Ilse Koch’s Case Closed, Secretary of Army Says: Commutation of Sentence is Final

The decision of the European Command to commute the life sentence of Ilse Koch to four years is considered final by the Army Department and cannot now be increased, Secretary of the Army Kenneth C. Royall said in a letter to Senator Raymond Baldwin of Connecticut, today. Frau Koch was convicted of charges of torturing prisoners at the Buchenwald death camp, being responsible for the death of many and of having some executed in order to obtain human skins for lampshades, book covers and other objects.

Senators Baldwin, Charles W. Tobey of New Hampshire, Leveret Saltonstall of Massachusetts, and Congressman Emanuel Celler of New York, last week wrote Secretary Royall asking him to explain why General Lucius D, Clay, Commanding General of the European Command, had signed the commutation order. Royall also told the members of Congress that while he had not personally seen the record in the Koch and 12 similar cases, he was “convinced that all of the convictions and sentences therein were carefully considered by the European Command and that the result represents their best judgment–a judgment which in other matters I have found exceedingly sound, and certainly not erring on the side of softness toward German criminals.”

Meanwhile, the possibility of a Congressional investigation of the commutation mounted here today as the wave of protests against the easement of sentence by Gen. Clay grew in intensity. Sen. Homer Ferguson of Michigan, chairman of the Senate Investigations Sub-Committee, yesterday stated that there was a definite possibility of a Senatorial investigation if the Army does not provide a satisfactory explanation of the action.

The Army yesterday released a message from Gen. Clay explaining the reasons for the commutation. The reason for the reduction of sentence–under which Frau Koch will be free in October, 1949–he said, was because “evidence of her participation” in the atrocities and murders committed at Buchenwald, which was once commanded by her late husband, did not warrant so severe a punishment. “There is no convincing evidence that she selected inmates for extermination in order to secure tattooed skin or that she possessed any articles made of human skin,” Gen. Clay added.

COMMUTATION PROTESTED BY MEMBERS OF COURT WHICH SENTENCED KOCH

Among the new protests are those of Gen. Emil C. Keil, commandant of Scott Field, who was president of the eight-man military court which originally sentenced Frau Koch. Gen. Kiel, who said he was “surprised” and “rather shocked” at the commutation, revealed that Col. Edward Walker, another member of the court, felt the same way.

Lt. Col. Othman Reichmann, former chief of the Evidence and Investigation Center of the U.S. War Crimes Commission, who collected and translated the evidence against Isle Koch, said he was “speechless” with amazement at the action. William D. Denson and Robert Kunzig, chief and deputy chief prosecutor, respectively, at the Koch trial, have protested the commutation as a “travesty on justice.”

In an article written for the Overseas News Agency Denson takes issue with the European Command’s statement that there is no reason to believe that she did not have any object made of human skin in her possession. Denson said that a lampshade, a brief case and a pair of gloves made of human skin were found in her room and a witness testified to seeing a book cover in her possession that was made of the tattooed skin of a prisoner who vanished shortly after she carefully noted down his number.