Karl Otto Koch

Genesis and rise of a commander model (1897-1941)

“An important man and of great value” (Matter of Himmler on Koch brought back by Josias von Waldeck und Pyrmont, 1942, cité by Smith, Die Hexe…, p. 79.)

August 2nd, 1897, Karl Otto Koch is born within an large family and recomposed (a brother and seven half-brothers and sisters), resulting from the working world and a modest social status. Salesman of formation, he is countable assistance when the First World War bursts.

He goes voluntary, but too young person and after the intervention of his mother, he is not built-in. In March 1916, it is finally built-in 153e regiment of infantry then in regiments 87 and 88. In May 1916, it joined the face: it will fight in Artois and in Hungary. It is wounded with three recoveries out of the face.

At the end of the war, it is Musketier and receives iron the Cross, 2nd class.

Captive fact, it remains in captivity in France from October 24th, 1918 to October 24th, 1919. On its return, he knows the precarious employment as accountant or bank clerk and misery. In 1924, it Marie with Marie Müller, who will give him a son, Manfred, two years later. In 1928, whereas he works for the Hufeld firm, he is shown of diversion and of vol. Condamné, he is laid off and his wife obtains the divorce.

Without employment, in Germany in economic crisis, it approaches the NSDAP then. In 1931, it adheres to the party (Nº 475586). In 1932 it is named responsible for the accounts of the local group of the NSDAP. In August 1932, it is named formative Standard (Regiment) S 33 of Kassel and on October 1st it becomes Truppenführer. In 1933, him and its troop which organize the exactions in the city is incorporated in the SS-Head of death.

In June, it is named Sturmführer and affected in Dresden. May 12th, 1933, Koch is proposed to direct the motorized unit of the 35e battalion S in Saxony. March 15th, 1934, it is promoted Obersturmführer. June 30th, 1934, Koch has the role of dislodging SA of the camp of internment of Hohnstein, close Dresden or are imprisoned between 600 to 700 people, it becomes the commander about it.

The manpower of the prisoners being weak and the number of “suited to still less work”, the authorities decide the 15 to dissolve the camp on August 23rd, 1934, Koch is promoted Hauptsturmführer. Karl von Eberstein, its direct superior, energetic and very hard judge the “. Of a calm, but decided nature. An organized man, on whom one can count…”. Karl Koch accompanies the last prisoners by the KZ Hohnstein with the KZ Sachsenburg. October 1st, it is named ordering camp (approx. 200 prisoners). November 2nd, it is transferred to the camp of Esterwegen “the camp most difficult to direct German camps”. November 8th, 1934, it becomes about it Führer of the troops (300 recruits S).

From March 2nd to April 1st, 1935, Koch occupies the functions of führer of the section of safety of the camp of Lichtenburg (700 prisoners). Hardly installed, Theodor Eicke, the inspector of the camps, calls it in Dachau. Koch remains only 21 days there, its passage is the result of its formation and he east becomes adjudant then. Started with the autumn 1934, the formation flash of Koch is completed eight month later. Eicke the judge, from now on ready to exert the high position in a camp on April 21st, 1935, Koch is named urgently ordering KZ Columbia-Haus, following many escapes: brutality increases and is systematized.

For Eicke: “Koch is a man of conscience exceptional: its behavior during and out of the service is irreproachable.” September 15th, it is promoted S Sturmbannführer, six months later, on March 31st, 1936, it becomes ordering KZ Esterwegen. This nomination once again in the urgency makes following the setting with the variation of the commander Loritz, who showed himself too brutal. There still violence increases. Eicke orders, in August 1936, the dissolution of the camp considered to be too dangerous for its proximity with the Dutch border.

September 1st, 1936, Karl Koch is named commander of Sachsenhausen. The stake is of size: For Himmler: “Instead of the simple camps built at the first times of the revolution”, it is a question of building “a concentration camp completely new, extensible at all moments, modern and of a new era”.

From 1936 to 1937, Koch directs 2.150 prisoners, of which 150 will be released, 521 S and 70 members of kommandantur. Sachsenhausen is a significant place: In 1936, whereas the Olympic Games proceed in the German capital, the camp is the object of the interest of the foreign journalists; the nomination of Koch is explained by its aptitude to handle the press. The command of Koch is marked by the brutality and the development of corruption even if this one remains marginal. May 29th, 1937, he marries Ilse Koch, born Köhler, in Sachsenhausen and, seems he, with the presence of Himmler. Eicke written at this time: “Koch was held with my with dimensions in a way decided and careful during the construction of the camp of Sachsenhausen. In an unexpected way, it succeeds in hardly four months building the camp”. July 12th, 1937, Koch is transferred ordering KZ Ettersberg, famous quickly Buchenwald. At that time, Koch is at the top of its career for much it incarnates the ideal commander. Its command can be described as dedicated, of scrupulous, paternalist, but also marked by sadism, the personal organization of tortures and executions whose mainly the roms and the Jews are victims (48 people die in the first six months of the camp, 771 the following year, 1.235 in 1939,1 772 in 1940 and 1.522 in 1941 is 5.348 in Buchenwald), and above all by the development of corruption: it is made arrange a villa of 500.000 RM to the expenses of the S and sets up a gangster network in which its adjudants, his family and some prisoners collaborate. A network tolerated by the hierarchy, but also source of disapproval and covetousness inside even of the system. The commander d' Auschwitz qualifying the work of Koch of “filth”.

The time of the calling into question (1941-1943)

Dear comrade, if any lawyer tries to pose his dirty hands on your innocent body, I will bar to him the way of all my forces”. (Oswald Pohl, Chief of the economic Administration S . (City by Smith, Die Hexe von Buchenwald , p. 71.)

December 17th, 1941, the Prosecutor Higher Josias von Waldeck und Pyrmont convenes Koch with Kassel so that he is explained on the irregularities of the accounts of the Koch camp is confused and shut down immediately. Himmler, which mentions the arrest in its diary of service puts an end quickly to the embarrassment by ordering its immediate liberation. Waldeck Pyrmont then will have of cease only to see Koch in front of the courts, which he considers vulgar and especially traitor with the values “of honesty, solidarity, friendship S”. A few days afterwards, Koch arrives at Lublin to exert its new functions: it becomes, on January 19th, 1942, ordering prison camp of war of the Waffen S of Lublin, later known under the name of death camp of Majdanek.

This assignment returns to the reputation da builder of Koch and was certainly envisaged of long time. Koch which, in September 1941, had inaugurated in Buchenwald the first massacres of Soviet prisoners of war, continuous in Lublin to carry out these war crimes. Between November 1941 and March 1942, 1.000 Soviet prisoners are killed. Lublin between also within the framework of the “Final solution of the Jewish question” whose last bureaucratic adjustments were sealed on January 20th, 1942 with Berlin - Wannsee. December 19th, 1941, the day before the day initially planned for the Conference of Wannsee, the Inspection of the camps orders the transport “of all the Jews suited to work towards KGL-Lublin”. The order known under the name of “All the Jews towards Koch-Lublin” will be cancelled a few days later continuation certainly with the true conference holding. It however shows the role which is entrusted to Koch in this policy. Koch is still posts some, on July 25th, when the administration of the camp orders 1474 boxes of Zyklon B. Koch then does not direct the exterminations by gas, but it takes part directly in the first phase of extermination. According to the registers of the deaths 3.096 people are assassinated between January and at the end of July 1942.

The incident of 1941 and its passage to the prison of Weimar seem not to affect the criminal activities of Koch. If they do not lower intensity, they are done from now on in prudence. As in Buchenwald, Koch is surrounded corrupted men and makes come with him part of its “band”. The acts of sadism of Koch are much documented than its official crimes.

In Lublin, Koch has serious problems however. After a few months these difficulties become insurmountable, 130 prisoners manage to escape and, on July 14th, 1942, 86 Soviet prisoners manage during an spectacular action to flee. While waiting for the results of the investigation, Himmler decides the setting provisional well off Koch.

August 24th, it is transferred to the Administration complementary to Waffen S. August 31st, 1942, Koch officially “is put in vacancy” and transferred to the “complementary service” of Waffen S. It takes its functions on September 10th, 1942. The investigation continues and, on February 17th, 1943, after 6 months of instruction, the procedure is classified without continuation. With the complementary service, Koch has unquestionable problems in the uses of office where it is affected where his departure is wished. But it is not any more question of reinstating it in the system of the camps from now on directed by managers in the orientations productivists

One condemned to died for the example? (1943-1945)

“A tired and lazy man” (Heinrich Himmler in connection with Karl Koch, March 1943.)

Before dying Forster (hung by Koch) turned to Koch to treat it of “coward” and prevented it: its death “would be more terrible than his”.

In Kassel, judge Waldeck Pyrmont receives on May 22nd, 1942 the conclusions of the investigation of the Kauke lawyer highlighting irregularities of management and the black-market related to Buchenwald. The implications are such as in June 1943, one sends “the” specialist S in the corruption affairs to him: Obersturmführer S Dr. Konrad Morgen. Its investigations carry out straight to Koch. In less than two weeks, it bored up to date the Koch system and leads profitable searchings to Buchenwald, Weimar and Lublin. It puts also up to date tens of illegal assassinations, in particular of witnesses, ordered by Koch. Himmler orders a new investigation, on August 8th, 1943. The following day, the villa of Koch is searched. August 24th, it authorizes the arrest for embezzlement, forgery and use of forgery, destruction of official documents and other intrigues. The interrogation which Morgen carries out then is so hard that Koch crumbles and passes to the first consents. In spite of the intervention of the superiors of Koch making pressure on the judges, and the intrigues of the accomplices and the friends of Koch who make disappear the evidence and liquidate the witnesses captive or S and in charge of investigation, Koch is officially accused in April 1944. He is accused of corruption, embezzlement and personal enrichment (more than 200.000 Reichsmarks), incompetence and violation of the military laws, noncorrect behavior of the accounts and ill treatments of the Jewish prisoners in spite of the orders, not denunciation and continuation of S with Lublin whereas he is pilot their flights, negligence concerning the security measures having involved the escape of prisoners, handling of manpower with an aim of dissimulating escapes and illegal arrests of civilians in order to maintain the level of manpower, cruelty and treatments cruel and barbarians of prisoners by the use of blows, the hunger and “freezing”, physical constraint in violation of valid manners in Germany, control of black cases and companies and privileged treatment of prisoners, wearing civil clothes and having the right to leave the camp, thus threatening safety of the S; he is finally shown for assassinations of prisoners (illegal selections of prisoners to be assassinated, executions of 21 Jews in 1939,200 murders are ascribable for him, only three will be retained for the lawsuit) and other crimes: the violation of the tax laws while having voluntarily omitted to declare appreciations, the violation of the customs laws relating to the international transport of goods while having introduced into the camp of the goods coming from Holland and France, the violation of the commercial laws by the illegal exercise of the trade, the violation of the laws relating to the animals with the illegal demolition of cattle, the exercise of the black-market, the appropriation of goods of the State, the flight of electrical energy, while having made connect its villa to electrical installations of the camp, and the fraud on the payment of repairs already paid by the S.

The first audience of the lawsuit takes place behind closed doors, in September 1944. On the dock, the “Band is held of Koch”, almost complete. Ilse and Karl Koch, Martin To summon and Waldemar Hoven and other S. The defense of Koch is based on innocence. Until the last interrogation before the lawsuit, he denies personal enrichment. He seeks to justify his statements of account and pushes back on others his culpability; its only fault is not to have sufficiently controlled. It also calls some with its bad memory and its absence of the camps for a long time. Finally, the strategy of Koch is partly paying. The examining magistrate requires a further information in order to find the supposed orders of assassinations. The second and last go down for hearing opens on December 18th. The following day, the prosecutor S asks for the capital punishment for Karl and sorrow a five years of imprisonment for Ilse.

At the end of the deliberations, only Karl is recognized guilty of three assassinations and diversion of the money of the State. The sentence is the capital punishment. Ilse is discharged.

After its judgment, Koch remains in the prison of the Gestapo in Weimar. April 4th, when S come to seek it, he asks to remain in Weimar. He says to which can hear it that the S want to kill it. Koch resists and the S are constrained to employ the force. They take it along until Buchenwald where it is locked up with the dungeon. Koch shouts all during the night, like a demented person. The following day, it is extracted from its cell and is shot. Its body is then incinerated with the camp

Koch remains the only commander of camp to be carried out after a death sentence pronounced by the S. Before being brought on the place of execution, the ground of exercise of the troops S, Karl Koch passed last once in front of “its” kommandantur and the door of “its” prison camp. If the near total of the camps carried the inscription “work makes free”, Koch had ordered that another inscription is forged on the door, to mark its difference once more. While passing in front of this one, it could last once lira “its” words: “With each one its due”.

Literature

Benoit Cazenave, Exemplarité of the commander SS Karl Otto Koch , Auschwitz Foundation, January 2006, Brussels.
Segers Anna, Das siebte Kreuz , (1st edition 1942), Aufbau Taschen Verlag, Berlin, 1993. (Appeared in France under the title the Seventh Cross , Gallimard, Paris 1947).
Hackett David, The Buchenwald Carryforward , Westview Near, Oxford, 1995.
Naujoks Harry, Mein Leben im KZ Sachsenhausen , Dietz Verlag, Berlin, 1989.
Schilde Kurt and Tuchel Johannes, Columbia Haus: Berliner Konzentrationslager 1933-1936 , Edition Hentrich, Berlin, 1994.
Stein Harry, the Concentration camp of Buchenwald 1937-1945 , Catalogs permanent exposure, ED. Wallstein, Göttingen, 1999.
Schmeling Anke, Josias Erbprinz zu Waldeck und Pyrmont, DER politische Weg eines hohen SS-Führers , ED. Gesamthochschulebibliothek, Kassel, 1993.
Orth Karin, The concentration camp S ace has functional elite , in National-Socialist Extermination Policies , under the direction of Ulrich Herbert, ED. Berghahn Book, New York, 2000, pp. 306-336.
Fuchs Alexandra and Kluge Michaela, Die Geschichte of ehemaligen KZ Sachsenburg , Memory of Magister, not dated, Library of Buchenwald F 116.
Schwarz Gudrun, Eine Frau year seiner Seite - Ehefrauen in der SS-Sippengemeinschaft , ATV, Berlin, 2000.
Segev Tom, Die Soldaten of Bösen: Zur Geschichte der KZ-Kommandanten , (original title: Soldiers off Evil. The commanders off the Nazi Concentration Camps , McGraw-Hill Book Compagny, New York, 1988), Rowohlt Taschenbuch Verlag, Reinsbeck EIB Hamburg, 1992.
Smith Arthur L. Jr, Die Hexe von Buchenwald - Der Fall Ilse Koch , ED. Böhlau Verlag, Cologne, 1995.
Durand Pierre, Die Bestie von Buchenwald , Militär Verlag der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik, Berlin, 1987.

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