Rudolf Höß

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Not to be confused with Rudolf Hess.

Rudolf Franz Ferdinand Höß (in English commonly Hoess or Höss; November 25 1900 – April 16 1947) was an SS-Obersturmbannführer (Lt. Colonel) and from May 4, 1940 to November of 1943 was commandant of Auschwitz concentration camp, where an estimated 1.1-1.6 million people were killed.

[edit] Early life and World War I

Höß was born on November 25 1900 in Baden-Baden into a strict Catholic family. Despite his father's wishes that he become a priest, he voluntarily joined the German army during World War I in 1915 immediately after his father's death. He was transferred to Turkey, where he rose to the rank of Feldwebel and garnered the Iron Cross first and second class.

After the end of the war, Höß became a fighter for the Freikorps Roßbach in Upper Silesia, in the Baltic area and in the Ruhr basin. In 1929 he married Hedwig Hensel. They had five children together.

[edit] Nazi Party and the SS

Höß joined the NSDAP in 1922, and was sentenced to ten years in jail in 1923 after his involvement in the murder of Walther Kadow, the alleged betrayer of proto-Nazi martyr Albert Leo Schlageter; his accomplice Martin Bormann received a mere one year in prison. Höß was released in 1928 again following a general amnesty and joined the völkisch Artamanen-Gesellschaft ("Artaman Society") in 1929, where he met Heinrich Himmler.

In 1934 at Himmler's request Höß joined the SS. During the mid 1930s, Höß served in several Concentration Camp positions and a member of the SS-Totenkopfverbände ("Death's Head Unit"). He began as an ordinary SS-guard, then was transferred to the Dachau concentration camp, where he was given the office of "Blockführer" ("block leader") in 1935. Due to his experience of being in prison himself, Höß excelled in his duties and was recognized by his superiors for further responsibility and promotion. In 1938 he received a promotion to SS-Hauptsturmführer (captain) and became an adjutant in the Sachsenhausen camp. After joining the Waffen-SS in 1939, he became the commandant of Auschwitz in 1940 until he was ordered back in late 1943. During his time at Auschwitz, Höß organized and streamlined the mass murders of the Nazi's Final solution. He boasted to be the first to have used Zyclon B.

After being replaced as the Auschwitz commander by Arthur Liebehenschel on December 1 1943, Höß assumed Liebehenschel's former position as the chairman of Amt D I in Amtsgruppe D of the SS-Wirtschafts-Verwaltungshauptamt (WVHA); he also was appointed deputy of WVHA leader Richard Glücks.

On May 8 1944, however, Höß returned to Auschwitz to oversee the extermination of the Hungarian Jews.

[edit] Summary of SS Career

Image:Auschappoint.jpg

Dates of Rank

SS-Anwärter: 20 September 1933
SS-Mann: 1 April 1934
SS-Sturmmann: 20 April 1934
SS-Unterscharführer: 28 November 1934
SS-Scharführer: 1 April 1935
SS-Oberscharführer: 1 July 1935
SS-Hauptscharführer: 1 March 1936
SS-Untersturmführer: 13 September 1936
SS-Obersturmführer: 11 September 1938
SS-Hauptsturmführer: 9 November 1938
SS-Sturmbannführer: 30 January 1941
SS-Obersturmbannführer: 18 July 1942

Significant Awards

Iron Cross (First and Second Classes)
SA Sports Badge
German Sports Badge
Totenkopfring (Dead head's ring)

[edit] Capture, trial, and execution

Rudolf Höß at the Nuremberg Trials

Höß was captured on March 11 1946 by British military police. During the Nuremberg trials he appeared as a witness in the trials of Ernst Kaltenbrunner, Oswald Pohl and the IG Farben corporation. On May 25 1946, he was handed over to Poland, put on trial and sentenced to death by hanging on April 2 1947. The sentence was carried out on April 16 in front of the entrance of the crematorium of the former Auschwitz I concentration camp.

During the Nuremberg trial he stated:

Another improvement we made over Treblinka was that we built our gas chambers to accommodate 2,000 people at one time, whereas at Treblinka their 10 gas chambers only accommodated 200 people each. The way we selected our victims was as follows: we had two SS doctors on duty at Auschwitz to examine the incoming transports of prisoners. The prisoners would be marched by one of the doctors who would make spot decisions as they walked by. Those who were fit for work were sent into the Camp. Others were sent immediately to the extermination plants. Children of tender years were invariably exterminated since by reason of their youth they were unable to work. Still another improvement we made over Treblinka was that at Treblinka the victims almost always knew that they were to be exterminated and at Auschwitz we endeavored to fool the victims into thinking that they were to go through a delousing process. Of course, frequently they realized our true intentions and we sometimes had riots and difficulties due to that fact. Very frequently women would hide their children under the clothes but of course when we found them we would send the children in to be exterminated. We were required to carry out these exterminations in secrecy but of course the foul and nauseating stench from the continuous burning of bodies permeated the entire area and all of the people living in the surrounding communities knew that exterminations were going on at Auschwitz.[1]

In his autobiography, which was published in 1958 as Rudolf Höß: Kommandant in Auschwitz and later as Death Dealer: the Memoirs of the SS Kommandant at Auschwitz, he portrayed himself as having grown up with a "strong sense of duty" and avowed himself as a follower of the "high virtue of military obedience".

[edit] Cultural references

Höß appears as a character in the BBC television series Auschwitz: The Nazis and the "Final Solution" (2005) portrayed by Horst-Günter Marx, and in the Canadian miniseries Nuremberg (2002) portrayed by Colm Feore. He was also briefly portrayed in the film Schindler's List (1993) as the SS officer at Auschwitz bribed by Schindler with a pouch of diamonds. He is the main character (as Rudolf Lang) in the novel La mort est mon métier (Death is My Trade, 1952) by French writer Robert Merle.

Höß was a prominent character in William Styron's best-selling novel, Sophie's Choice (1979). Günther Maria Halmer played the role of Höß in the movie adaptation of the novel (1982), as well as in an unrelated mini-series War and Remembrance (1988).

[edit] Sources

Autobiography, edited by Steven Paskuly: Death Dealer: the Memoirs of the SS Kommandant at Auschwitz
S.S. Personnel Service Record of Rudolf Höß, National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, Maryland

[edit] External links

Persondata
NAME	Höß, Rudolf
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Hoess, Rudolf
SHORT DESCRIPTION	German war criminal, commandant of Auschwitz concentration camp
DATE OF BIRTH	25 November 1900
PLACE OF BIRTH	Baden-Baden
DATE OF DEATH	16 April 1947
PLACE OF DEATH	Oświęcim