der Welt"', in his Der Nasenring. Im Dickicht der Vergangenheitsbewältigung (Essen, 1989), pp. 133-51
24. In comparison to the few existing empirical studies of this subject, there has been a lively epistemological debate on situating German women within National Socialism. Still fundamental is Annemarie Tröger's now thirty-year-old essay 'Die Dolchstoßlegende der Linken: "Frauen haben Hitler an die Macht gebracht". Thesen zur Geschichte der Frauen am Vorabend des Dritten Reiches', in Gruppe Berliner Dozentinnen (eds.), Frau und Wissenschaft. Beiträge zur Berliner Sommeruniversität (Berlin, 1976), pp. 325-55
25. More than ten years ago Angelika Ebbinghaus's collection of materials on victims and female perpetrators in National Socialism unleashed a heated debate among women's historians, which received scant attention from scholars of National Socialism more generally. See Ebbinghaus (ed.), Opfer und Täterinnen. Frauenbiographien des Nationalsozialismus (Nördlingen, 1987)
26. Lerke Gravenhorst and Carmen Tatschmurat (eds.), Töchter-Fragen. NS-Frauen-Geschichte (Freiburg, 1990)
27. Claudia Koonz, Mothers in the Fatherland: Women, the Family and Nazi Politics (London, 1987)
28. and Gisela Bock's polemical reply, 'Ein Historikerinnenstreit', Geschichte und Gesellschaft, 3 (1992), pp. 400-4
29. and Adelheid von Saldern, 'Opfer oder (Mit)Täterinnen? Kontroversen über die Rolle der Frau im NS-Staat', Sozialwissenschaftliche Information (SoWi), 2 (1991), pp. 97-103
30. More recent works on this subject call for an historicization and de-ideologization of the victim/perpetrator debate. Cf. the collection of essays, Kirsten Heinsohn, Barbara Vogel and Ulrike Weckel (eds.), Zwischen Karriere und Verfolgung. Handlungsräume von Frauen im nationalsozialistischen Deutschland (Frankfurt/Main and New York, 1997)
31. Wolfgang Sofsky, Die Ordnung des Terrors. Das Konzentrationslager (Frankfurt/Main, 1993)
32. Jens Schley, Nachbar Buchenwald: Die Stadt Weimar und ihr Konzentrationslager 1937-45 (Weimar, 1998)
33. cf. Sybille Steinbacher, Dachau - die Stadt und das Konzentrationslager Dachau in der NS-Zeit: die Untersuchung einer Nachbarschaft (Frankfurt/Main, 1994)
34. which is largely based on a study of Buchenwald and shaped by his own experiences, there is also an important collection of documents: Nationale Mahn- und Gedenkstätte Buchenwald (ed.), Buchenwald. Mahnung und Verpflichtung: Dokumente und Berichte (4th revised edn, Berlin, 1983)
35. See also the older study by Klaus Drobisch, Widerstand in Buchenwald (2nd edn, Berlin, 1985)
36. That an analysis of trial records can lead to widely differing conclusions about the motivations of various groups of perpetrators is made clear by the controversy between Christopher Browning and Daniel Goldhagen over the Hamburg Police Battalion 101: Daniel Jonah Goldhagen, Hitler's Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust (London, 1996) and Christopher Browning, Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the 'Final Solution' in Poland (New York, 1992)
37. Johannes Tuchel undertook a first attempt at examining the trials of National Socialist perpetrators from a source-critical perspective, which Christoph Bitterberg has significantly expanded in his MA thesis. See Bitterberg's 'Der Bielefelder Prozeß als Quelle für die deutsche Judenpolitik im Bezirk Bialystok', thesis, Hamburg University, 1995
38. and Johannes Tuchel, 'Die NS-Prozesse als Materialgrundlage für die historische Forschung. Thesen zu Möglichkeiten und Grenzen interdisziplinärer Zusammenarbeit', in Jürgen Weber and Peter Steinbach (eds.), Die Vergangenheitsbewältigung durch Strafverfahren? NS-Prozesse in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, Akademiebeiträge zur politischen Bildung, 12 (Munich, 1984), pp. 134-44
39. Cf. the statement of 2 May 1949 by Anna Reimer: 'On the other hand it was not unknown to me and also to my women comrades [Kameraden-Frauen] that Frau Koch already had a bad reputation as a woman at that time': KS 22/50, GV III. On the question of the minutes of interrogations of Nazi perpetrators and constructions of memories in interviews with survivors, see Insa Eschebach, '"Ich bin unschuldig". Vernehmungsprotokolle als historische Quellen. Der Rostocker Ravensbrück-Prozeß 1966', WerkstattGeschichte, 12 (1995), pp. 65-70
40. and 'SS-Aufseherinnen des Frauenkonzentrationslagers Ravensbrück. Erinnerungen ehemaliger Häftlinge', WerkstattGeschichte, 13 (1996), pp. 39-48
41. For more detail, see Smith, Die Hexe von Buchenwald. In the article 'Die Kommandeuse von Buchenwald' (Nachtexpress, 18 August 1947), for example, Ilse Koch is described as the 'most despicable ... Nazi beast', with long quotations from the above-mentioned passages in Kogon's book
42. See the testimony of Robert Siewert, Harry Kuhn and Walter Bartel of 10 March 1950, 21 April 1950 and 4 May 1950: KS 22/50, GV V
43. On Karl Koch's biography, see Klaus Drobisch and Günther Wieland, System der Konzentrationslager 1933-1939 (Berlin, 1993), p. 258
44. Johannes Tuchel, Konzentrationslager. Organisationsgeschichte und Funktion der 'Inspektion der Konzentrationslager' 1934-1938, Schriften des Bundesarchivs, 39 (Boppard/Rhein, 1991), pp. 379-80
45. cf. the more extensive account in Tom Segev, Die Soldaten des Bösen. Zur Geschichte der KZ-Kommandanten (Reinbek, 1982)
46. Although Ilse Koch's early membership in the NSDAP permits no conclusions to be drawn about the motivations for her later behaviour, it does evidence an astonishingly early affinity for National Socialism. During the period 1925-32 only 7.8% of NSDAP members were women. In 1933 the figure was 4.4%, which rose steadily beginning in 1937 until reaching 34.7% in 1944. On the figures and the background to them, see also Michael Kater, The Nazi Party (Cambridge, Mass., 1983), pp. 148ff. and 254
47. Schley, Nachbar Buchenwald, p. 78 n. 107
48. The phrase quoted here comes from the minutes of the VVN (Federation of Persons Persecuted by the Nazi Regime) of the first day of the trial; see THStAW, Bu 31, fos. 227-8. Karin Orth, 'Rudolf Höß und die "Endlösung der Judenfrage". Drei Argumente gegen deren Datierung auf den Sommer 1941', WerkstattGeschichte, 18 (1997), pp. 45-58
49. See also the same author's Das System der nationalsozialistischen Konzentrationslager. Eine politische Organisationsgeschichte (Hamburg, 1999)
50. and Die Konzentrationslager-SS. Sozialstrukturelle Analysen und biographische Studien (Göttingen, 2000)
51. Rudolf Höß, Kommandant in Auschwitz. Autobiographische Aufzeichnung, ed. Martin Broszat (Munich, 1963)
52. KS 22/50 (undated)
53. Robert Sigel, Im Interesse der Gerechtigkeit. Die Dachauer Kriegsverbrecherpozesse 1945-1948 (Frankfurt/Main, 1992), pp. 38-9
54. For the wording of the indictment see An Information Booklet on the Concentration Camp Case. The United States of America vs. Josias Prince zu Waldeck et al. (Dachau, 1947), p. 8
55. See Kurt Titz's autobiographical account 'Ich war Kalfaktor der "gnädigen" Frau. Erlebnisse im Hause des SS- Standartenfü hrers Koch, Kommandant des KZ Buchenwald' (BAW 833-21)
56. A file set up by the Augsburg public prosecutor's office - arranged according to the various categories of inmates - provides an overview of the extent of the interrogations that were carried out; see KS 22/50. That the lawyer Alfred Seidl must be placed within the right-wing extremist end of the political spectrum in the Federal Republic is evident from his published collection of materials about Rudolf Heß, in which he seeks to demonstrate that the former 'Deputy to the Führer' was murdered in the Allied military prison in 1987: Seidl, Der Fall Rudolf Heß 1941-1987. Dokumentation des Verteidigers (3rd expanded edn, Munich, 1988)
57. Allied Control Council Law No. 4 reintroduced the criminal and civil codes that had been valid before 30 January 1933: R. Hemken (ed.), Sammlung der vom Alliierten Kontrollrat und der amerikanischen Regierung erlassenen Proklamationen, Gesetze, Verordnungen, Befehle, Vol. I (Stuttgart, n.d.), unpaginated
58. Michael Pollak, Die Grenzen des Sagbaren. Lebensgeschichten von KZ-Überlebenden als Augenzeugenberichte und als Identitätsarbeit (Frankfurt/Main, 1988), p. 146
59. see also Ulrike Jureit, 'Authentische und konstruierte Erinnerung - Methodische Überlegungen zu biographischen Sinnkonstruktionen', WerkstattGeschichte, 18 (1997), pp. 91-101
60. the pioneering study by William G. Niederland, Folgen der Verfolgung. Das Überlebenden-Syndrom. Seelenmord (Frankfurt/Main, 1980)
61. and Ulrike Jureit, Erinnerungsmuster. Zur Methodik lebensgeschichtlicher Interviews mit Überlebenden der Konzentrations- und Vernichtungslager (Hamburg, 1999)
62. BWA 812-210, fo. 202
63. Verdict, in Justiz und NS-Verbrechen, p. 71
64. BWA 50-3-22. A political inmate, who had only begun to work in the pathology lab in 1943, confirmed that tattooed skins were still being 'processed'. See the interrogation transcript of 24 May 1950: KS 22/50, GV III, fos. 110
65. Paul G., testimony of 22 March 1950: KS 22/50, GV VI
66. KS 22/50, GV I, fo. 140
67. Sofsky, Die Ordnung des Terrors, p. 251
68. Smith, Die Hexe von Buchenwald, pp. 101ff
69. On American reporting immediately following the liberation of the concentration camps, see Norbert Frei, '"Wir waren blind, ungläubig und langsam". Buchenwald, Dachau und die amerikanischen Medien im Frühjahr 1945', Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte (VfZ), 3 (1987), pp. 385-401
70. see also Peter Krahulec, Roland Schopf and Siegfried Wolf (eds.), Buchenwald-Weimar April 1945. Wann lernt der Mensch? Ein Grundlagenbuch für Gruppenarbeit und Selbststudium (Munich and Hamburg, 1994)
71. While the main intention of the Nuremberg trials had been the dissolution of National Socialist organizations and economic enterprises, the trials conducted by the Military Government Courts, which were under the jurisdiction of the US Army, were mainly concerned with the prosecution of war crimes committed against the United States and the 'mass atrocities' in the concentration camps. These differing objectives of the trials also found institutional expression. The Nuremberg Trials were the responsibility of the Office Chief of Counsel for War Crimes (OCCWC), while the Theater Judge Advocate or his deputy were responsible for the conduct of the Dachau trials. According to the figures available in the secondary literature, 1,672 or 1,941 defendants were tried in Dachau. See Martin Broszat, '"Siegerjustiz" oder strafrechtliche Selbstreinigung. Aspekte der Vergangenheitsbewältigung der deutschen Justiz während der Besatzungszeit 1945-1949', VfZ, 3 (1981), pp. 477-544, here 477
72. and Sigel, Im Interesse der Gerechtigkeit
73. An Information Booklet on the Concentrations Camp Case. The United States of America vs. Josias Prince zu Waldeck et al, p. 11
74. On the conception of the American war crimes programme, see Frank M. Buscher, The U.S. War Crimes Trial in Germany, 1946-1955, Contributions in Military Studies, 86 (New York, Westport and London, 1989)
75. Saul Padover, 'The Ilse Koch Case', The Nation, 6 November 1948
76. 'Sam Stavisky, Former Buchenwald Prisoner, Now Here Recalls Ilse Koch amid Horrors of the Camp', The Washington Post, 20 September 1948
77. see also the letter to the editor from Kurt Sitte, who became a key witness against Ilse Koch before both the Dachau court and the US Senate investigative committee, and here called for her conviction: Sitte, 'The Case of Ilse Koch. To the Editor' of the New York Times, 18 October 1948
78. 'The Butcher's Wife', New York Times, 21 September 1948
79. 'The Bitch Again', Time, 4 October 1948
80. cf. 'The Witch of Buchenwald: The Good and the Horrible . . .', Newsweek, 28 July 1947, p. 38. Magazine stories about Ilse Koch were generally illustrated with pictures from the Koch family photo albums. The photographs chosen usually showed the family in SS officers' housing or Ilse and Karl Koch swimming
81. Cf. Edwin C. Hartrich, 'The Evidence against Ilse Koch. No Proof Buchenwald Commandant's Wife Collected Tattooed Human Skin', New York Herald Tribune, 13 October 1948
82. and the contrary view, 'The Case of Ilse Koch. Readers Comment on the Evidence of Her Having Collected Tattooed Human Skin', ibid., 20 October 1948
83. For a defence of Hartrich's analysis, see Walter Millis, 'A Review of the Ilse Koch Case. What the Republic knows about the Woman Charged with Atrocities at Buchenwald', ibid., 29 October 1948
84. 'How Not to Teach Democracy to Germans', The Saturday Evening Post, 13 November 1948
85. Maximillian Koesler also emphasized this. He also cast doubt on the legitimacy of the investigative sub-committee and its instructions to the German judiciary. See his 'The Ilse Koch Case Senate Investigation and its Legal Problems with Observations on Double Jeopardy and Res Judicata', Missouri Law Review, 1 (1958), pp. 1-23, here 23
86. Lucius D. Clay, Decision in Germany (Garden City, N.Y., 1950; reprint, Westport, Conn., 1970), pp. 254-5
87. See Niethammer (ed.), Der gesäuberte Antifaschismus
88. See also Manfred Overesch, Buchenwald und die DDR oder die Suche nach Selbstlegitimation (Göttingen, 1995)
89. Der Telegraf, 19 September 1948
90. 'Die Verbrechen der Koch sind die Verbrechen der SS', Die Tat, 6 January 1951
91. See also the letters to the editor printed in 'Für Nazibestie Ilse Koch die Todesstrafe', Lausitzer Rundschau, 16 January 1951
92. Kogon, Der SS-Staat, pp. 100-1, 190
93. 'Dr Kogon wird im Koch-Prozeß aussagen', Der Sozialdemokrat, 8 January 1951
94. '200 Zeugen gegen Lampenschirm-Ilse. Mammut-Prozeß gegen Ilse Koch kann beginnen', 8 Uhr Blatt, 18 October 1950
95. cf. 'Rothaarige, grünäugige Hexe von Buchenwald. Der neue Prozeß um Ilse Koch kostet Hunderttausende - Tatsachen, die bisher unbekannt waren', Nordbayerische Zeitung, 12 May 1950
96. On the 'Stille Hilfe' see Ernst Klee, Persilschein und falsche Pässe: wie die Kirchen den Nazis halfen (Frankfurt/Main, 1991), pp. 144-5
97. 'So unaussprechlich unanständig. Niemals besser illustriert - Ilse Koch', Der Spiegel, 16 February 1950, pp. 12-16.See also the article 'The Witch of Buchenwald', which printed pictures of Ilse Koch
98. 'So unaussprechlich unanständig', p. 12
99. Gisela Bock, 'Frauen- und Geschlechterbeziehungen in der nationalsozialistischen Rassenpolitik', in Theresa Wobbe (ed.), Nach Osten. Verdeckte Spuren nationalsozialistischer Verbrechen (Frankfurt/Main, 1992), pp. 99-133, 126. This is naturally a polemical exaggeration, since the last few years in particular have witnessed some movement in the field, not least because of the works by Insa Eschebach and Gudrun Schwarz cited above