"The Buchenwald Report" on tattooed skin, lampshades, shrunken heads.

[michael mills]

Preserving anatomical specimens is a normal function of pathology laboratories, and there is nothing criminal about it per se.

What would be criminal would be if prisoners were illegally killed for the purpose of obtaining their organs and other body parts. If the preserved anatomical specimens were taken from the corpses of prisoners who had died or had been legally executed, then they are not evidence of criminal actions.

Statements by prisoners collected by the Rosenberg team contain claims that prisoners were killed specifically for the purpose of obtaining their body parts. Since the prisoners making those statements were mostly political activists with a specific agenda to promote, their statements cannot be accepted unreservedly. The anatomical specimens presented to the Rosenberg team by the Communist prisoner leaders are not in themselves proof of their claims.

However, analogous activities such as the collection of skeletons by August Hirt, in which case it is known that a number of Auschwitz prisoners were specifically killed to provide the specimens, suggest that it was acceptable for prisoners to be killed for "scientific" purposes, which supports the claim that similar killings were perpetrated at KL-Buchenwald.

[The Black Rabbit of Inlé]

Konrad Morgen called the allegations about Ilse Koch and her lampshades "a propaganda lie" when he testified at the NMT Pohl trial:

Q [Kurt Ponger, prosecutor]. You also know that the feeling for art in Buchenwald was so great that the wife of the former camp commader Koch who we know very will [sic], collected the tattooings of the prisoners in order to give them to people later one, and sometimes she even helped them turn it in much sooner and faster.

A [Konrad Morgen, witness]. Excuse me, I think about this question: I am very well informed and both there and in the Buchenwald trail [sic] I would like to explain explicitly that that was a propaganda lie. I have visited the house of the commander from top to bottom and for two days after, that I saw three criminal agents there and we searched the entire house, piece by piece, and not one single occasion did we find one single item which had anything to do with lampshades of human skin or picture albums which were covered with that skin.

[...]

Q. [...] it is absolutely possible that the question of the lamp shades and gloves of which Frau Koch was convicted to a life sentence in jail, is true, and I can also tell you that the lamp shades and gloves were found among the inmates of Buchenwald, that general Eisenhowever [sic] saw them personally.

A. Then those items should have been used in the Buchenwald trial and the Dachau trial as evidence. I know they were not introduced. There was a piece of skin which was tatooed [sic] which was in the Laborantory [sic] camp there but according to my knowledge Frau Kock had nothing to do with it. I personally arrested Frau Koch and I indicted her.

- Pohl Trial, August 27, 1947, transcript, pp. 6732-6733

[Sergey Romanov]

This affidavit by Morgen is of some interest to the issue.

http://archives.lib.uconn.edu/islandora ... 8/mode/2up

[history1]

Interesting file, Sergey, but as I have read/viewed many incorrect translations even from assumed reliable sources like Yad Vashem or the Auschwitz Museum & Memorial I would prefer to read the original document.

[Sergey Romanov]

As you may see, the original German texts are included.

[Sergey Romanov]

Further to the issue: during the Buchenwald trial Morgen testified that during the investigation he heard no rumors whatsoever from any inmates about any human skin articles procured by the Kochs:

https://www.legal-tools.org/doc/5b740c/pdf/ PDF page 103.

[Sergey Romanov]

https://www.legal-tools.org/doc/bdbc37/pdf/

PDFp.124 Heinrich Nett says that human skin articles was one of charges against Koch (they did not find anything).

Says stories of human skin were well-known to them at the time, that's why the looked carefully for those things.

[David Thompson]

For interested readers: For previous discussions here at the H&WC section of shrunken heads, human-skin lampshades and the like, see:

Making lamps out of jewis skin
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=43277
Human Lampshades?
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=5990
Lampshades
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=3089
Ilse Koch & her human skin lampshades
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=1188

[Sergey Romanov]

My current working hypothesis:

1. Mass production of human lampshades is a myth. Choosing and killing inmates for their tattoos is unproven, rests on testimonies that are not credible.

2. At least one human lampshade was manufactured for Koch's birthday in 1941.

3. The preserved tattoos have nothing to do with lampshades in general.

[michael mills]

Re hypothesis 3: I think there is documentary evidence that Himmler ordered the collection of tattooed skin from deceased prisoners, for display in a projected Museum of Criminality. He considered tattooing to be a sign of a criminal nature, a mark of identification with the criminal underworld. So correct, nothing to do with lampshades in general.

Re hypothesis 2: Was that human lampshade ever found, or does its existence rest solely on verbal claims? Morgen seems to be saying in his testimony that Pister showed him such a lampshade, left in Koch's quarters after the latter's arrest, but so far as I can see does not offer any proof that the lampshade shown to him by Pister really was made of human skin, ie does not say that tests were carried out to determine the material it was made of. Could Pister have been indulging in conjecture, based on claims made by inmates, in the knowledge that Koch has fallen out of favour with Himmler and Morgen was looking for evidence against him?

[Sergey Romanov]

Morgen was talking about another lampshade, without tattoos. It is probably the same lampshade that can be seen on the table with the skin artifacts. Despite Morgen's claim it is not established that it was human skin since it disappeared shortly after the photo was made and did not figure as an exhibit at the trial, so it wasn't tested. I have to see whether Pister was interrogated about it.

The 1941 claim is based on two first-hand testimonies by Wegerer and Ackermann. Unlike many other testimonies which are based on hearsay and speculation, these seem credible to me. It is also not claimed that anyone was killed for that lampshade.

It disappeared shortly thereafter, after the Nazi authorities learned about it.

[Sergey Romanov]

Could you please point me to the sources about the tattoos for the museum of criminality?

[The Black Rabbit of Inlé]

Morgen was talking about another lampshade, without tattoos. It is probably the same lampshade that can be seen on the table with the skin artifacts. Despite Morgen's claim it is not established that it was human skin since it disappeared shortly after the photo was made and did not figure as an exhibit at the trial, so it wasn't tested. I have to see whether Pister was interrogated about it.

There are two Morgen affidavits amongst Thomas Dodd's papers: 28.12.45 and 22.01.46.

In the 28.12.45 statement, after detailing why tattooed-skin was tanned in the Buchenwald PD, Morgen stated:

SS-Standartenfuhrer KOCH had had brought to his office, which was open to only a few persons, some of these anatomical specimens. These were the prepared head of a hanged murderer and a lamp shade made out of human skin. SS-Standartenfuhrer PISTER, the successor of KOCH, left these objects in their places. It is my impression that he did this in order to illustrate the peculiar taste of his predecessor.

In his 22.01.46 statement Morgen claimed:

Only in the office of Koch in the concentration camp, at a hardly visible place, was the skull-skeleton with the broken cervical vertebra of a murderer who had allegedly been executed by hanging and a wrought-iron lamp with a taned, un-tatooed human skin. The SS Standartenfuehrer Pister directed my attention to these items.

The following is from the prosecution's cross-examination of Morgen during the Buchenwald trial. The only time they dared broaching the subject with him. It's clear that this man never saw *any* human-skin lampshades *anywhere* in Buchenwald.

Q [Prosecution] Now, as a matter of fact, you could tell whether a lampshade was made out of human skin or parchment, could you not?

A [Morgen] I don't understand the question.

Q Will you repeat the question to him, please?

(Thereupon the interpreter repeated the question.)

A I mean that technically I am not in any position to tell.

Q Technically or otherwise.

A I said that I did see specimens of skin prepared. It was observed by me in the pathological department and I therefore do believe myself capable of detecting a lampshade, shall we say, if it had been made out of human skin.

Q And you base that answer on your observation of the skin you saw one time in the pathological department, is that correct?

A Yes, but this one observation was sufficient.

Q And the same thing is true with respect to the photo albums and gloves, is that not correct?

A. Yes. I might add that this pathological department had a very large number of such specimens of human skin and, by the way, it feels and by the way it looks I think I'm enough of an expert to tell if other objects are also made from human skin.

12 June 1947, pp. 2883 -2884

We do know that in 1971 Morgen told John Toland in a recorded interview of how he was severely beaten by American interrogators for refusing to sign an affidavit about Ilse Koch and her lampshades.

[The Black Rabbit of Inlé]

The 1941 claim is based on two first-hand testimonies by Wegerer and Ackermann. Unlike many other testimonies which are based on hearsay and speculation, these seem credible to me. It is also not claimed that anyone was killed for that lampshade.

Ackermann testified at the Buchenwald trial about his three years in the Buchenwald PD, he said NOTHING about any human-skin lampshades, or human-skin accessories being produced there. He just confirmed that he saw the pieces of tattooed skin that everyone saw there, and Wagner was writing a paper.

The prosecution deliberately avoided asking their witness any questions about the PD simply to block Ilse Koch's counsel from questioning him about it!




Sure Ackermann told the Pohl, and Ilse Koch's FGR trials all about the toe-operated lampshade, but that make him a poor witness not a reliable one. Morgen on the other hand has told the same story about his investigations at Buchenwald and the alleged "human-skin knickknacks" during each one of his numerous trial appearances [if they had they had the courage to ask him that is].

The prosecution didn't even bother cross-examining Morgen at the IMT; Thomas Dodd, who introduced both Pfaffenberger's and Blaha's human-skin stories, only spoke-up during Morgen's testimony to complain to the bench that his testimony re. the actual Holocaust was even being heard. Dodd had two **genuine** Morgen affidavits proving the lampshade[s] existed, I wonder why he never produce either of them!!!!

It disappeared shortly thereafter, after the Nazi authorities learned about it.

Right! These two are describing the same lampshade then!?

Joseph Ackermann / Koch FGR trial / cf.TIME Magazine - December 25, 1950
"Another former laboratory worker, said the director ordered a "very special present" for Koch's birthday, a lamp of human skin and bone. "The light was switched on by pressure against the little toe of one of the three human feet which formed the stand."

Morgen, 22 Jan 1946 affidavit, in English, unsigned, never registered at Nuremberg let alone submitted, sat on by Dodd
"a wrought-iron lamp with a taned, un-tatooed human skin."

It disappeared shortly thereafter, after the Nazi authorities learned about it.

Here's a "human-skin" lampshade that genuinely did disappear from Buchenwald.

This photo is taken from Benedikt Fahrnschon's 2012 MA thesis on the Belgian artist Luc Tuymans: 'The Representation of the Unrepresentable: Luc Tuymans' Altercation with Nazism and the Holocaust'. The photo shows a small lampshade that was displayed in the Buchenwald museum between 1954 to c.1993 and was passed off to visitors as being a "Lampshade made of human skin"


Below is a photo dated 1993 which I've taken from the Vad Vashem website. It shows the lampshade alongside a shrunken head in a display case at the Buchenwald memorial:


This lampshade was given to the museum by the communist Karl Straub, a former inmate at the camp who in 1946 became the administrator of the Buchenwald committee of the Association of Persecutees of the Nazi Regime, and following the opening of the memorial at Buchenwald in 1954, worked as a full-time tour guide at the former camp up until 1961.

In 1992 Straub's "lampshade made of human skin" was sent to be tested by Prof. Dieter Leopold of the Institute of Forensic Medicine at the Medical Academy of Erfurt, Germany; he had the following to say about it:

"Specimen IV (lampshade) is, by contrast, not serologically identified as to being from a human. In all likelihood we are dealing with a plastic that was produced for lampshades at that time. Ultimately, however, it cannot be completely ruled out that biological material is involved."
http://www.buchenwald.de/en/1132/

Soon afterwards the lampshade was removed from display and it presently resides in the museum's archives.

[The Black Rabbit of Inlé]

Morgen's testimony at the Buchenwald trial regarding the lampshades and such:

CAPT. LEWIS: Direct examination on behalf of the accused Koch.

QUESTIONS BY CAPT. LEWIS:

Q Now, in connection with the investigation of Commander Koch, did you have occasion to know and meet hie wife Ilse Koch?

A [Morgen] Yes. I made a search of her house and had her arrested subsequent to that.

Q When did you make the search of her house?

A I think on the 23rd of August 1943.

Q And when did you place her in arrest?

A On the morning of the 24th or 25th, I think.

LAW MEMBER: What year and what month, please; August of what year?

Q What year?

A 1943.

CAPT. LEWIS: It was August 1943.

Q Now, what was the purpose of your search of Mrs. Koch's house?

A In this surprise raid, evidence of criminal acts was to be collected.

Q Was that in connection with the charges against her husband concerning the corruption and graft?

A Yes.

Q And did you find any evidence, material evidence, against Koch in the house of Frau Koch?

A Yes.

Q Was your investigation of her house at that time unexpected?

A Yes.

Q At the time that you inspected her house and arrested Frau Koch, had you already arrested her husband?

A No, I don't think so; that was first.

Q Now, did you make an inspection of the entire furnishing. in the house of Mrs. Koch?

A I, together with Criminal Secretary Nett and Colonel Pister and Major Barnewald, who had been called in as witnesses, searched the house very thoroughly from the cellar to the attic. There wasn't a desk drawer that was left unopened. The house was then sealed and several days later I had it searched again by two experienced, old Criminal Police officials; end after that every single piece of furniture in that house was moved down to Saatz and an inventory of everything that had been in the house was again taken.

Q Where is Saatz?

A In Czechoslovakia, Sudeten area.

Q Now, in this investigation and search that you made in August 1943, did you find any lamp shades of human skin on the premises of Mrs. Koch?

A No, not a one [sic].

Q Did you find any gloves of human skin?

A No.

Q Did you have occasion to find any photo albums or family chronicles of the family Koch when you examined it?

A Yes.

Q Where any of these made of human skin?

A No.

Q During your investigations at Camp Buchenwald after the arrest, even before the arrest of Mrs. Koch, until May of 1944, was any report mode to you by anybody that Mrs. Koch had a lamp shade or gloves or a photo album or a book made of human skin in her possession?

A No, I didn't even hear a rumor of any such thing.

Q And did you hews occasion to speak to many inmates at Buchenwald while you made your interrogations?

A Yes. I particularly talked to the prisoners from the pathological and and anatomical departments and I saw this human skin myself in the pathological department. I consider it technically impossible to make gloves out of human skin.

Q Did you have occasion to speck to a prisoner by the name of Titz in Buchenwald?

A Yes, I personally interrogated Titz thoroughly.

Q And did you Interrogate Titzs after Mrs. Koch had been placed in confinement by you?

A Yes.

Q Did Titz appear to be a willing witness for you?

A Yes; he brought out all kinds of things against Mrs. Koch.

Q Did Titz bring out against Mrs. Koch that she had a lamp shade of human sin in her house?

A No.

Q Did Titz bring out to you that he had seen Frau Koch beat prisoners?

A No.

Q Did Titz bring out before you that she, Frau Koch, had beaten him?

A No.

Q Did you give him every opportunity to testify before you freely and willingly and truthfully?

A yes; and since ha did seem to have scruples about it I gave him some special assurance, end he did not have to return to his detail later on. I think he was put on some very special detail under the supervision of Colonel Pister afterwards. And I had the impression of Titz that he was actually telling all that he knew and, in fact, he did bring out quite few very unpleasant things about Mrs. Koch. But in spite of the fact that Titz evidently did not like Mrs. Koch, he nevertheless did not accuse her of owning a lamp shade made out of human skin or gloves or box or any such thing, or that she ever mistreated any prisoners or himself, or that she personally committed any sort of crime.

Q Now, this prisoner Titz, was he the one that worked as an orderly in Frau Koch's house?

A Yes, for a long time.

Q During your investigations at Buchenwald, did you find any single prisoner or anybody who reported to you that Mrs. Koch had beaten him?

A Not just that, but that Mrs. Koch been the cause of beatings.

Q Was it possible for any prisoner who wanted to talk to you to come to see you while you were investigating Buchenwald and tell you about his troubles?

A He could write me a letter and cause himself to be brought before me or he could let no know through another prisoner that he had to tell me something, and some prisoners made use of this opportunity.

Q Did you get any such letter or any such report from a man named Froboess who worked as a sign painter in the Commander's building?

A Against Mrs. Koch?

Q Yes.

A No.

CAPT. LEWIS: No further questions.

PRESIDENT: The court will recess until tomorrow morning at nine o'clock.

(Whereupon the court recessed at 1655 hours.)

11 June 1947, pp.2804-2808

Q [Prosecution] Now, as a matter of fact, you could tell whether a lampshade was made out of human skin or parchment, could you not?

A [Morgen] I don't understand the question.

Q Will you repeat the question to him, please?

(Thereupon the interpreter repeated the question.)

A I mean that technically I am not in any position to tell.

Q Technically or otherwise.

A I said that I did see specimens of skin prepared. It was observed by me in the pathological department and I therefore do believe myself capable of detecting a lampshade, shall we say, if it had been made out of human skin.

Q And you base that answer on your observation of the skin you saw one time in the pathological department, is that correct?

A Yes, but this one observation was sufficient.

Q And the same thing is true with respect to the photo albums and gloves, is that not correct?

A. Yes. I might add that this pathological department had a very large number of such specimens of human skin and, by the way, it feels and by the way it looks I think I'm enough of an expert to tell if other objects are also made from human skin.

12 June 1947, pp.2883-2884