Koch was born in Darmstadt, Grand Duchy of Hesse on August 2, 1897. His father worked in a local registrar's office and died when Karl was eight years old. After completing elementary school in 1912, Koch attended Mittelschule and completed a commercial apprenticeship. In 1916, he volunteered to join the army and fought on the Western Front until he was later captured by the British. Koch spent the rest of the war as a POW and returned to Germany in 1919. As a soldier, he conducted himself well and was awarded the Iron CrossSecond Class, the Observer's Badge and the Wound Badge in Black. Following World War I, Koch worked as a commercial manager, an authorized signatory and insurance agent and became unemployed in 1932. In 1931, Karl-Otto Koch joined the Nazi Party and the Schutzstaffel.
Service with the SS
Koch served with several SS-Standarten. In 1934, he took command of the Sachsenburg Concentration Camp. Briefly, he was the officer in charge of the Esterwegen Concentration Camp guard unit, officer in charge of the preventive custody camp in the Lichtenburg Concentration Camp, and the adjutant at Dachau Concentration Camp. On 13 June 1935, he became commander of the Columbia concentration camp in Berlin-Tempelhof and, in April 1936, he was assigned to the concentration camp at Esterwegen. Four months later, he was moved to Sachsenhausen. Within a few years he advanced to SS-Standartenführer.. On 1 August 1937, he was given command of the new Buchenwald concentration camp. He remained at Buchenwald until September 1941, when he was transferred to the Majdanek concentration camp for POWs near Lublin, Poland. That was largely due to an investigation based on allegations of his improper conduct at Buchenwald, which included corruption, fraud, embezzlement, drunkenness, sexual offences and a murder. Koch commanded the Majdanek camp for only one year; he was relieved from his duties after 86 Soviet POWs escaped from the camp in August 1942. Koch was charged with criminal negligence and transferred to Berlin, where he worked at the SS Personnel Main Office and as a liaison between the SS and the German Post Office.
Prosecution and death
Koch's actions at Buchenwald first caught the attention of SS-Obergruppenführer Josias, Prince of Waldeck and Pyrmont in 1941. In glancing over the death list of Buchenwald, Josias had stumbled across the name of Walter Krämer, a head hospital orderly at Buchenwald, which he recognized because Krämer had successfully treated him in the past. Josias investigated the case and found out that Koch, in a position as the Camp Commandant, had ordered Krämer and Karl Peix, a hospital attendant, killed as "political prisoners" because they had treated him for syphilis and he feared it might be discovered. Waldeck also received reports that a certain prisoner had been shot while attempting to escape. By that time, Koch had been transferred to the Majdanek concentration camp in Poland, but his wife, Ilse, was still living at the Commandant's house in Buchenwald. Waldeck ordered a full-scale investigation of the camp by Georg Konrad Morgen, an SS officer who was an SS-judge in the SS Court Main Office. Throughout the investigation, more of Koch's orders to kill prisoners at the camp were revealed, as well as embezzlement of property stolen from prisoners. A charge of incitement to murder was lodged by Prince Waldeck and Morgen against Koch, to which were later added charges of embezzlement. Other camp officials were charged, including Koch's wife. The trial resulted in Koch being sentenced to death for disgracing both himself and the SS. Koch was executed by firing squad on 5 April 1945, one week before American allied troops arrived to liberate the camp.
Family
Koch first married in 1924 and had one son; however, this marriage ended in divorce in 1931, due to his infidelity. On May 25, 1936 Koch married Ilse Koch, with whom he had a son and two daughters. Ilse later became known as "The Witch of Buchenwald", usually rendered in English as "The Bitch of Buchenwald." When Koch was transferred to Buchenwald, Ilse was appointed an Oberaufseherin by the SS and thus had an active, official role in the atrocities committed there. She was known for extreme cruelty towards prisoners.
