The Kochs, A Nazi Past, Oil & The Foundation of The Right

[DearAbby]

Notorious Nazis Ilse Koch, her husband Karl Otto Koch and Erich Koch are the ghosts of Koch Industries, who seized the U.S. conservative political agenda years ago and seem capable of seizing the government in total through the Tea Party. Ilse Koch was the Nazi's specialist in making objects from human skin; was the only woman charged with war crimes; and along with her husband was in charge of one of the most horrific horror camps in Nazi Germany.



Koch Industries is the child of the violence of Buchenwald, widely regarded as one of wartime Germany's most notorious "death camps".



Information connecting Ilse and Koch Industries is hard to find but is a string of fragments, pieces of information that connects the American and German Kochs and this connection gives us a clear image of the sentiment behind the Tea Party and conservative American politics since the 1950s. Where is the connection between the German Koch's and Fred Koch? Besides evidence the American Koch was related to Ilse's family, Erich Koch (a high level Nazi official in charge of Prussia) invites Fred Koch to sell his oil in Nazi Germany when he is banned from doing business in the US. After the fall of Nazi Germany, Erich Koch and Fred expand the oil empire to the Soviet Union. Erich Koch had been in charge of Prussia for Hitler so his ties to the Soviet Union ran deep. A few years later the Soviets took Fred Koch's oil and prosecuted Erich for war crimes - Fred Koch returned to the US, became anti-communist, and was allowed to do business in the States again.

*This report marked not vetted by CNN (yet) but on their website there is more: http://ireport.cnn.com/docs/DOC-500857?ref=feeds%2Flatest

[DearAbby]

1. Just "Jaw dropping" WOW

:wow:

[LiberalLoner]

2. Figures. n/t K&R

[DearAbby]

3. Interesting last paragraph:

Ilse and her husband Karl were tried by the SS before the war ended, accused of corruption. Her husband Karl Otto Koch was tried and sentenced to death in Nazi Germany. After the war, Ilse was arrested in the German American Zone, tried in front of a tribunal and sentenced, but was quickly pardoned by the American general appointed leader of the zone.

Edited to add from Wiki:

Koch appealed to have the judgment quashed, but the appeal was dismissed on 22 April 1952 by the Federal Court of Justice. She later made several petitions for a pardon, all of which were rejected by the Bavarian Ministry of Justice. She committed suicide by hanging herself at Aichach women's prison on September 1, 1967.

[DearAbby]

4. Wonder what more things can be dug up....

[DearAbby]

5. Wikipedia on Ilse Koch

Ilse Koch, born Ilse Köhler (September 22, 1906, Dresden, Kingdom of Saxony – September 1, 1967), was the wife of Karl Koch, the commandant of the concentration camps Buchenwald from 1937 to 1941 and Majdanek from 1941 to 1943. She was one of the first prominent Nazis to be tried by the US military.

After the trial was remitted under worldwide media attention, survivor accounts of her resulted in other authors describing her abuse of prisoners as sadistic; a shadow image as "concentration camp murderess" transfixed itself to post-war German society.<1> She was accused of taking souvenirs from the skin of murdered inmates with distinctive tattoos. She was known as "The Witch of Buchenwald" ("Die Hexe von Buchenwald") by the inmates because of her alleged cruelty and lasciviousness toward prisoners. She is also called in English "The Beast of Buchenwald"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ilse_Koch

[NashVegas]

6. So What? Two of Preston's Bush's Progeny Became President

Unless someone can produce original, indisputable evidence that Freddie and Chuckles approved, this is nothing more than hysterical raving that won't help the cause any more than Dan Rather's TANG story.

[DearAbby]

7. Little tidbit - Family disharmony

Possibly unrelated, But there was no family harmony between all the brothers. In 2000 there was this 60 minutes segment called: Blood And Oil:

CBS) This is the story of a blood feud, a battle between brothers. As we told you when we first reported this story last November, the Koch family of Wichita, Kansas is among the richest in the United States, worth billions of dollars. Their oil company, Koch Industries, is bigger than Intel, Dupont or Prudential Insurance, and they own it lock stock and barrel. The trouble is a former employee says the brother who controls the company grew rich through fraud and theft, stealing from the taxpayers of the United States.

Unfortunately, for Koch Industries, that disgruntled former employee was Bill Koch, one of the Koch brothers. Blood and oil has destroyed more than one American family. The question is: Was Bill Koch a renegade out to ruin his brother, or did Koch industries really operate the way he says? Scott Pelley reports.

Koch says that Koch Industries engaged in "(o)rganized crime. And management driven from the top down."

"It was – was my family company. I was out of it," he says. "But that’s what appalled me so much... I did not want my family, my legacy, my father’s legacy to be based upon organized crime."

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2000/11/27/60II/main252545.shtml

[Hannah Bell]

8. a bunch of misinformation. ilse koch's husband was KARL OTTO koch, not erich.

Through some friends in the SA and SS, she met Karl Otto Koch in 1934, marrying him two years later. In 1936, she began working as a guard and secretary at the Sachsenhausen concentration camp near Berlin, which her fiancé commanded. In 1937 she came to Buchenwald as the wife of the commandant.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ilse_Koch

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Otto_Koch

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erich_Koch


Fred Koch was the son of a Dutch immigrant. Which doesn't necessarily mean there was no connection with some German Koch family, but this article has so many things wrong it's completely untrustworthy. Koch's business in the USSR was *before* WW2, not after, for example.

Second time I've seen this false accusation.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Koch

[DearAbby]

9. I had found connections with USSR and Stalin

didn't know what to make of it. Could not find anything on relationship, I was still digging.

The name of their Grandfather, was a Dutch immigrant, Harry Koch, who owned the Tribune-Chief newspaper. Fred Koch (Father) attended Rice Institute in Houston from 1917 to 1919, and graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1922, where he obtained a degree in Chemical Engineering Practice.

As of now, I can't find any connection between the Dutch Koch's and the German Koch's

The initial fortunes were made in the USSR

The Soviets had been trying to take advantage of their immense oil reserves since gaining power in 1917, and under Joseph Stalin the drive to industrial efficiency was pursued with ruthless speed but without the benefit of Western technology. Fred Koch offered to build oil refineries in the Soviet Union that would be more efficient than those in the West. The young engineer's ideas were welcomed, and he was awarded a large contract to coincide with Stalin's first five-year plan, beginning in 1929. The contract called for construction of 15 refineries for an initial fee of $5 million, from which Koch and his partner, L. E. Winkler, are said to have netted a $500,000 profit. Koch's work in the Soviet Union necessitated sojourns in that country, offering the Texas farmboy an intimate look at the Soviet system while providing the cash he would later need in building his U.S. empire.

Found here under Company history:

http://www.fundinguniverse.com/company-histories/Koch-Industries-Inc-Company-History.html

[DearAbby]

10. Koch Name Meaning and History

1. German and Jewish (Ashkenazic): occupational name from Middle High German koch, German Koch ‘cook’ (cognate with Latin coquus). The name in this sense is widespread throughout eastern and central Europe, and is also well established in Denmark.

2. Czech and Slovak: from a pet form of any of several medieval personal names beginning with Ko-, for example Kochan, Kocián, Kojata, and Kosmas.

3. Polish: nickname from kochac ‘to love’ (see Kochan).
Dictionary of American Family Names, Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-508137-4

http://www.ancestry.com/facts/koch-famil…

[Hannah Bell]

13. yes, the russian sales are legit. not the only US businessman who did deals with the fledgling

soviet union -- particularly in the oil & grain businesses.

but since that factoid, which is no secret, is surrounded by easily-refuted misinformation. second time i've seen an attempt to link the kochs with ilse koch here at DU.

The kochs are evil enough all on their own without trying to make fraudulent connections to the nazis. There may be such connections, but the people writing these "ilse koch" things haven't even done minimal research. It takes all of one minute to check the name of ilse's koch's husband.

[DearAbby]

14. It's not my story...

Just trying to find out if there are any basis to this person's suspicions. As stated in the OP, the story was not vetted yet via CNN where I found it.

[Hannah Bell]

16. i didn't mean to imply it was your story. i was talking about the people who are

writing these things, not you.

"but the people writing these "ilse koch" things"

[DearAbby]

15. Thanks Hannah

Seems like I am coming up to a dead end myself. Could there be a cousin relationship or other family relationship to Erich Koch? Where I am going now..the Ilse Koch is a dead end for me here.

[Hannah Bell]

17. i'm not coming up with much for harry either, but there are some perhaps related kochs in

early texas.

also found some interesting stuff on the mothers side. will post later.

[DearAbby]

18. I found some things...

A Valentin Koch immigrated to Texes..1840-1850?

Also seems these Koch's were possibly related going to Missouri

Heinrich - 1932
Gerhard - 1838
Martin - 1841

[Hannah Bell]

19. Here's what I found:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x426937

[Name removed]

11. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[DearAbby]

12. Thanks :)

Koch Surname

Just to add:

Bavaria, Germany is the ancestral home of the Koch family. The Koch surname is derived from the Latin word "coquus," which denotes the "art of cookery." Koch was originally an occupational name, for a cook.

Many cultural groups lived in the German states in medieval times. Each had its own dialect and traditions, and unique variations of popular names. Low German, which is similar to contemporary Dutch, was spoken in Westphalia. German names are characterized by additions such as regional suffixes and phrases that tell something about the origin or background of its original bearer.

Further contributing to the variation in German names was the fact that there were no spelling rules in medieval times: scribes recorded names according to their sound. The recorded spelling variations of Koch include Koch, Koche, Kochen, Koech, Koeche, Koechen, Coch, Coche, Cochen, Coech, Coeche, Coechen, Koechle, Koechly, Koechli, Kock, Kochs, Kocks and many more.

First found in Bavaria, where the family made a considerable contribution to the feudal society which shaped modern Europe.


Also lists three names in the 1800s to come to USA to Two to Missouri and one to Texas.

http://www.houseofnames.com/koch-family-crest