Ilse Koch, the Most Evil Woman in History?
Was Ilse Koch the most evil woman who ever lived? Countess Elizabeth Bathory is said to have killed hundreds of women, but she had a mad agenda: Bathe in their blood for eternal youth. Ilse Koch’s only motivation was to watch the suffering of others. She gave the orders to kill the inmates of Buchenwald and felt like a queen to have the power of life and death over people. She killed because she loved killing.
Margaret Ilse Koch, née Köhler was the child
Of poor peasants, her disposition was quite mild
She did not shine but worked fairly well at school
Was attentive, polite, and followed all the rules.
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So what turned this unspectacular young woman
And urged her to commit practices subhuman?
One type of monsters evolve from innate nature
But the other type are just victims of nurture
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In times of pandemic viruses roam the air
Fascistic climates breathe their spores into your nare
Which explains why later she deserved to be called
The heartless murderous bitch of Buchenwald
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Hitler had promised a glittering new dawn
Jobs for all, everyone coming into their own
And Ilse Köhler clambered on that hopeful ship
By signing to the Nazi Party membership
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If the spores in her nostril had not been enough
Karl Otto Koch was poised to catch her by the scruff
Acting as each other’s inspiration and guide
They’d soon become the Holocaust’s Bonnie and Clyde
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Since thuggery was to be part of their arsenal
The Party welcomed Koch the petty criminal
With open arms and were more than mightily chuffed
When they heard the man had done time for fraud and theft.
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Karl and Ilse keen to show their Nazi fervour
Set themselves to work with incredible ardour
Creating blond Aryan kids to make the race purer
So they could in time fight and die for the führer
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Their devotion to the cause was duly noted
And Karl went from strength to strength getting promoted
The one-time petty thief now named camp commander
Giving him more opportunities to plunder
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Koch was summoned by Heinrich Himmler and was told
That he was to be commander at Buchenwald
The biggest prison camp now under construction
Ilse said Karl, ask them to build us a mansion
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At her trials Ilse Koch would maintain and stress
That she had no say in how Karl ran his business
She was a housewife, had no wish to be his truss
But from the first she meant to show who was the boss
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Though her name is forever linked to tattooed skins
Ilse Koch committed equally damning sins
She soon learnt the extent of her god-like power
And used every chance to make the inmates cower
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If Herod were a woman he’d have loved this stunt
With scanty clothing on displaying tits and cunt
She’d parade herself with instructions to the guards
To seize those who dared to look and shoot the blackguards
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She would indulge in copious meals on her balcony
And squeal with laughter at the frenzy and agony
Of the starving inmates below fighting over skins
And bones that she tossed over like into dust bins
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She welcomed teenagers (Buchenwald was male only)
And attired flimsily and provocatively
She’d spell out the stake: show signs of sexual arousal
And, dear child, it’s at your precious young life’s peril
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Though at the camp there were no gas chambers
The dead were counted in astronomical numbers
With the official figures of forty three thousand
Witnesses swear more’n half were at Ilse’s command
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She relished the chance of giving orders to shoot
And thought the painful slow death of her victims a hoot
Drunk on her power she must have felt like a queen
The poor little chubby peasant girl from Dresden
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The sexual mores at the camp were pretty lax
Wife swopping and orgies, to get to brass tacks
Were openly practised by commanders and staff
The inmates saw all this and later would blow the gaff
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When Koch was in Berlin on his Nazi duty
Ilse would move in with his chief deputy
The equally promiscuous Karl would catch syphilis
Which would mean death for the doctor who told him this
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She spent her ample free time riding through the camp
Or in her purpose built gymnasium when it was damp
Fancying herself a proud modern Valkyrie
Relaxed, contented, never in any hurry
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She had seen tattoos on the bodies of the captives
And had from the first found them quite attractive
How nice to have something like that on my wall
Thought the woman who became the bitch of Buchenwald
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She convinced doctors Wagner and Hoven to test
Her theory that tattooed men were the vilest
By making them ingest dubious nostrum or linctus
Which resulted, as they knew in their quietus
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Once dead, Ilse Koch demanded the excision
Of the prized tattoo for the next operation
Which saw the human skin dry into a piece of art
She knew that she couldn’t with this trinket part
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Wagner and Hoven merrily pursued their task
Killing dozens more tattooed victims as she did ask
Replenishing her stock which triggered her quip
This Christmas I won’t need to go on a shopping trip
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She posted to other camp commanders and their wives
Human leather gloves, lampshades and sheathes for knives
For Karl she had a well-preserved shrunken human head
There are photos, the specimens eliminated
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Photos and witness accounts notwithstanding
Nuremberg found solid proofs of her guilt wanting
So her life was spared and she was set free for a while
But post-war Germany did put her on trial
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The Gestapo had earlier caught up with the pair
Tried them for theft and other crimes laid bare
Karl duly faced the firing squad when found guilty
But she was just a wife under Koch’s authority
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New Germany wanted a new beginning
And were in no mood for pussy-footing
She was found guilty of crimes against humanity
And condemned to prison in perpetuity
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Was it remorse, was it despair no one knows
She tied some sheets together to make her own gallows
Mourned only by the son she had conceived
Whilst in prison knowing there’d be no reprieve
