Elsa Koch: The Blonde Witch of Buchenwald. Ilse Koch: biography and crimes

as an addition Saturday, March 19, 2011 13:11 ()

Elsa Koch had two diplomas: economics and commerce. she never worked in camp security, the barracks warden never had a weapon and did not have the right to escort a dog inside the camp, the German warden never had the right to touch or shout over the prisoners / Kapo did this / the German warden, like the Soviet one, never had to stay alone with the prisoners, there should always be two of them/

Elsa Koch did not work as a clerk, she worked as a secretary.

Her number on the National Socialist Member Card Mitgliedsnummer 1.130.836

Until 1942, there were prisoners in German camps who had no cash, and their funds were confiscated only by the court, so the Kochs could not use their finances to build a sports ground for prisoners... this was done by the state, in some cases the SS foundation.

A German female warden never had the opportunity to have contact with a male prisoner, even if there were cases of convoying a prisoner to a brothel after 1942. Therefore, it is not entirely clear who and how Elsa Koch could force to rape, as the wife of the main officer of the concentration camp.

Ober aufseherin.. and so on were not engaged in security, but in educating prisoners / order, discipline .../

In 1942-43, moral purge processes took place among the SS command, on the initiative of Himmler, which revealed corruption in German concentration camps / many commandants received bribes and valuables from the Jewish lobby, or used prisoners for housework / in the SS court of honor, the Koch family were sentenced to punishment, Koch's father was hanged and deprived of membership in the SS order (the Gestapo gave life imprisonment for dad in 1943), and Koch's mother was kicked out of work.

Elsa Koch was arrested by the Anglo-American authorities, but acquitted in court (mainly due to the fact that she gave the necessary testimony to the SS court), she was released by order of the Governor General of the occupying American forces, Lucius Clay.
However, in 1947, at the insistence of the Soviet side and the East German occupied territories, a new American trial began in the Buchenwald-Dachau case, where Koch was sentenced to life imprisonment, but Koch filed an appeal in 1948, and the court, having reviewed the case, left her with 4 years in prison. .
Elsa Koch gave birth to a son, Uwe Köhler / 29. Oktober 1947 / in prison from an unknown father, despite the fact that there was strict isolation, she was even forbidden to communicate with her mother.

In 1951, at the insistence of the Soviet German eastern authorities and international Jewish organizations, the case of Elsa Koch was again reviewed and life imprisonment was again given, although at this trial /verdict 15. Januar 1951 erging in Augsburg das Urteil/ it was proven that Elsa Koch was not involved in collections of human tattoos in jars..

In 1966, Elsa Koch unsuccessfully tried to appeal the court review, but she was constantly refused, and 2. September 1967 she mysterious circumstances found hanging in her cell from a sheet /Bavarian special prison for women in Aichach/

To date, there is no evidence of Elsa Koch in crimes against humanity or cruel treatment of prisoners

Feature film /USA/ Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS... is a 1974 The film was directed by Don Edmonds, produced by David F. Friedman and written by Jonah Royston.

On May 13, the following text appeared on the Komsomolskaya Pravda website: “Politician Leonid Gozman said: “ Beautiful shape“The only difference between SMERSH and the SS.”

Sometimes you regret that the Nazis didn’t make lampshades out of the ancestors of today’s liberals.”

To put it mildly, I don’t have a very good attitude towards the current so-called liberals. One might even say it's really bad. They're lying. They stage provocations. Bringing a blizzard. They cheat with foreign grants, save money, and receive millions in fees for undelivered lectures. In the end, they are simply not popular.

But! In any case, it’s not worth making lampshades out of their ancestors. And call for this too. Well, Gozman said another stupid thing. Spit and forget. This is not the first time this has happened for the liberal crowd, and probably not the last. Why touch their parents and grandparents? Why draw analogies with the fascist beyond?

Especially for Ulyana Skoybeda and her editors from a major federal newspaper, I present photographs of products made in concentration camps from the skin of our compatriots. As an illustrative example.

Lampshade made from the skin of Buchenwald concentration camp prisoners

Lampshade made from the skin of children - concentration camp prisoners

Another lampshade made from treated prisoners' leather

Soap made in a concentration camp from the bones of prisoners

A collection of tattooed skin samples cut from the bodies of concentration camp prisoners.

Cut tattoo

Gloves made of human skin. Buchenwald. 1943

Gloves made from the skin of concentration camp prisoners

And further. I recommend this to everyone who regrets not making lampshades from anyone’s ancestors for review. The story of the life and death of the famous “Madame Lampshade” Ilse Koch, one of the most cruel women of the 20th century, whose favorite pastime was making those same lampshades and other souvenirs from the skin of concentration camp prisoners.

This woman was born in Saxony in 1906. The daughter of a laborer, she was a diligent schoolgirl, loved and was loved, and was popular with the village boys. Before the war, she worked as a librarian. Quite a pretty woman, right? I present to your attention - Madame Lampshade (as her colleagues called her), or Buchenwald Bitch (as her prisoners called her). The incomparable Ilse Koch (née Kohler).

How did it happen that an excellent student, a girl with an angelic character, became a monstrous pervert, expelled even from the Gestapo for cruelty (this is not a joke).

Her future husband front-line soldier to the core. He fought a lot in the First World War, even though his mother pulled him out of the trenches with the help of her numerous connections, young Karl Otto Koch still went through the school of courage on the most intense sections of the Western Front. The First World War ended for him in a prisoner of war camp. After his release, he returned to his native and defeated Germany. The former front-line soldier managed to get a good job. Having received the post of bank employee, he married in 1924. However, two years later the bank collapsed, and Karl was left without a job. At the same time, his marriage also failed. The young unemployed man found a solution to his problems in Nazi ideas and soon served in the SS. They met in 1936, when the concentration camp system had already spread throughout Germany. Standartenführer Karl Koch served in Sachsenhausen. Ilsa had a love affair with the boss, and she agreed to become his secretary.

In Sachsenhausen, Koch, even among his own people, acquired a reputation as an out-and-out sadist. Nevertheless, it was these qualities that helped him win Ilsa’s heart. And at the end of 1937 the marriage ceremony took place.

The authorities of the Reich Main Security Office, encouraging the concentration camp system, nominated Koch for promotion. In 1939, he was tasked with organizing a concentration camp in Buchenwald, 9 km from Weimer (Bach’s birthplace, by the way). The commandant went to his new duty station with his wife.

While Koch reveled in power, watching the daily destruction of people, his wife took even greater pleasure in the torture of prisoners. In the camp they feared her more than the commandant himself. Frau Ilse usually walked around the camp, distributing lashes to anyone she met in striped clothes. Sometimes she took a ferocious shepherd dog with her and became delighted, setting the dog on pregnant women or prisoners with a heavy burden. It is not surprising that the prisoners nicknamed Ilsa “the bitch of Buchenwald.”

When it seemed to the completely exhausted prisoners that there were no more terrible tortures, Frau Ilse invented a new idea. She ordered the male prisoners to undress. Those who did not have a tattoo on their skin were of little interest to Ilsa Koch. But when she saw an exotic pattern on someone’s body, a carnivorous grin flashed in Frau Koch’s eyes. Later, Ilse Koch was nicknamed “Frau Lampshade.” She used the tanned skins of murdered men to create a variety of household utensils, of which she was extremely proud. She found the skin of gypsies and Russian prisoners of war with tattoos on the chest and back most suitable for crafts. This made it possible to make things very decorative. Ilsa especially liked lampshades.

Bodies of “artistic value” were taken to the pathology laboratory, where they were treated with alcohol and the skin was carefully torn off. Then it was dried, lubricated with vegetable oil and packaged in special bags.

Meanwhile, Ilsa improved her skills. She began to sew gloves and openwork underwear from the skin of prisoners. It turned out that even for the SS this was too much. This “craft did not go unnoticed by the authorities. At the end of 1941, the Koch couple appeared before the SS court in Kassel on charges of “excessive cruelty and moral corruption. Talk of lampshades and books leaked out of the camp and brought Ilsa and Karl to the dock, where they had to answer for “abuse of power.

However, that time the sadists managed to escape punishment. The court decided that they were the victim of a slander on the part of ill-wishers. The former commandant was for some time “an adviser in another concentration camp. But soon the fanatical spouses returned to Buchenwald. And then Frau Ilse turned around to the fullest. Postcards made from the leather of prisoners of war (about 3,600 pieces), handbags and purses, hairpins, underwear and gloves, as well as leather book bindings were extremely interesting to fashionistas of those times. Many of her friends and military wives placed orders and gladly purchased items from Frau Ilsa’s collection.

One of the prisoners, the Jew Albert Grenovsky, who was forced to work in the Buchenwald pathology laboratory, said after the war that prisoners selected by Ilsa with a tattoo were taken to the dispensary. There they were killed using lethal injections. There was only one reliable way not to fall into the “bitch’s lampshade” - disfigure your skin or die in a gas chamber. To some, this seemed like a good thing. I saw the tattoo that adorned Ilsa’s panties on the back of one of the gypsies from my block,” said Albert Grenovsky.

In 1944, Karl Koch was brought before a military tribunal on charges of murdering an SS man who had repeatedly complained of brazen extortion by the camp commandant. It was discovered that most of the looted valuables, instead of going to the Reichsbank safes in Berlin, ended up in the form of astronomical sums in the Koch spouses' secret account in a Swiss bank.

Koch's reputation was at rock bottom. And on a cold April morning in 1945, literally a few days before the liberation of the camp by the Allied forces, Karl Koch was shot in the courtyard of the very camp where he had recently controlled thousands of human destinies.

After the liberation of Buchenwald by the Allies, Frau Ilse managed to escape and was free until 1947. In 1947, American intelligence agents took her. Before the trial, she was kept in solitary confinement for more than a year. Frau Ilse understood perfectly well that she was facing the death penalty, but at forty she really didn’t want to die.

There are several ways to avoid the death penalty, one of them is pregnancy. Ilsa chose him. But how can you get pregnant in a maximum security cell where not even a fly can penetrate? During a meeting with friends or relatives, she was given a capsule with sperm, which Frau Ilsa inserted into her vagina with her finger. She was already in her second month at the trial. For several weeks, many former prisoners with burning eyes came to the courtroom to tell the truth about Ilse Koch’s past.

“The blood of more than fifty thousand victims of Buchenwald is on her hands,” the prosecutor said, “and the fact that this woman is in this moment pregnant does not exempt her from punishment.” But still, execution was avoided. American General Emil Kiel read out the verdict: “Ilse Koch - life imprisonment.”

In 1951, a turning point came in the life of Ilse Koch. General Lucius Clay, High Commissioner of the American occupation zone in Germany, with his decision shocked the world on both sides of the Atlantic - both the population of his country and the Federal Republic of Germany. He granted Ilse Koch her freedom, saying that there was only “slight evidence that she ordered the execution of anyone, and there was no evidence of her involvement in making tattooed skin crafts.

When the war criminal was released, the world refused to believe the validity of this decision. However, Frau Koch was not destined to enjoy freedom. As soon as she left the American military prison in Munich, she was arrested by German authorities and put back behind bars.

240 witnesses testified in court. They talked about Ilse's atrocities in the Nazi camp. This time, Ilse Koch was tried by the Germans, in whose name the Nazi, in her conviction, truly served the “Fatherland.” The war criminal was again sentenced to life imprisonment. She was firmly told that this time she could not count on any leniency.

That same year, on September 1, in a Bavarian prison cell, she ate her last schnitzel with salad, she wrote Farewell letter son, tied up the sheets and hanged herself.

Liberalism as an ideology
The essence of liberalism is the FALSE word "FREEDOM"
Democracy under capitalism: freedom that simply does not exist...
Liberalism is corruption
Liberalism is decay, decay, decay, death...

During World War II, Germany was ruled by Nazi criminals. Oddly enough, there were also women among them. Thus, Ilse Koch, nicknamed Frau Lampshaded, is considered the most striking cruel warden. From a young age, the girl was an active participant in the National Socialist Workers' Party. She joined the NSDAP back in 1932.

During her time as a prison guard in concentration camps, Ilsa committed a huge number of crimes against humanity. The worst thing about them is that she and her husband made various products from human skin. However, to this day there is debate regarding the veracity of all the crimes attributed to this odious couple.

Childhood WWII concentration camp guards

In 1906, a beautiful daughter appeared in an ordinary German family in the city of Dresden. Parents had high hopes for their child's future. The ordinary family of the future “Witch of Buchenwald” did not suspect that their lovely girl, who brought only joy, would in the future receive the terrible nickname Frau Lampshade. young girl She studied well at school, which gave her parents another reason to be calm about her future. After finishing school, Ilse Koch got a job in a library. Crucial moment in the girl’s life began with the rise to power of Adolf Hitler in 1932. It was then that she, still cheerful and modest, joined the National Socialist Party, which in the near future led to her acquaintance with Karl Koch, Ilse’s future husband.

Husband of Buchenwald witches"

Karl Koch's father was an official from Darmiggadt. He was 13 years older than his mother. He died when the boy was eight years old. The future commandant of the concentration camps did not please his mother with good grades at school. And after some time, he dropped out of school altogether and got a job as a messenger at a local factory. As soon as he turned seventeen, the guy immediately enlisted in the army as a volunteer.

A year later, for exemplary service and excellent work, the couple was transferred to Just here is the potential cruel woman fully revealed. Acting as a warden, Ilse Koch, an SS she-wolf, organized daily torture sessions for prisoners. Not trusting anyone with even the most terrible work, Ilsa personally beat people with a whip or whip. The only one the woman could trust with her business was her hungry shepherd, who bit Buchenwald prisoners to death.

German concentration camps had never known such cruelty and mercilessness on the part of a fragile woman.

Frau Lampshaded

The commandant's wife became seriously interested in the prisoners whose bodies were decorated with tattoos. Much to their regret, they were the first in line to inevitably die. The thing is that Koch Ilsa, whose biography is already full of terrifying facts, made various crafts from the skin of prisoners: from gloves and book bindings, to lampshades or even underwear. This woman's imagination knew no bounds.

In 1941, Frau Lampshaded was appointed to the position of senior matron, which gave her even more power and made her powers unlimited. Since then, Ilse Koch has allowed herself almost everything.

"Victims of slander"

Ilsa bragged about her cruel treatment of prisoners, as well as her “tricks,” to other guards. Therefore, the higher authorities soon learned about this. We must give them their due - the rumors led to the arrest of the couple for abuse of power. However, the first time the sadists were released without punishment, considering that they had become victims of a slander on the part of ill-wishers.

For some time, Karl Koch “atone for his sins” - he served as an adviser in another concentration camp, but soon the couple returned to their native Buchenwald.

Other crimes

In the autumn of the same 1941, Karl was appointed commandant of the concentration camp in Majdanek, where Elsa Koch - the “Witch of Buchenwald” - continued her abuse of prisoners with even greater passion. In 1942, her husband was convicted of corruption. This was the reason for his immediate removal from his position.

Medieval torture

Nazi criminals took unprecedented pleasure in tormenting and torturing prisoners. One of the couple's favorite weapons was a whip, along the entire length of which pieces of a sharp razor were inserted. Such a weapon could beat a person to death.

Karl introduced finger vices into widespread use, as well as hot iron branding. Such penalties could be applied to any violators of the concentration camp order. Throughout Germany, the order was the same, but the cruelty of the Kochs sometimes amazed even their like-minded people. The bloodthirstiness of the spouses frightened even the most cruel Nazis.

German concentration camps had the same laws and procedures: weak and sick prisoners were killed immediately, and those able to work were forced to work for the benefit of the Third Reich, and in inhumane conditions. Hunger and overwork led the prisoners to death, but Koch, watching this, reveled in power, and Ilsa came up with new sophisticated ways of bullying.

Execution of Karl Koch

A year after the first trial, Nazi criminals (although they were not considered such then, because the fascists themselves tried them at that time) were accused of the murder of Dr. Walter Kremen. During the investigation, SS officers established that he treated Karl for syphilis and was then killed to avoid publicity.

At the trial, which took place in 1944, the fact of theft on the part of the Kokhs came to light, and this is in the eyes of senior officials The SS was an unforgivable crime.

During the investigation, it became known about the secret accounts of a couple of sadists. So, the funds that were supposed to go to the Reichsbank safe in Berlin ended up with the Kochs. The former commandant took all jewelry and personal belongings, money from his prisoners, and even snatched gold crowns from the dead. In this way, Karl Koch ensured the post-war well-being of his family.

And it is for this crime, and not for cruel treatment with prisoners or for inhumane behavior in the camps, the former commandant was shot in April 1945. Before his death, Koch begged to be allowed to serve his sentence in a penal battalion, but the judge was inexorable.

He was executed just a few days before the liberation of the camp by Allied forces. Ironically, this happened in the courtyard of the camp where the monster himself for several years controlled thousands of human destinies. His widow Ilse Koch was no less guilty than her husband. Almost all the surviving and released prisoners claimed that Karl committed crimes under the influence of his cruel and bloodthirsty wife. However, during the proceedings she was acquitted. For a while, the woman moved to live with her parents.

First conclusion

But Ilse Koch still had to answer for the crimes she committed. On June 30, 1945, she was taken into custody again, and the investigation lasted two years. In 1947, the SS court sentenced the she-wolf to life imprisonment.

Before last woman denied her guilt, saying that she was only a “victim of the regime.” She refused to talk about involvement in terrible and terrifying “crafts” made from human skin, not admitting it at all.

To answer for her crimes, Ilse Koch appeared before an American military tribunal in the city of Munich. For several weeks, former prisoners of the Buchenwald camp testified against this scary woman. Their eyes were no longer burning with fear, but with anger.

The prosecutor said that the blood of fifty thousand Buchenwald prisoners congealed on Frau Lampshade’s hands. And the fact that a woman is pregnant cannot exempt her from punishment.

American General Emil Kiel read out the verdict: life imprisonment.

Ilse Koch: the SS she-wolf is on the loose again

But even here, luck did not abandon the “Witch of Buchenwald”. In 1951, General Lucius Clay, a prosecutor, shocked the whole world with his shocking statement. He released Ilsa Koch, citing the fact that there was not enough direct evidence against this woman. And Clay considered the testimony of hundreds of witnesses who spoke about the bullying and sadism of the she-wolf to be not strong enough for a life sentence.

The release of Frau Lampshaded caused a wave of indignation on the part of the people, so in the same 1951 the German government issued another order for her arrest.

Ilse Koch, out of habit, began to deny any accusations, explaining them by the fact that she was a hostage of circumstances, a servant of a strict regime. She did not want to admit guilt and said that all her life she had been surrounded by secret enemies of the Reich who slandered her.

Last conclusion

The new Germany sought to atone for the massive and brutal crimes of the Nazis, and therefore the imprisonment of Ilse Koch was a matter of principle. She was immediately placed in the dock, and all the forces of the Bavarian Ministry of Justice were thrown into searching for new evidence in the Koch case.

Ultimately, 240 witnesses testified in her case. All these people again spoke about the atrocities of the sadistic family, called Buchenwald. And this time Ilsa Koch was judged not by the Americans, but by the Germans, whom, according to Frau Lampshaded herself, she had served faithfully in her time.

The court sentenced the war criminal to life imprisonment. And this time turned out to be the last: it was firmly stated that now Ilse Koch could not count on any leniency.

Suicide of the "Witch of Buchenwald"

In 1967, Ilse Koch wrote a letter to her son Uwe, who was born shortly after the first verdict. In it, she complained about the injustice of the judge's decision and wrote that now she had to answer for the sins of others. In all her letters to her son there was no hint of repentance for the crimes she had committed.

On September 1 of the same year, the “Witch of Buchenwald,” while in a cell in a Bavarian prison, had dinner for the last time, wrote a farewell letter for her son, and, tying up the sheets, hanged herself.

In 1971, Ilse Koch's son, whom she gave birth to from a German soldier, tried to restore his mother's bad name. He took her last name and appeared in court, having previously written a heartfelt letter to the editor of the New York Times newspaper. However, his attempts remained unsuccessful.

20.08.2013 7 51346

This woman is considered one of the most brutal criminals of Nazi times. Journalists covering the post-war trials of war criminals nicknamed her the Bitch of Buchenwald and Frau Lampshaded. However, not all so simple...

Else Köhler, a resident of Dresden, was eight years old when the First World War began. World War. She was born in 1906 in ordinary family, who lived in cramped life circumstances. These hardships instilled in the girl the understanding that life is a complicated thing. Elsa’s parents could not give her a secure future, and all her life she had to rely only on herself.

100% German

In the surviving photographs of her youth, Elsa looks far from beautiful. However, she had a high opinion of herself. To escape from the working environment, Elsa, at the age of fifteen, entered accounting school and then got a job as a clerk in the accounting department. The time was hard, hungry and sad. It is not surprising that Elsa immediately liked the new party that had appeared and its new leader, Adolf Hitler. But ten years passed years before Elsa joined the NSDAP. It was 1932. A year later, her idol Hitler came to power and a new life began.

Elsa was already 26 years old. Membership in the party gave her hope of finally entering into a decent marriage. Party comrades introduced her to the divorced loser Karl Otto Koch. Karl also came from the bottom of society, in the past he was a thief and a swindler, at one time he was used as an informer in the police, but thanks to the party he rose to the occasion and began to climb the career ladder.

Elsa liked Karl, Karl liked her. In 1936 they got married. Ordinary life began, except that it took place against the backdrop of special German realities. Compatriots began to be imprisoned and even exterminated. Elsa followed the party line in everything. And when Karl was appointed commandant German concentration camp Buchenwald, intended for now for disloyal Germans and Jews, she followed her husband.

A picnic on the side of history

Life with Karl, however, did not work out. The “promising” party member turned out to be not only a sadist, but also a homosexual. Her husband’s special inclinations seemed to irritate Elsa, but she simply did not pay attention to it, and everyone lived as he liked - Karl raped male prisoners, and she discovered in herself an amazing desire for power. The prisoners feared their Frau Elsa, Mrs. Commandant, much more than Mr. Commandant.

She was an inventive woman. She came up with a variety of difficulties for the prisoners: she could force them to scrub the camp yard with toothbrushes, she could personally whip her with a whip, without which she did not go to the camp parade ground, she could order a young and handsome prisoner to be brought in for sexual entertainment - she liked to humiliate, she liked that she afraid, liked to instill a feeling of horror and attraction at the same time.

Survivors of Buchenwald told with a shudder that their witch got herself white horse, on which she traveled around the camp grounds and corrected the behavior of the unfortunate people with a whip. Often she appeared not on horseback, but on foot and with a huge shepherd dog, which with a sweet smile she released to tear the bodies of prisoners, often not only to the point of injury, but even to complete death.

To make their situation even more difficult for the prisoners, she appeared before her “racially unclean men” in tight-fitting sweaters and incredibly short skirts and smiled vindictively when she saw how it affected them. The prisoners did not evoke any pity from Mrs. Koch. For any violation that she considered significant, they were simply sent to die. No wonder on the gates of Buchenwald it was written: “To each his own.” The prisoners received theirs, and Elsa also took hers. It was here, in Buchenwald, that she began several affairs with SS men. Husband Karl also got his.

Since 1938, when the planned liquidation of Jews began and they began to arrive and arrive at the camp, Karl began to extort from the Jews cash. And, obviously, he was so successful in this matter that rumors of his enrichment in 1942 reached the Fuhrer’s headquarters. Everything might have worked out well if Karl had not ordered the murder of the doctor and the camp orderly, who knew terrible secret Koch - that he is a homosexual and that he is sick with venereal diseases.

The investigation of the case was entrusted to SS officer Georg Conrad Morgen. In 1943, Commandant Koch was arrested and ended up in prison. Ms. Koch was also arrested. But if Karl was found guilty of both murder and conspiracy with the Jewish enemy, which instantly made him an enemy of the Reich, then Elsa was released for lack of evidence. And she lived quietly in freedom until June 1945, when the Americans arrested her. Karl was less fortunate: a month before the fall of Berlin he was shot in Munich.

Trials without evidence?

Elsa Koch was put on trial three times. And three times - for the same crime. A crime that could never be proven, but for which she was eventually sentenced to life imprisonment. The peculiarities of Mrs. Koch’s behavior in Buchenwald, against the backdrop of those numerous crimes that swept across all of Germany during the time of fascism, did not seem particularly serious: yes, she humiliated the dignity of prisoners, yes, she forced them to work beyond measure, yes, she beat or ordered them to be beaten, yes, she sent them to death, yes - provoked by sexual behavior. These were petty crimes.

After what was revealed on Nuremberg trials, even the persecution by dogs and the rape of men by women did not seem particularly serious. In any case, these tricks of Mrs. Koch did not attract the death penalty. However, there was a special point for which she was accused - stripping skin from the bodies of prisoners and making souvenirs from it, in particular lamp shades. Having become acquainted with these “works of art,” journalists immediately nicknamed Elsa Frau Lampshade.

However, although witnesses willingly talked about leather and lampshades, there was no evidence. Just as they were not there in that memorable 1943, when Morgen lived for a whole month in Buchenwald, looking for the damned lampshades. Ten witnesses also persistently told him that they had seen with their own eyes how the commandant forced the prisoners to strip naked and carefully examined their skin. If I saw tattoos, I immediately noticed them. And she pointed the stack at the prisoner - they say, use this one.

Others, it seems, even witnessed how the lady personally tore off the skin with her favorite brand from a living person. And she did it in the hospital with the help of the doctor there. And then from this leather... Well, yes - lampshades. Three pieces, witnesses said, were seen in her house. Morgen investigated the rumors. However, the human lampshades turned out to be goatskin lampshades, and the issue of tattoos in the camp was dealt with by Dr. Kremer - the same one who was killed on the orders of Karl Koch.

The scientific work Kremer conducted involved a combination of criminal history and body tattoos. Obviously, the doctor included illustrative material in the research. True, here the witnesses swore that he did this only after death, that is, he tore the skin off the corpses. In 1943, Morgen abandoned this accusation as unpromising.

In 1947, when Elsa's first post-war trial took place, he acted as her defense lawyer. He knew what they would immediately accuse her of. And thanks to his efforts, this accusation was swept aside. Although the American judges tried very hard to convince Morgen to admit that there was evidence. But Morgen insisted that it was not. And leather souvenirs were made in Buchenwald not in the camp, but at a local factory, and not from human skin, but from goat skin, like those lampshades. The only trouble is that the factory was bombed back then. And there was no evidence.

Morgen was beaten. But, as an SS officer, he withstood the beatings. As a result, Mrs. Koch was imprisoned for only a few years. And this court decision caused a storm of rage, after which her case was transferred to a German court. Now she has been convicted full program to life imprisonment, regardless of lack of evidence.

In prison, Elsa managed to get pregnant and give birth to a son. A year later the boy was taken away, and only at the age of 19 did he find out who his real mother was. Instead of forgetting her and not remembering her, the young man began to visit Elsa. Last time he visited his mother shortly before her birthday in 1967. But Elsa did not live to see her birthday - she hanged herself. She was about to turn 61 years old. After her death, her son disappeared and was never seen again.

Nikolay KOTOMKIN

It is no secret that leather is a valuable raw material that is used to produce a variety of things: shoes, clothing, accessories and even furniture.

Of course, animal skin immediately comes to mind, but centuries-old history knows other shocking cases.

Leather bound books

Perhaps the most famous man-made products made from human skin are books. In most cases, only the book cover and binding were made from anthropodermic material, but scientists also know of the existence of books where even the text was written on human sheets. The oldest such product is considered to be the Bible of the 3rd century and the writings of the natives of Australia and Africa.

Books made from human skin were especially popular in France in the 18th and 19th centuries. It was customary to give them to ladies of the heart, respected people and close relatives. The material for such books was the corpses of executed criminals, homeless people, vagabonds, or people who independently and voluntarily donated their skin after death for the production of manuscripts. Naturally, these were very expensive books, single copies of which have survived to this day and are kept in private collections or libraries at the largest universities in the world.

Human skin drum

Many people believe that musical instruments They could have been created from human skin only in ancient times, but this is far from true. According to legend, the national Czech hero Jan Žižka from Trocnov and the famous 15th century commander who led the Protestant uprising against catholic church, before his death, bequeathed to make a war drum from his skin.

They say that this unusually loud drum frightened opponents for a long time with its echoing blows, instilling mortal terror in them.

Accessories made from human skin

The French fashion for leather goods made from human material extended not only to books, but also to various accessories (wallets, belts, cigarette cases and even gloves), so fashionable in Europe in the 18th and 19th centuries.

An entire factory for the production of such products was built near Paris, where at one time a cigarette case was produced from the skin of the elusive criminal Henri Pranzini, which was subsequently sold at auction for a very decent amount of money.

Human leather shoes

Shoes made from human skin are also the work of the French. Local craftsmen noticed that shoes made from human skin were much stronger than those made from animal material, so every self-respecting French man of that era considered it necessary to have human shoes or boots in his wardrobe.

The fashion for shoes made of human skin has not escaped the American continent either. In 1876, the famous local shoemaker Machrenholz, after numerous experiments with different types leather came to the conclusion that the most pliable and elastic material for sewing shoes is human material. The products of this master are still kept in some private collections. It is believed that they proudly bear the title of the most expensive shoes in the world, although we have a different opinion on this matter.

Sorcerer's pants. Iceland

Anyone can admire pants made of human skin at the Icelandic Museum of Magic and Witchcraft. This extraordinary exhibit is centuries old. It belonged to one of the sorcerers who lived in the Middle Ages on the Icelandic Islands. The artifact was used to attract wealth. In order to make a magical object, the sorcerers of Iceland, while a person was alive, received his permission to use his skin after death.

The ritual of making “magic” pants was to, after burying a deceased man, dig up this corpse and carefully, without cuts or tears, remove the skin from the lower part of his body, while keeping it intact skin genitals and toes. The sorcerers put the removed human skin on themselves, and threw a coin, previously stolen from the widow of the deceased, into the scrotum, while pronouncing the words of a conspiracy for wealth. It is not known whether such clothes helped the sorcerer get rich, but he had to wear them until his death.

Leather lampshades

The famous Buchenwald witch and wife of the commandant of the concentration camp of the same name, Ilse Koch, not only became famous for her cruelty and brutal treatment of prisoners, but also for her passion for unusual interior items.

In particular, Frau especially liked lampshades made from the skin of tattooed men, which, in her opinion, looked very impressive when the light was on.