Ilse Koch on Trial: Making the Bitch of Buchenwald""

An authoritative reassessment of one of the most notorious Nazi war criminals, whose perceived betrayal of womanhood made her postwar Germany's favorite scapegoat.

On September 1, 1967, one of the Third Reich's most infamous figures hanged herself in her cell after nearly twenty-four years in prison. Known as the "Bitch of Buchenwald," Ilse Koch was singularly notorious, having been accused of owning lampshades fabricated from skins of murdered camp inmates and engaging in "bestial" sexual behavior. These allegations fueled a public fascination that turned Koch into a potent female symbol of Nazi savagery.

Yet the most sensational atrocities attributed to Koch were apocryphal or unproven. In this authoritative reappraisal, Tomaz Jardim shows that, while Koch was a dedicated Nazi and assuredly committed brutal crimes, she was also a scapegoat for postwar Germans eager to distance themselves from the recent past. Her portrayal as a debauched and sadistic woman--a monstrous perversion of the ideal of wife and mother--marked an intense contrast to the millions of "normal" Germans who lived quieter lives, but whose complicity in the Nazi project had been collectively far more consequential.

The reality of the Holocaust is that it was perpetrated by a massive bureaucracy full of ordinary citizens. Ilse Koch on Trial reveals how gendered perceptions of violence and culpability fueled Koch's zealous prosecution even as many male Nazi perpetrators responsible for greater crimes escaped consequences or were punished less. More disturbing still, it reveals how easily societies can yield to the temptation to assign blame narrowly. Ilse Koch was convenient because she could be depicted as a freakish anomaly--a form of evil that could be seized upon and eradicated--thus delaying an honest reckoning with the Nazi past.