Jakob Mathias Koch

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Jakob Koch

Jakob Mathias Koch (born February 24, 1900 in Zell an der Mosel ; † March 1, 1945 in Dachau ) was a German political prisoner of National Socialism who was active as a Kapo in the organized resistance in Dachau and there shortly before the camp was liberated perished.

Life

Jakob Mathias Koch was born on February 24, 1900 as the son of the hat maker and winemaker Jakob Koch and his wife Franziska, nee. Bremm born.

In 1925 Jakob Koch, who politically belonged to the Christian center, was arrested because of his contacts with the French administration of the areas on the left bank of the Rhine . He was accused of having applied to various German regiments for a time engagement. According to the Versailles Peace Treaty , however, there was only one professional army in Germany. Jakob Koch has now been accused of having applied to the French police in Koblenz on behalf of his friend, criminal inspector Humbert, in order to prove a breach of contract on the German side. According to the public prosecutor's office, this charge constituted espionage and thus high treason . Due to a lack of evidence, he was released at the instigation of the League for Human Rights .

In 1926 he was lured to a business assignment on the right bank of the Rhine, administered from Berlin, and arrested there a second time. In 1927 he was sentenced to five years in prison and ten years of loss of honor for high treason . He served part of the sentence in solitary confinement. In an exchange of letters from the French Sûreté (police), the presumption is expressed that this harsh sentence was a punishment for his numerous friendships with French people. Other sources cite his pacifist sentiments as the cause.

In September 1939, as a former political prisoner, he was arrested again by the Nazi regime (“ protective custody ”) and taken to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp , where he saw and suffered cruel torture.

In 1940 he was transferred to the Dachau concentration camp (prisoner number 1567). There he became Kapo of the straw potting squad (in the disinfection squad) in 1941 and Chief Kapo of Revier Disinfection II in 1944.

Services

Dachau Concentration Camp (left in the picture), No. 12 is the disinfection building

Jakob Koch accepted numerous members of the organized camp resistance into his work detachment as a disinfection Kapo in the Dachau concentration camp . a. the Resistance fighter Edmond Michelet (later Minister to Charles de Gaulle), the former center politician Joseph Joos , the communist Georges Walraewe (later Secretary General of the International Dachau Committee), Father Josef Kentenich and numerous other Catholic priests. He also came into contact with Karl Leisner , who was beatified in 1996 .

In his position as Kapo of the very important disinfection command, he had the opportunity to influence camp life and made use of it to help numerous other political prisoners. He did this, on the one hand, by secretly giving them food - especially in the "hunger summer" of 1942. On the other hand, he included weak people who were particularly at risk in his work detachment and thus saved their lives: From 1941 onwards, concentration camp prisoners who were not in command were examined by Heinrich Himmler and selected for so-called invalid transports . Since the clothes of these prisoners were sent back to the Dachau camp some time after their removal, it soon became clear to those who remained here that the sick were not being transferred to sanatoriums, but to extermination camps (including Bergen-Belsen and Hartheim near Linz / Austria ). By being accepted into his command, Jakob Koch saved the lives of many people, several sources speak of hundreds.

Well documented is u. a. the rescue of Josef Kentenich , the founder of the Schoenstatt Movement : Kentenich's health was weakened and he was without a work detail. On June 24, 1942 it was announced that there would be a selection for an invalid transport to a killing camp on the same day . Jakob Koch hid him in the sewing room of the disinfection squad, where he was supposed to stay the whole day and pretend he was one of them. A few days later, Koch accepted him into his disinfection squad and thus brought him permanently to safety.

1944 broke out in the Dachau concentration camp of typhus from. As the person responsible for the disinfection, Koch fought very successfully against the spread of the disease through lice. He used Zyklon B , which is otherwise not used in Dachau . In February 1945 he fell ill himself and died within three days on March 1, 1945. On April 29, 1945, the Dachau camp was liberated by US soldiers. The Belgian camp comrade George Walraeve, later Secretary General of the Comité International de Dachau , wrote in a letter in 1976: "He is one of those from the other Germany who taught us not to hate the German people."

literature

  • Hans Carls : Documents on contemporary history II Dachau. Memories of a Catholic clergyman from the time of his imprisonment. Cologne 1946.
  • Joseph Joos : Life on Revocation. Encounters and observations in the Dachau concentration camp 1941–1945. Trier 1948.
  • Edmond Michelet : The Freedom Street. Dachau 1943–1945. Stuttgart undated (1960), French edition: Rue de la liberté, Paris 1955.
  • Engelbert Monnerjahn: Inmate No. 29292. The founder of the Schoenstatt Work as a prisoner of the Gestapo 1941–1945. Vallendar 1972.
  • Hans-Karl Seeger (ed.): Karl Leisner's last diary. Kleve 2000.
  • Private estate: Letters from the Dachau concentration camp, documents about the trial, correspondence with authorities and private individuals, certificates and letters from camp comrades, certificates.
  • Alfons Friderichs (Ed.): Koch, Jakob Mathias , In: "Personalities of the Cochem-Zell District" , Kliomedia, Trier 2004, ISBN 3-89890-084-3 , p. 194.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Koch, Jakob Matthias / 1900–1945. In: Rhineland-Palatinate personal database . June 16, 2014, accessed May 23, 2019 .
  2. ^ Archives nationales (location: CHAN, Paris), Document No. 5441 / M.
  3. ↑ Hans Carls : Documents on Contemporary History II Dachau , p. 87.
  4. ^ Joseph Joos : Life on Revocation , p. 69.
  5. ↑ Karl Leisner and Jakobus. In: karl-leisner.de. Internationaler Karl-Leisner-Kreis eV, November 2, 2014, accessed on May 23, 2019 .
  6. ↑ Hans Carls: Documents on Contemporary History II Dachau , p. 87.
  7. ↑ u. a. Joseph Joos : Life on Revocation , p. 112 and Hans Carls : Documents for Contemporary History II Dachau , p. 88.
  8. ↑ Monnerjahn: Inmate No. 29292 , p. 125 ff.
  9. ^ Edmond Michelet : Die Freiheitsstrasse , p. 217.
personal data
SURNAME Koch, Jakob Mathias
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German political prisoner of National Socialism
DATE OF BIRTH February 24, 1900
PLACE OF BIRTH Zell on the Moselle
DATE OF DEATH March 1, 1945
Place of death Dachau