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Commandant of Auschwitz
A self-portrait, composed by one of the greatest monsters of all time: Rudolf Hoess, the Commandant at Auschwitz, and the man who knew more than almost anyone about how Nazi Germany implemented the Final Solution. Captured by the British after the war, tried, and sentenced to death, he was ordered to write his autobiography in the weeks between his trial and his execution (which fittingly took place in Auschwitz itself). Hoess apparently enjoyed the task, and the most careful checking by researchers showed he took great pains to tell the truth. The result: a vivid and unforgettable picture of the 20th century's defining and most horrific event. Royalties from this book go to the fund to help the few survivors of Auschwitz.
285 pages, ebook
First published January 1, 1956
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About the author
Rudolf Höss
6books9followersRudolf Franz Ferdinand Höss (also spelled Höß and Hoess; 1900/1901 � 16 April 1947) was an SS-Obersturmbannführer (Lieutenant Colonel), and from 4 May 1940 to November 1943 the first commandant of Auschwitz concentration camp. Höss joined the Nazi Party in 1922 and the SS in 1934. He was hanged in 1947 following his trial.
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October 28, 2021
People who, according to Rudolph Höss, were to blame for the horrors at Auschwitz:
1. Heinrich Himmler
2. The Auschwitz guards
3. The prisoners themselves
People who, according to Rudolph Höss, were NOT to blame for the horrors at Auschwitz:
1. Rudolph Höss
WARNING! - sarcasm (on my part) may occur in the following!
Rudolph Höss believed himself to be an SS saint - he did what was expected of him, he was steadfastly loyal and he protected the Fatherland against all enemies, interior and exterior. He was not to blame for anything that went on at Auschwitz because the orders he gave were only those given to him by Himmler. And he could not possibly oversee all his guards at once to make sure that they carried out the orders correctly. Some of the guards were really just sadistic people who had no business being at a place like Auschwitz. But Höss was not to be blamed for their presence there either, those guards were assigned to him, he had no say in the matter. Additionally, the prisoners themselves were terrible towards one another, making their hellish conditions even worse with their sardonic back-stabbing and exploitations.
That is the defence of Rudolph Höss.
He uses an entire book to make himself a less guilty party in the murder of around 1.1 million people, who never left Auschwitz. He uses any opportunity he can to stress his own good intentions, his own ignorance of some of the things that were going on and his own innocence. He was only doing as he was told because he was unable to do anything else. He was indoctrinated, so to speak. It was only at the end of his own life that he experiences humanity and realised the error of his ways.
Oh please!
Written after his capture in 1946 and before his death sentence in 1947, this memoir offers an insight into the mind of the man that has been personally responsible for the most human deaths in history. Rudolph Höss, the kommander of Auschwitz. The Death Dealer.
While this book seems most of all as one big excuse - an apologia, even - Höss rutinely gives away his true feelings and opinions. As when he speaks about the different kinds of prisoners at Auschwitz.
- The Russian POV's were weak and barbarous, frequently resorting to cannibalism in order to save themselves
- The Gyspies were carefree and happy, except for when their tempers took over and they fought amongst themselves. They were, however, Höss' favourite prisoners
- The Jews had it easy because they had money and had no scrouples with using this money to bribe the SS or each other. They were also quick to turn on each other and were the most cruel prisoners
I took the liberty of doing a psychopathy check for Rudolph Höss based on this book:
✔️ Grandiose estimation of self
✔️ Pathological lying
✔️ Lack of remorse or guilt
✔️ Shallow effect
✔️ Callousness and lack of empathy
✔️ Early behaviour problems
✔️ Irresponsibility
✔️ Failure to take acceptable responsibility for own actions
✔️ Juvenile delinquency
Of course this is in no way enough to confirm that he was in fact a psychopath and I am no psychologist so I should not be making assumptions, but still. Those are a lot of checkmarks.
Höss was trained from an early age by his fanatically, Catholic father to become a priest. After some startling realisations about the Catholic Church he renounced his faith, became a soldier in WWI, went to prison for murder (something he never regretted doing or felt guilty about) and joined the Nazi party. With the Nazis he found a new system of belief, a new order to join - a new way for him to plod along without having to make decisions for himself. His unfailing belief in Himmler (as a sort of Archbishop of nazism) and Hitler (representing the Pope) meant that he could lean back and deny responsibility for any of his actions. He was not meant to be a leader, in my opinion, he didn't have the strength or the intelligence for this. He should have been just one of the masses.
This book was horrible. Absolutely horrible. Because Höss recounts the death of millions with no feeling - the feelings he describe seem empty and contrived to me, something he feels he has to say, not something he actually felt. But it was also a necessary book to read. It is necessary to peek behind the curtain, to see the face of the persecutor, the know the personality of the twisted. Only then can we truly say that we understand what went on.
1. Heinrich Himmler
2. The Auschwitz guards
3. The prisoners themselves
People who, according to Rudolph Höss, were NOT to blame for the horrors at Auschwitz:
1. Rudolph Höss
WARNING! - sarcasm (on my part) may occur in the following!
Rudolph Höss believed himself to be an SS saint - he did what was expected of him, he was steadfastly loyal and he protected the Fatherland against all enemies, interior and exterior. He was not to blame for anything that went on at Auschwitz because the orders he gave were only those given to him by Himmler. And he could not possibly oversee all his guards at once to make sure that they carried out the orders correctly. Some of the guards were really just sadistic people who had no business being at a place like Auschwitz. But Höss was not to be blamed for their presence there either, those guards were assigned to him, he had no say in the matter. Additionally, the prisoners themselves were terrible towards one another, making their hellish conditions even worse with their sardonic back-stabbing and exploitations.
That is the defence of Rudolph Höss.
He uses an entire book to make himself a less guilty party in the murder of around 1.1 million people, who never left Auschwitz. He uses any opportunity he can to stress his own good intentions, his own ignorance of some of the things that were going on and his own innocence. He was only doing as he was told because he was unable to do anything else. He was indoctrinated, so to speak. It was only at the end of his own life that he experiences humanity and realised the error of his ways.
Oh please!
Written after his capture in 1946 and before his death sentence in 1947, this memoir offers an insight into the mind of the man that has been personally responsible for the most human deaths in history. Rudolph Höss, the kommander of Auschwitz. The Death Dealer.
While this book seems most of all as one big excuse - an apologia, even - Höss rutinely gives away his true feelings and opinions. As when he speaks about the different kinds of prisoners at Auschwitz.
- The Russian POV's were weak and barbarous, frequently resorting to cannibalism in order to save themselves
- The Gyspies were carefree and happy, except for when their tempers took over and they fought amongst themselves. They were, however, Höss' favourite prisoners
- The Jews had it easy because they had money and had no scrouples with using this money to bribe the SS or each other. They were also quick to turn on each other and were the most cruel prisoners
I took the liberty of doing a psychopathy check for Rudolph Höss based on this book:
✔️ Grandiose estimation of self
✔️ Pathological lying
✔️ Lack of remorse or guilt
✔️ Shallow effect
✔️ Callousness and lack of empathy
✔️ Early behaviour problems
✔️ Irresponsibility
✔️ Failure to take acceptable responsibility for own actions
✔️ Juvenile delinquency
Of course this is in no way enough to confirm that he was in fact a psychopath and I am no psychologist so I should not be making assumptions, but still. Those are a lot of checkmarks.
Höss was trained from an early age by his fanatically, Catholic father to become a priest. After some startling realisations about the Catholic Church he renounced his faith, became a soldier in WWI, went to prison for murder (something he never regretted doing or felt guilty about) and joined the Nazi party. With the Nazis he found a new system of belief, a new order to join - a new way for him to plod along without having to make decisions for himself. His unfailing belief in Himmler (as a sort of Archbishop of nazism) and Hitler (representing the Pope) meant that he could lean back and deny responsibility for any of his actions. He was not meant to be a leader, in my opinion, he didn't have the strength or the intelligence for this. He should have been just one of the masses.
This book was horrible. Absolutely horrible. Because Höss recounts the death of millions with no feeling - the feelings he describe seem empty and contrived to me, something he feels he has to say, not something he actually felt. But it was also a necessary book to read. It is necessary to peek behind the curtain, to see the face of the persecutor, the know the personality of the twisted. Only then can we truly say that we understand what went on.
November 18, 2023
Rudolf Höss was a linchpin in the machinery that drove the gears of the Holocaust. As such his perspective (although biased) needs to be examined - to prevent such perspectives in the future. One has to wonder at what men like Höss would have done if they were not given the power they were given; the thanatocratic nature of these individuals is truly magnified through extreme banality.
August 9, 2012
Did I give this book five stars because I agree with what he did? With the persecution of Jews, homosexuals, gypsies, etc? With the slaughter of millions of lives?
Of course not.
The book deserves five stars because it gets you into the mind of a cruel man who can carry out cruel actions and still be able to play the martyr.
In this book, you will heard countless times how it wasn't Hoess's fault. How he was always striving for the best he could get his prisoners. How hard he was done by! He even goes as far as to suggest that the work his prisoners had to do day in and day out was good for them; it kept them psychologically sane. At times it even felt like he was trying to vilify the prisoners in the sonderkommando!
This book was truly horrific in content and at times I simply couldn't believe what I was reading. Was I supposed to just accept that the extermination of millions of people was just your typical job?
Hoess in clever in the way he builds up his story so that it flows into a "logical" way of thinking. But his little tricks won't work on any self-thinking human being. He can say as many times as he likes that being the commandant meant that he wasn't directly responsible for the disgusting conditions of prison life or the gassing of prisoners. He can blame Himmler all he likes for making the orders nothing but orders. He is not apologetic for what he did and the only thing he does regret is getting caught.
I recommend this book for anyone interested in WW2, in the running of a concentration camp or for those who want to understand what goes through the mind of evil. Hoess is a definite liar with his thoughts and feelings but at least he was honest with fact.
Of course not.
The book deserves five stars because it gets you into the mind of a cruel man who can carry out cruel actions and still be able to play the martyr.
In this book, you will heard countless times how it wasn't Hoess's fault. How he was always striving for the best he could get his prisoners. How hard he was done by! He even goes as far as to suggest that the work his prisoners had to do day in and day out was good for them; it kept them psychologically sane. At times it even felt like he was trying to vilify the prisoners in the sonderkommando!
This book was truly horrific in content and at times I simply couldn't believe what I was reading. Was I supposed to just accept that the extermination of millions of people was just your typical job?
Hoess in clever in the way he builds up his story so that it flows into a "logical" way of thinking. But his little tricks won't work on any self-thinking human being. He can say as many times as he likes that being the commandant meant that he wasn't directly responsible for the disgusting conditions of prison life or the gassing of prisoners. He can blame Himmler all he likes for making the orders nothing but orders. He is not apologetic for what he did and the only thing he does regret is getting caught.
I recommend this book for anyone interested in WW2, in the running of a concentration camp or for those who want to understand what goes through the mind of evil. Hoess is a definite liar with his thoughts and feelings but at least he was honest with fact.
July 4, 2019
This book was the most difficult thing I've read in my entire life.
The rating is not for the content of the book or the writing. The rating is for the necessity of reading this when studying Holocaust literature. The rating applies to the eloquent introduction by Primo Levi. The rating applies to the footnotes correcting the lies and pointing out the manipulative language Höss used in an attempt to absolve himself from blame and wrongdoing amid the atrocities he committed.
As Levi pointed out, it is all too transparent what Höss was trying to accomplish in writing this. Anti-semitism is littered throughout and isn't an ideology he feels should be condemned even at the end of his life.
"I also see now that the extermination of the Jews was fundamentally wrong. Precisely because of these mass exterminations, Germany has drawn upon herself the hatred of the entire world. It in no way served the cause of anti-Semitism, but on the contrary brought the Jews far closer to their ultimate objective."
I'm still trying to understand what this "ultimate objective" was supposed to have been. This is not a man who feels remorse for what he has done, nor does he understand why it was wrong. He is a victim in his own eyes and his own right, just a cog in the machine, he claims. Just following orders, he didn't have a choice! But there is no note of apology for the murdering of millions of innocent people just because of their faith.
"Let the public continue to regard me as the blood-thirsty beast, the cruel sadist and the mass murderer; for the masses could never imagine the commandant of Auschwitz in any other light.
They could never understand that he, too, had a heart and that he was not evil."
Mr. Höss, your heart was only for your country, yourself, and your family, and that is what made you evil.
This is just more Nazi propaganda trash, but it is so absolutely necessary in understanding what happened. The Holocaust is a cautionary tale of the dangers of nationalism, it is a testament to how truly inhumane humans can be to each other over stereotypes and -perceived- threats, it serves to remind us all that no matter how strongly we believe we are right, it doesn't mean that we are. This man truly believed himself innocent.
It is only in looking at it from all sides that one can truly grasp how such horrors could have occurred and how to prevent them from ever happening again.
The rating is not for the content of the book or the writing. The rating is for the necessity of reading this when studying Holocaust literature. The rating applies to the eloquent introduction by Primo Levi. The rating applies to the footnotes correcting the lies and pointing out the manipulative language Höss used in an attempt to absolve himself from blame and wrongdoing amid the atrocities he committed.
As Levi pointed out, it is all too transparent what Höss was trying to accomplish in writing this. Anti-semitism is littered throughout and isn't an ideology he feels should be condemned even at the end of his life.
"I also see now that the extermination of the Jews was fundamentally wrong. Precisely because of these mass exterminations, Germany has drawn upon herself the hatred of the entire world. It in no way served the cause of anti-Semitism, but on the contrary brought the Jews far closer to their ultimate objective."
I'm still trying to understand what this "ultimate objective" was supposed to have been. This is not a man who feels remorse for what he has done, nor does he understand why it was wrong. He is a victim in his own eyes and his own right, just a cog in the machine, he claims. Just following orders, he didn't have a choice! But there is no note of apology for the murdering of millions of innocent people just because of their faith.
"Let the public continue to regard me as the blood-thirsty beast, the cruel sadist and the mass murderer; for the masses could never imagine the commandant of Auschwitz in any other light.
They could never understand that he, too, had a heart and that he was not evil."
Mr. Höss, your heart was only for your country, yourself, and your family, and that is what made you evil.
This is just more Nazi propaganda trash, but it is so absolutely necessary in understanding what happened. The Holocaust is a cautionary tale of the dangers of nationalism, it is a testament to how truly inhumane humans can be to each other over stereotypes and -perceived- threats, it serves to remind us all that no matter how strongly we believe we are right, it doesn't mean that we are. This man truly believed himself innocent.
It is only in looking at it from all sides that one can truly grasp how such horrors could have occurred and how to prevent them from ever happening again.
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January 1, 2024161st book of 2023.
This is one of the most brutal and difficult things I've read. A horrific, contradictory post-war statement by Hoess, the commandant of Auschwitz. Hoess, one minute, describes in clinical and unflinching detail, the process of leading people in the gas chambers, the process of their dying, and then the subsequent hair-cutting, teeth removals, and ovens, and the next minute, how he was 'forced' to witness these things and how he was shaken by them. How going home to his wife and children was difficult. At the end of his statement he admits he is still a National Socialist but that the Final Solution was 'wrong'.
Evil does and has existed.
This is one of the most brutal and difficult things I've read. A horrific, contradictory post-war statement by Hoess, the commandant of Auschwitz. Hoess, one minute, describes in clinical and unflinching detail, the process of leading people in the gas chambers, the process of their dying, and then the subsequent hair-cutting, teeth removals, and ovens, and the next minute, how he was 'forced' to witness these things and how he was shaken by them. How going home to his wife and children was difficult. At the end of his statement he admits he is still a National Socialist but that the Final Solution was 'wrong'.
There for the first time I saw the gassed bodies in mass. But I must admit openly that the gassings had a calming effect on me, since in the near future the mass annihilation of the Jews was to begin [...] I was always horrified by the death by firing squads, especially when I thought of the huge numbers of women and children who would have to be killed. I had had enough of hostage executions, and the mass killings by firing squad ordered by Himmler and Heydrich. Now I was at ease. We were all saved from these bloodbaths, and the victims would be spared until the last moment.
Evil does and has existed.
June 26, 2024
An extraordinary and unique document?....I don't think so.
OK, so the chilling activity taking place within the gas chambers is told with clear cut precision, but it's nothing I haven't come across before. I was hoping for more depth on his actual self -the inner Höss - not just what goes on externally around him. Even on the very first page he states - "I want to try and tell the story of my innermost being." Well Rudolf, here's your one and only chance, may as well have a right good go at it. Yes, it's not completely empty in regards looking at himself in the mirror, but I was expecting so much more. I've read at lot of Holocaust lit already - both from the perspective of the Nazis and the Jews, and this, in terms of importance, was nothing special. The first part of the book I found more interesting than later on, so it just about salvages a 3/5
My interest in Höss grew as a result of watching Jonathan Glazer's The Zone of Interest - three times now, actually - and while one has little to do with the other in terms of content, that film knocks the stuffing out of this book.
February 5, 2016
(Because you can’t give a Nazi 5 stars)
“Rudolph Hoss’s memoirs are perhaps the most important document attesting to the Holocaust, because they are the only candid, detailed, and essentially honest description of the plan of mass annihilation from a high-ranking SS officer intimately involved in the carrying out of Hitler’s and Himmler’s plan.� (from the book’s preface). I think that is a pretty accurate depiction of what this book is. Hoss was forthright in conveying his own personal history, his role in the Nazi machine, and his position as Kommandant of Auschwitz. His formative years during WWI, his 6 years in prison, and his early years in the SS all led up to the position he would be most notorious for.
I learned a lot about SS hierarchy, especially in regards to concentration camp administration. The pre-war and pre-final solution camps were mainly for political prisoners (ENEMIES OF THE STATE). They eventually evolved to become death factories, as Hoss reflected, “…who could imagine the horrible tasks that would be assigned to the concentration camps during the war.� When he was finally given the assignment to establish and build Auschwitz, he adamantly vented his frustration toward his subordinates. “A person can fight active opposition but is powerless against passive resistance.� He was definitely an if-you-want-something-done-right-you-have-to-do-it-yourself kind of guy.
The worst possible fate for a Jew at Auschwitz would be Sonderkommando, herding fellow Jews into gas chambers, removing the bodies, liberating them of their gold teeth and hair, and feeding the corpses into the furnaces. “It often happened that Jews from the Sonderkommando discovered close relatives among the bodies [dug up after being in mass graves] and even among those who went into the gas chambers.� Good Lord.
Hoss seemed remorseful when recalling the atrocities he witnessed, though he admitted he had to maintain a fiercely indifferent façade and portray himself as unaffected. He was responsible for developing Zyklon B, which would be the vehicle that allowed the Nazi’s to fulfill the Final Solution at such a rapid pace. And he stood by as millions were led into the gas chambers. His excuse follows the typical Nazi adage that they were just following orders. “Hoss was a man who needed something to believe in and, more importantly, someone to tell him what to do.� (from epilogue)
His own account, and especially his final letters to his family almost make him sympathetic. ALMOST. No doubt he was monstrous, but there is a sense of humanity beneath his Nazi uniform and ideology. His complicacy in “spilling the beans� to prosecutors attests to that. “Hoss was one of the few who could, and also would give precise information about every aspect of the mass killings. In fact, he answered everything asked of him.� No doubt this is a historically significant book. It also offers supplementary material, like Hoss’s recollections of his collegues (I didn’t read all of them, only major, recognizable players like Himmler) and Wannassee conference minutes. Overall it was a chilling, if necessary glimpse at life inside the Nazi regime and concentration camps.
“Rudolph Hoss’s memoirs are perhaps the most important document attesting to the Holocaust, because they are the only candid, detailed, and essentially honest description of the plan of mass annihilation from a high-ranking SS officer intimately involved in the carrying out of Hitler’s and Himmler’s plan.� (from the book’s preface). I think that is a pretty accurate depiction of what this book is. Hoss was forthright in conveying his own personal history, his role in the Nazi machine, and his position as Kommandant of Auschwitz. His formative years during WWI, his 6 years in prison, and his early years in the SS all led up to the position he would be most notorious for.
I learned a lot about SS hierarchy, especially in regards to concentration camp administration. The pre-war and pre-final solution camps were mainly for political prisoners (ENEMIES OF THE STATE). They eventually evolved to become death factories, as Hoss reflected, “…who could imagine the horrible tasks that would be assigned to the concentration camps during the war.� When he was finally given the assignment to establish and build Auschwitz, he adamantly vented his frustration toward his subordinates. “A person can fight active opposition but is powerless against passive resistance.� He was definitely an if-you-want-something-done-right-you-have-to-do-it-yourself kind of guy.
The worst possible fate for a Jew at Auschwitz would be Sonderkommando, herding fellow Jews into gas chambers, removing the bodies, liberating them of their gold teeth and hair, and feeding the corpses into the furnaces. “It often happened that Jews from the Sonderkommando discovered close relatives among the bodies [dug up after being in mass graves] and even among those who went into the gas chambers.� Good Lord.
Hoss seemed remorseful when recalling the atrocities he witnessed, though he admitted he had to maintain a fiercely indifferent façade and portray himself as unaffected. He was responsible for developing Zyklon B, which would be the vehicle that allowed the Nazi’s to fulfill the Final Solution at such a rapid pace. And he stood by as millions were led into the gas chambers. His excuse follows the typical Nazi adage that they were just following orders. “Hoss was a man who needed something to believe in and, more importantly, someone to tell him what to do.� (from epilogue)
His own account, and especially his final letters to his family almost make him sympathetic. ALMOST. No doubt he was monstrous, but there is a sense of humanity beneath his Nazi uniform and ideology. His complicacy in “spilling the beans� to prosecutors attests to that. “Hoss was one of the few who could, and also would give precise information about every aspect of the mass killings. In fact, he answered everything asked of him.� No doubt this is a historically significant book. It also offers supplementary material, like Hoss’s recollections of his collegues (I didn’t read all of them, only major, recognizable players like Himmler) and Wannassee conference minutes. Overall it was a chilling, if necessary glimpse at life inside the Nazi regime and concentration camps.
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January 31, 2024No sé cómo puntuar este libro. Hubo una parte en la que me produjo náuseas su lectura, de verdad. Pese a que es un testimonio histórico valiosísimo y de primera mano del lado nazi, es inevitable no sentirse agobiado por las cosas que narra Hoss. Y es que este libro es una autobiografía escrita por el propio Rudolf Hoss, comandante jefe del campo de concentración de Auschwitz, el más grande y en el que, quizás, se cometieron las mayores atrocidades ya conocidas por todos.
Hoss se vio obligado a redactar este texto porque se le exigió mientras estaba en prisión (fue capturado un año después del fin de la II Guerra Mundial). Aquí habla de su infancia, de su amor a los animales, a la naturaleza y al campo. Y de cómo, "sin querer queriendo", pasó a convertirse en parte de las SS, el brazo armado del Partido Obrero Alemán Nacionalsocialista (NSDAP), luego de haber sido él mismo prisionero en la guerra anterior. Todo por amor a su patria y lealtad a su partido.
Pese a que toda la brutalidad y crímenes cometidos en los campos de concentración, según Hoss, nunca eran culpa de él sino de otros (Himmler, el más nombrado, Eichmann y Eicke), no se desdice de su ideología en este testimonio sino que la reafirma, así como su anti-semitismo, pero eso sí, "no eran las formas". Es un intento de lavado de manos, aunque mucho de lo que dice es real, se sabe: el sistema de obediencia ciega, el lavado de cerebro, el simplemente "cumplir órdenes", la indolencia y la deshumanización de los miembros de las SS. Así se describe él mismo, como alguien que tuvo que guardar su sensibilidad y sentimientos y volverse insensible y de piedra ante los abusos que cometían los otros, no él, por supuesto, quien asegura que nunca trató mal a ningún preso... Pero los otros sí, quienes según sus palabras eran hombres brutales, que no servían, que eran los peores y que cometían abusos frente a los que él, como jefe, no podía hacer nada porque estaba completamente abandonado a su suerte. Y pese a que insistentemente pedía ayuda a sus jefes, éstos le decían que estaban en guerra y que resolver el estado decadente y de podredumbre en el que estaba el campo de Auschwitz era algo que él debía resolver solo.
El resumen es que siempre era culpa de los otros; pero lo más deplorable de leer es el cómo acusa a los prisioneros de ser ellos mismos los que se causaban todo tipo de opresión y males entre sí. Es decir, responsabiliza a los propios judíos de los campos de concentración. Comenta que los caporales eran judíos y ejercían una violencia y crueldad aún mayor que la de los guardias de las SS. Así también resalta con una malicia insistente a los Sonderkommandos, que eran los prisioneros judíos que estaban encargados de llevar a otros judíos prisioneros a las cámaras de gas y después incinerar sus cuerpos, no sin antes quitarles los dientes de oro y el pelo a las mujeres. Dice que le sorprendía la frialdad y abulia con la que estos hombres trabajaban, aún sabiendo que serían también asesinados después.
Todo esto no es nuevo, pese a lo chocante que pueda sonar. Primo Levi y Víctor Frankl ya lo narraron en sus libros (el tema de los judíos caporales y de los Sonderkommandos), Frankl dice algo muy fuerte sobre ello: "los mejores de nosotros no sobrevivieron". Esto porque los prisioneros tuvieron que hacer cosas terribles para garantizar su supervivencia en el estado primitivo y degradante en el que estaban. Pero Hoss se aprovecha de ello y lo presenta casi como algo gratuito, como una maldad judía arraigada y no como la consecuencia del estado de crueldad y de extrema agonía en el que los nazis habían puesto a los prisioneros de los campos de concentración, cosa hecha con extrema maldad y premeditación, ya que la "solución final" era el exterminio. Y esto lo confirma Hoss.
Un libro recomendable si se quiere leer un testimonio del otro lado de las cosas, que sigue siendo un lado terrible y doloroso. Aunque realmente no hay otro lado, pero sí voces del otro lado. Todo es, como dijo Hanna Arendt, "la banalización del mal".
Hoss se vio obligado a redactar este texto porque se le exigió mientras estaba en prisión (fue capturado un año después del fin de la II Guerra Mundial). Aquí habla de su infancia, de su amor a los animales, a la naturaleza y al campo. Y de cómo, "sin querer queriendo", pasó a convertirse en parte de las SS, el brazo armado del Partido Obrero Alemán Nacionalsocialista (NSDAP), luego de haber sido él mismo prisionero en la guerra anterior. Todo por amor a su patria y lealtad a su partido.
Pese a que toda la brutalidad y crímenes cometidos en los campos de concentración, según Hoss, nunca eran culpa de él sino de otros (Himmler, el más nombrado, Eichmann y Eicke), no se desdice de su ideología en este testimonio sino que la reafirma, así como su anti-semitismo, pero eso sí, "no eran las formas". Es un intento de lavado de manos, aunque mucho de lo que dice es real, se sabe: el sistema de obediencia ciega, el lavado de cerebro, el simplemente "cumplir órdenes", la indolencia y la deshumanización de los miembros de las SS. Así se describe él mismo, como alguien que tuvo que guardar su sensibilidad y sentimientos y volverse insensible y de piedra ante los abusos que cometían los otros, no él, por supuesto, quien asegura que nunca trató mal a ningún preso... Pero los otros sí, quienes según sus palabras eran hombres brutales, que no servían, que eran los peores y que cometían abusos frente a los que él, como jefe, no podía hacer nada porque estaba completamente abandonado a su suerte. Y pese a que insistentemente pedía ayuda a sus jefes, éstos le decían que estaban en guerra y que resolver el estado decadente y de podredumbre en el que estaba el campo de Auschwitz era algo que él debía resolver solo.
El resumen es que siempre era culpa de los otros; pero lo más deplorable de leer es el cómo acusa a los prisioneros de ser ellos mismos los que se causaban todo tipo de opresión y males entre sí. Es decir, responsabiliza a los propios judíos de los campos de concentración. Comenta que los caporales eran judíos y ejercían una violencia y crueldad aún mayor que la de los guardias de las SS. Así también resalta con una malicia insistente a los Sonderkommandos, que eran los prisioneros judíos que estaban encargados de llevar a otros judíos prisioneros a las cámaras de gas y después incinerar sus cuerpos, no sin antes quitarles los dientes de oro y el pelo a las mujeres. Dice que le sorprendía la frialdad y abulia con la que estos hombres trabajaban, aún sabiendo que serían también asesinados después.
Todo esto no es nuevo, pese a lo chocante que pueda sonar. Primo Levi y Víctor Frankl ya lo narraron en sus libros (el tema de los judíos caporales y de los Sonderkommandos), Frankl dice algo muy fuerte sobre ello: "los mejores de nosotros no sobrevivieron". Esto porque los prisioneros tuvieron que hacer cosas terribles para garantizar su supervivencia en el estado primitivo y degradante en el que estaban. Pero Hoss se aprovecha de ello y lo presenta casi como algo gratuito, como una maldad judía arraigada y no como la consecuencia del estado de crueldad y de extrema agonía en el que los nazis habían puesto a los prisioneros de los campos de concentración, cosa hecha con extrema maldad y premeditación, ya que la "solución final" era el exterminio. Y esto lo confirma Hoss.
Un libro recomendable si se quiere leer un testimonio del otro lado de las cosas, que sigue siendo un lado terrible y doloroso. Aunque realmente no hay otro lado, pero sí voces del otro lado. Todo es, como dijo Hanna Arendt, "la banalización del mal".
May 3, 2013
This book is, as says in the introduction, filled with lies and shirks, but never the less, it is an extremely important document of The Final Solution, the extermination machine, Auschwitz, Birkenau, the bureaucracy, the corruption and the insanity that existed in the top ranks and among the SS in Auschwitz.
While Höss details his life from growing up until the end, he intersperses the story with very important details on how Auschwitz grew, how the sub-camps worked, he also writes about his family, mass exterminations, day-to-day activities, hardships, etc.
Remember: Höss joined the nazi party and the SS voluntarily. And he is considered by many to be the most cruel commandant of Auschwitz.
All in all, as Levi writes, Höss' prejudice and idiocies stick out like "flies in milk", but viewed with a critical eye, this is a must read for anybody who wants more insight into the horrors of The Final Solution.
While Höss details his life from growing up until the end, he intersperses the story with very important details on how Auschwitz grew, how the sub-camps worked, he also writes about his family, mass exterminations, day-to-day activities, hardships, etc.
Remember: Höss joined the nazi party and the SS voluntarily. And he is considered by many to be the most cruel commandant of Auschwitz.
All in all, as Levi writes, Höss' prejudice and idiocies stick out like "flies in milk", but viewed with a critical eye, this is a must read for anybody who wants more insight into the horrors of The Final Solution.
June 18, 2019
I must admit, I’m not sure how to rate this memoir. On one hand, it’s an extremely valuable historical document for everyone who takes studying the Holocaust seriously as it gives the perspective of the perpetrator who was in charge of the biggest extermination camp in history and has literally millions of lives on his conscience. On the other hand, despite all of his “now, looking back, I know that it was all a mistake and things should have been handled differently,� I never sensed even a remote semblance of the remorse in Höss’s words. No, he didn’t “realize� anything and no, he doesn’t regret anything. He only regrets that he is about to get hanged and that he won’t see his family again. Now he knows how it felt for the millions of people whom he sent to the gas chambers or sentenced to death in other ways.
The memoir is extremely valuable because it offers a glimpse into the hierarchy of the concentration camp system, shows how the whole system was set in motion starting with the infamous Dachau under Eicke’s command and eventually evolved into something shudder-inducing like Auschwitz. Höss recounts the history of the concentration camps in general and Auschwitz, in particular, more or less honestly but does get carried away with ideological rantings from time to time, which, again, witness to the fact that he has always been a convinced Nazi and that he hasn’t changed a bit in Polish captivity. He proclaims that he, personally, never had any hatred for Jews and that certain actions of the SS and SA harmed the “scientific anti-Semitism� with their brutality. He gets more conflicted in his views as he writes, starting with “prisoners should have been treated more fairly� and switching to “I was against keeping too many able-bodied Jews since they contributed to the overcrowding of the camp.� He calls Eicke a fanatic who considered all of the prisoners “enemies of the state,� yet he himself slips and calls Jews “the enemy of the German nation which needs to be removed in order for the German nation to prosper� quite a few times. He calls many of his colleagues “narrow-minded� and “unable to see the big picture� when he himself displays narrow-mindedness of epic proportions in almost every single opinion of his. You’ll know what I mean after you read it.
This memoir will most likely make you cringe but you will learn a lot about Auschwitz hierarchy, of certain men who run the scene (starting with Himmler, Eichmann, and Müller and ending with the Kommandant’s aids), and follow the timeline of events told from the Kommandant’s perspective. It’s definitely a must read for any Holocaust scholar who wishes to understand the mindset of perpetrators, but it’s not an easy read for sure.
The memoir is extremely valuable because it offers a glimpse into the hierarchy of the concentration camp system, shows how the whole system was set in motion starting with the infamous Dachau under Eicke’s command and eventually evolved into something shudder-inducing like Auschwitz. Höss recounts the history of the concentration camps in general and Auschwitz, in particular, more or less honestly but does get carried away with ideological rantings from time to time, which, again, witness to the fact that he has always been a convinced Nazi and that he hasn’t changed a bit in Polish captivity. He proclaims that he, personally, never had any hatred for Jews and that certain actions of the SS and SA harmed the “scientific anti-Semitism� with their brutality. He gets more conflicted in his views as he writes, starting with “prisoners should have been treated more fairly� and switching to “I was against keeping too many able-bodied Jews since they contributed to the overcrowding of the camp.� He calls Eicke a fanatic who considered all of the prisoners “enemies of the state,� yet he himself slips and calls Jews “the enemy of the German nation which needs to be removed in order for the German nation to prosper� quite a few times. He calls many of his colleagues “narrow-minded� and “unable to see the big picture� when he himself displays narrow-mindedness of epic proportions in almost every single opinion of his. You’ll know what I mean after you read it.
This memoir will most likely make you cringe but you will learn a lot about Auschwitz hierarchy, of certain men who run the scene (starting with Himmler, Eichmann, and Müller and ending with the Kommandant’s aids), and follow the timeline of events told from the Kommandant’s perspective. It’s definitely a must read for any Holocaust scholar who wishes to understand the mindset of perpetrators, but it’s not an easy read for sure.
April 21, 2016
This alleged human is scary. In writing his memoirs he revealed a lack of awareness, emotion and responsibility that is breathtaking. The SS guards he was assigned, the poor medical care, lack of supplies and indifferent higher officers all caused the brutal and deadly conditions at Auschwitz. He struggled mightily to rectify the situation, but could not manage due to everyone conspiring against him. There was nothing he could do to stop the sadistic guards from encouraging the mistreatment of prisoners or killing them.
But then he admits the Kommandant who followed him fixed the problem of prisoner beatings in no time.
The worst is his reaction to his role in killing perhaps three million or more people. It was an order like any other. He was just the instrument fate put in place to carry it out.
He is almost moved when a mother, one of the few he witnessed killed who knew her fate ahead of time, calmed her children and told them everything would be fine, but whispered in his ear as she passed: How can you kill all these beautiful children?
He never answers that question, as he rattles off his account of unimaginable horror in an almost trivial manner. He discusses how his lot was terrible, what with no one he can depend on to properly assist him, with directives to supply so many prisoners to work as slaves building weapons for the Nazi arms manufacturers and the never-ending supply of trains bringing Jews that he has to routinely gas to death and then burn. That he doesn't seem to realize the enormity of what he's done -- and why it should be considered so horrible -- is the most frighting aspect of it all.
But then he admits the Kommandant who followed him fixed the problem of prisoner beatings in no time.
The worst is his reaction to his role in killing perhaps three million or more people. It was an order like any other. He was just the instrument fate put in place to carry it out.
He is almost moved when a mother, one of the few he witnessed killed who knew her fate ahead of time, calmed her children and told them everything would be fine, but whispered in his ear as she passed: How can you kill all these beautiful children?
He never answers that question, as he rattles off his account of unimaginable horror in an almost trivial manner. He discusses how his lot was terrible, what with no one he can depend on to properly assist him, with directives to supply so many prisoners to work as slaves building weapons for the Nazi arms manufacturers and the never-ending supply of trains bringing Jews that he has to routinely gas to death and then burn. That he doesn't seem to realize the enormity of what he's done -- and why it should be considered so horrible -- is the most frighting aspect of it all.
June 22, 2012
Haunting book - the memoirs that Höss, Auschwitz commander for two years, wrote while in jail awaiting execution. This Italian edition (for one in English see ) comes with a lucid preface by (himlsef an Auschwitz survivor) - Hoss sees himself simply as somebody who wants to do his job properly, or at least this is the justification he is putting out to the world. In his allucinated perspective, perfecting ways to "process" large numbers of inmates becomes almost an act of kindness to his prisoners: "Death would overcome [them] in the crowded cells just after the gas had been pumped int. A short cry, immediately muffled, and all was over" [my translation] - and Hoss is greatly conforted by the success of gasing Russian prisoners, as he had worried about not being able to carry out the orders of the mass extermination of the Jews in the near future. He is simply a guy doing his job, and he cares about doing it properly. As compelling as it is horrifying.
February 8, 2023
In questo mese ho letto diversi libri sul periodo nazista e la maggior parte delle volte ho preferito non dare recensioni.
A questo attribuisco invece 3 stelle, non relativamente all’importanza (immensa) del testo né in riferimento ai vari contributi che ci sono all’interno, che accompagnano, contestano e arricchiscono l’autobiografia di Höss.
Le 3 stelle sono una sorta di stupida e infantile vendetta nei confronti di un uomo detestabile, terribile, inquietante; un uomo di cui mai avrei letto l’autobiografia se non per curiosità storica.
Tre stelle perché la schizofrenia (a questa Alberto Moravia attribuisce il comportamento dissociativo di Höss) del personaggio è irritante; si direbbe che ci si nasconda dietro, se solo fosse in grado di riconoscerla.
L’autobiografia è scritta con tono monocorde, come se si stesse parlando di come costruire dei pilastri, anziché del modo in cui l’autore ha sterminato più di un milione di persone. È doloroso, fastidioso e noioso.
Molto belli i contributi di Primo Levi, Moravia, Frediano Sessi e Martin Broszát, che offrono analisi interessanti e diverse da loro circa il soggetto, rendendo il libro un importantissimo testo storico e una fonte molto utile di spunti intellettuali.
A questo attribuisco invece 3 stelle, non relativamente all’importanza (immensa) del testo né in riferimento ai vari contributi che ci sono all’interno, che accompagnano, contestano e arricchiscono l’autobiografia di Höss.
Le 3 stelle sono una sorta di stupida e infantile vendetta nei confronti di un uomo detestabile, terribile, inquietante; un uomo di cui mai avrei letto l’autobiografia se non per curiosità storica.
Tre stelle perché la schizofrenia (a questa Alberto Moravia attribuisce il comportamento dissociativo di Höss) del personaggio è irritante; si direbbe che ci si nasconda dietro, se solo fosse in grado di riconoscerla.
L’autobiografia è scritta con tono monocorde, come se si stesse parlando di come costruire dei pilastri, anziché del modo in cui l’autore ha sterminato più di un milione di persone. È doloroso, fastidioso e noioso.
Molto belli i contributi di Primo Levi, Moravia, Frediano Sessi e Martin Broszát, che offrono analisi interessanti e diverse da loro circa il soggetto, rendendo il libro un importantissimo testo storico e una fonte molto utile di spunti intellettuali.
June 3, 2018
I don't know why I continually feel compelled to read books about the Holocaust. But I do. When we visited Auschwitz a few years ago, our guide practically spat out the name of Rudolf Hoss every time she had to say it. We saw the house he lived in. The place where he was executed. And somehow I felt the need to be a witness to his words.
It is, of course, a chilling read. The 'banality of evil' is on full display. And most disturbing of all, to me, is the fact that even today, seventy five years later, one only has to turn on the nightly news to see all the 'little men and women with their little hatreds' still on full display, every single day, in every corner of the world. And maybe that is reason enough to continue to read these books.
"It is easy for the formulators of policy - be they dictators, presidents, or kings - to issue orders when others must do the killing. They do not have to wade through the blood nor listen to the screams nor watch the victims in the dance of death. It is ordinary men and women who are ordered to carry out these horrors. These are the people who should have weighed these orders; it is here that the lesson of history lies. Without the SS there could have been no concentration camps. Without the soldier there could have been no war. It is not only Germany that bears the heavy burden, but the rest of the world also. For it is well-documented that the Allies and the Christian churches, especially Rome, did not speak out strongly enough to stop the horrors, nor did the Allies take the proper action to halt the trains that led to Auschwitz. By examining these little men and women and their little hatreds, we can learn from this history. Because of the highly organized mass media of today and the orchestrated propaganda spewing forth, be it from the West or the East, it will be the little men and women with their little hatreds who may once again be a tidal wave of destruction that will sweep humanity into another age of horror.
The words of George Santayana cannot be repeated often enough, for each new generation seems to find new ways to make the same mistakes. It is the hope of the present that they relearn and carry the burden of history: "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." - Steven J. Paskuly - Editor
It is, of course, a chilling read. The 'banality of evil' is on full display. And most disturbing of all, to me, is the fact that even today, seventy five years later, one only has to turn on the nightly news to see all the 'little men and women with their little hatreds' still on full display, every single day, in every corner of the world. And maybe that is reason enough to continue to read these books.
"It is easy for the formulators of policy - be they dictators, presidents, or kings - to issue orders when others must do the killing. They do not have to wade through the blood nor listen to the screams nor watch the victims in the dance of death. It is ordinary men and women who are ordered to carry out these horrors. These are the people who should have weighed these orders; it is here that the lesson of history lies. Without the SS there could have been no concentration camps. Without the soldier there could have been no war. It is not only Germany that bears the heavy burden, but the rest of the world also. For it is well-documented that the Allies and the Christian churches, especially Rome, did not speak out strongly enough to stop the horrors, nor did the Allies take the proper action to halt the trains that led to Auschwitz. By examining these little men and women and their little hatreds, we can learn from this history. Because of the highly organized mass media of today and the orchestrated propaganda spewing forth, be it from the West or the East, it will be the little men and women with their little hatreds who may once again be a tidal wave of destruction that will sweep humanity into another age of horror.
The words of George Santayana cannot be repeated often enough, for each new generation seems to find new ways to make the same mistakes. It is the hope of the present that they relearn and carry the burden of history: "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." - Steven J. Paskuly - Editor
Read
July 21, 2018This is the the first person account of the Commandant of Auschwitz, Rudolf Höss, a man that in his own words was personally responsible for the death of two million people (at the very least). As such, I found it extremely difficult to review and yet, perhaps for that very reason, I felt compelled to put down my thoughts on this one. Perhaps the very act of making them public will help me process what was a jarring experience: this autobiography left me in a state of painful dismay and anger; states that I hope to tame, so to speak, via cogent discourse.
I had known of this account for quite a while but did not know it was an actual autobiography. Höss recounts his life from his early childhood, with his love for animals that never left him, the stern Catholic upbringing full of strict discipline and the priest who broke the confession seal and thus did much to destroy young Höss's faith; all the way to the death of his father, his fascination with the army that led him to join WWI still in his teens and how afterwards he found himself unable to join civilian life, how he was imprisoned for six years as a result of terrorist activities and eventually came to join the SS.
What follows is the strange mixture of detailed descriptions of the Nazi extermination machine, complete with extremely valuable and chilling step-by-step rundowns of how the prisoners were processed, selected, gassed, worked to death, cremated (complete with an appendix exclusively about the killing process), interspaced with a humdrum refrain of complaints (about the clunky red tape that hemmed him at every turn, about ignorant superiors and incompetent subalterns) along with Höss's reflections on human nature that gain expression in his obsession for cataloguing virtually everyone, be it prisoners or SS men.
Höss reveals a stunning ability of shrugging off responsibility. In one instance he will admit his guilt only to clutter up excuse after excuse, to the point it is implicit that the true victim of the Holocaust is none other than Rufolf Höss. This inability to fully shoulder person accountability is a constant and runs along several lines: his superiors, in particular Himmler, are repeatedly accused for the sorrowful state Auschwitz degenerated into. Höss blames Himmler for sending far too many people, for expanding the camp to the point it was not sustainable and for never heeding Höss's several pleas and suggestions. From the very start Auschwitz was a disaster and Höss, surprisingly, readily accepts this.
But what bothers Höss so much in the entire situation is that the camp was a nightmare of logistics. Occasionally he will display glimpses of borderline concern for the prisoners but this was obviously not his main concern. The other party that has the brunt of Höss's fury, and thus alleviates his guilt, is his many subordinates. Time and time again Höss impresses on the reader that the staff at Auschwitz was the very worst the German army had to offer, the civilian workers lacked discipline and overall no one had truly absorbed the work ethics that Höss held as so very dear.
Speaking of which, Höss claims to have invented the infamous 'Arbeit mach frei' motto and goes to some lengths to expound on it. Having been a prisoner himself, Höss was rescued form madness from the dullness and horror of prion life via the application of vigorous work, therefore he assumes that all prisoners would derive great advantages with the same method. He mentions, almost as aside, that this only applies in 'normal circumstances'.
This venture into prisoner psychology marks an important aspect to Höss's approach to life in general, namely, his probing of 'human nature' enforced through a series of categories in which everyone is neatly labelled. He began this cataloguing long before he even became involved in the Camps, having started in earnest as a young man in jail. Höss almost always divides people into groups and this allows him to speak with a self-assured authority on the several types of guards (the deliberately evil, who enjoy hurting the prisoners; the indifferent, whose actions were often equally as bad; the good-natured ones whose friendly ways actually could harm the prisoners even more, in the long run) as well on the several types of prisoners.
No type of prisoner goes unmentioned or escapes the insane scope of Höss's analysis. The homosexuals, said to be a 'vice', and something of an epidemic are further subdivided into the 'real homosexuals', those who turn to homosexuality as a means of survival: labor can rescue the second group, while the first one is beyond redemption. Specific tests are made to see if the 'cure' did succeed, including using females to approach the inmates and see if they acted 'like men' or not.
The Roma prisoners are described in sickly endearing terms as "my best-loved prisoners- if I may put it that way". Höss goes as far as to add, "I would have taken great interest in observing their customs and habits if I had not been aware of the impeding horror, namely the Extermination Order (...).
This sets the entire tone for Höss's attitude toward what amounted to grand scale genocide on a scale never before seen: he admits that it was indeed quite a terrible thing to have happened but never does it seem to genuinely occur to him that it was not unavoidable. It is so stunning that one needs bring to mind Höss's own words:
"When in the summer of 1941, he [Himmler] himself have me the order to prepare installations at Auschwitz where mass exterminations could take place, and personally to carry out these exterminations, I did not have the slightest idea of their scale of consequences. It was certainly an extraordinary and monstrous order. Nevertheless the reasons behind the extermination program seemed to me right. I did not reflect on it at the time: I had been given an order, and I had to carry it out."
The Nuremberg trials did not teach Höss a single thing, this is not the only passage where he tries to exculpate himself by saying he were merely following orders. Perhaps more than Eichmann, Höss is the very definition of the banality of evil, someone whose moral sense is so vague that it can be swayed, superseded and ultimately made null and void by the authorities that be.
Oddly enough, as amoral as Höss is, he hardly ever stops commenting on the prisoners 'beastly' behavior in contrast with the political prisoners whose conduct he found impressive, particularly the Communists who went to their death with head held high. Höss constantly criticizes his prisoners, as if driven by a compulsion.
On the subject of the Jews, Höss has plenty to say even if he takes quite some time to get there. To have an idea of the level of mental gymnastics involved, Höss offers us this precious gem of distortion:
"I must emphasize here that I have never personally hated the Jews. It is true that I looked upon them as the enemies of our people. But just because of this I saw no difference between them and the other prisoners, and I treated them all the same way. I never drew and distinctions. In any event the emotion of hatred is foreign to my nature. But I know what hate is, and what it looks like. I have seen it and I have suffered it myself."
One cannot, and should not, take the above lines seriously. Höss himself seems to challenge us as much when he affirms, glibly and with the usual self-assured sense of importance,
"As a fanatical National Socialist I was firmly convinced that our ideas would gradually be accepted and would prevail throughout the world(...). Jewish supremacy would thus be abolished. There was nothing new in anti-Semitism. It has always existed all over the world, but has only come into the limelight when the Jews have pushed themselves forward too much in their quest for power, and when their evil machinations have become too obvious for the general public to stomach."
The 'evil machinations' of the Jews join his chorus of complaints; at one point Höss seems genuinely upset over the influx of gold that Jewish prisoners brought into the Camp as the corruption that followed caused nothing short of chaos and undercut his ability to keep things under his control. Höss may, on times, claim not to feel any animosity toward the Jews but throughout this account the mask slips, keeps slipping, and finally slips away entirely as before his execution- at Auschwitz, no less- Höss extends an apology to those he killed, 'in particular the Poles', without doing as much as saying a word about the Jews.
But that is beyond the bounds of this review that will try to focus on Höss's words alone. Höss displays a disturbing fascination with the Sonderkommando, the group of Jews in charge of guiding their brethren to the gas chambers. They would help them undress, lull them with lies about the shower that awaited, weed out the troublesome ones that could not be calmed (these were taken by the SS and shot dead out of sight), then once they were killed it was up to this special contingent of Jewish prisoners to transport the bodies, shear and store the hair, remove gold teeth/fillings, and finally cremate them and transport the ashes.
Höss sees in this the ultimate proof that the Jews are traitors, traitors to their own race, no less, an implication that he never states but is all the more pressing for that. The way in which these Jews, that were themselves executed wholesale when a certain quota was reached, treat their own is something that the ever moralistic Höss finds absolutely disgusting. He mentions a man who, upon wheeling a dead body to the ovens, stopped momentarily upon realizing it was his own wife but then went on with his job as if utterly nonplussed.
That it was Höss himself, and the machinery to which he so thoughtfully obeyed, were directly responsible for bringing human beings to this point is not something that he seems to consider, at all.
Höss has moments of borderline lucidity when it seems that had he been reached at some point- long before he became entangled in the SS and soiled with the Camps- it might have been possible to make him see the error of his ways. Because Höss actually is aware of the effect of propaganda in utterly distorting the truth, he witnessed it firsthand in Dachau where Eicke, a foe to Höss, marshaled all the tools of brutality and skewed 'information' in order to instill an artificial hatred for the political enemy of the State. Höss himself is aware that this was nothing short of a systematic brutalization of the guards and up in order to stir up a deep hatred but shows a complete lack of awareness when it comes to how the very same methods were employed against the Jews.
It might very well be that since there is 'nothing new' about Anti-Semistism Höss just could not make the connection, the Jews were so hateful to him that it did not cross his mind that this stripe of hatred was every bit as artificial as any other that is based on prejudice: people need be taught to hate and Höss was a very apt pupil. Even as he nears the end of his account, even as Höss expresses in unequivocal terms that the extermination of the Jews was 'fundamentally wrong', he then adds so that it did nothing to serve the cause of Germany and only reinforced a sense of Jewish identity so that one is left to infer that the real problem with the Holocaust is that it backfired.
Höss's final words, the culmination of a series of badly cobbled excuses offered as if to wipe away the gassings, the cannibalism, the genocide, pain, horror, endless and unforgivable monstrosity, are given here:
"Unknowingly I was a cog in the wheel of the great extermination machine created by the Third Reich. The machine has been smashed to pieced to pieces, the engine is broken, and I, too, must now be destroyed.
The world demands it.
(...)Whenever use is made of what I have written, I beg that all those passages relating to my wife and family, and all my tender emotions and secret doubts, shall not be made public.
Let the public continue to regard me as a blood-thirsty beast, the cruel sadist, and the mass murderer; for the masses could never imagine the commandant of Auschwitz in any other light.
They could never understand that he, too, had a heart and that he was not evil."
What to make of this? Is it an attempt at reserve psychology, trying to get his work published posthumously? Is Höss truly repented and as he faces his certain death by hanging, fumbling for some justification in order to convince himself, us, both?
It is, ultimately, impossible to tell. I am inclined to think that Höss, to the very last, is angling for redemption but not because he genuinely feels any bit of regret but because he feels himself wronged.
This is, without a doubt, a very relevant work for anyone interested in understanding the Nazi mindset and perhaps more importantly, in making sure such mindset never gains traction ever again. Unfortunately, the ones for whom this should be mandatory reading are precisely the ones who will either avoid it or actually believe the final quotation, namely, Holocaust deniers.
Reading this book was, for me, a way of fighting the surge of Holocaust deniers that seems to be swelling a bit all over. We must never, ever, forget that Rudolf Höss was not just a freak of nature, an isolated aberration, and Auschwitz is not just history: Hösses still abound in this world and Auschwitz is right around the corner if we don't do all in our power to keep it from creeping up from the very depths of the slime of the horrors that only humanity can bring about and only humanity can keep at bay.
I had known of this account for quite a while but did not know it was an actual autobiography. Höss recounts his life from his early childhood, with his love for animals that never left him, the stern Catholic upbringing full of strict discipline and the priest who broke the confession seal and thus did much to destroy young Höss's faith; all the way to the death of his father, his fascination with the army that led him to join WWI still in his teens and how afterwards he found himself unable to join civilian life, how he was imprisoned for six years as a result of terrorist activities and eventually came to join the SS.
What follows is the strange mixture of detailed descriptions of the Nazi extermination machine, complete with extremely valuable and chilling step-by-step rundowns of how the prisoners were processed, selected, gassed, worked to death, cremated (complete with an appendix exclusively about the killing process), interspaced with a humdrum refrain of complaints (about the clunky red tape that hemmed him at every turn, about ignorant superiors and incompetent subalterns) along with Höss's reflections on human nature that gain expression in his obsession for cataloguing virtually everyone, be it prisoners or SS men.
Höss reveals a stunning ability of shrugging off responsibility. In one instance he will admit his guilt only to clutter up excuse after excuse, to the point it is implicit that the true victim of the Holocaust is none other than Rufolf Höss. This inability to fully shoulder person accountability is a constant and runs along several lines: his superiors, in particular Himmler, are repeatedly accused for the sorrowful state Auschwitz degenerated into. Höss blames Himmler for sending far too many people, for expanding the camp to the point it was not sustainable and for never heeding Höss's several pleas and suggestions. From the very start Auschwitz was a disaster and Höss, surprisingly, readily accepts this.
But what bothers Höss so much in the entire situation is that the camp was a nightmare of logistics. Occasionally he will display glimpses of borderline concern for the prisoners but this was obviously not his main concern. The other party that has the brunt of Höss's fury, and thus alleviates his guilt, is his many subordinates. Time and time again Höss impresses on the reader that the staff at Auschwitz was the very worst the German army had to offer, the civilian workers lacked discipline and overall no one had truly absorbed the work ethics that Höss held as so very dear.
Speaking of which, Höss claims to have invented the infamous 'Arbeit mach frei' motto and goes to some lengths to expound on it. Having been a prisoner himself, Höss was rescued form madness from the dullness and horror of prion life via the application of vigorous work, therefore he assumes that all prisoners would derive great advantages with the same method. He mentions, almost as aside, that this only applies in 'normal circumstances'.
This venture into prisoner psychology marks an important aspect to Höss's approach to life in general, namely, his probing of 'human nature' enforced through a series of categories in which everyone is neatly labelled. He began this cataloguing long before he even became involved in the Camps, having started in earnest as a young man in jail. Höss almost always divides people into groups and this allows him to speak with a self-assured authority on the several types of guards (the deliberately evil, who enjoy hurting the prisoners; the indifferent, whose actions were often equally as bad; the good-natured ones whose friendly ways actually could harm the prisoners even more, in the long run) as well on the several types of prisoners.
No type of prisoner goes unmentioned or escapes the insane scope of Höss's analysis. The homosexuals, said to be a 'vice', and something of an epidemic are further subdivided into the 'real homosexuals', those who turn to homosexuality as a means of survival: labor can rescue the second group, while the first one is beyond redemption. Specific tests are made to see if the 'cure' did succeed, including using females to approach the inmates and see if they acted 'like men' or not.
The Roma prisoners are described in sickly endearing terms as "my best-loved prisoners- if I may put it that way". Höss goes as far as to add, "I would have taken great interest in observing their customs and habits if I had not been aware of the impeding horror, namely the Extermination Order (...).
This sets the entire tone for Höss's attitude toward what amounted to grand scale genocide on a scale never before seen: he admits that it was indeed quite a terrible thing to have happened but never does it seem to genuinely occur to him that it was not unavoidable. It is so stunning that one needs bring to mind Höss's own words:
"When in the summer of 1941, he [Himmler] himself have me the order to prepare installations at Auschwitz where mass exterminations could take place, and personally to carry out these exterminations, I did not have the slightest idea of their scale of consequences. It was certainly an extraordinary and monstrous order. Nevertheless the reasons behind the extermination program seemed to me right. I did not reflect on it at the time: I had been given an order, and I had to carry it out."
The Nuremberg trials did not teach Höss a single thing, this is not the only passage where he tries to exculpate himself by saying he were merely following orders. Perhaps more than Eichmann, Höss is the very definition of the banality of evil, someone whose moral sense is so vague that it can be swayed, superseded and ultimately made null and void by the authorities that be.
Oddly enough, as amoral as Höss is, he hardly ever stops commenting on the prisoners 'beastly' behavior in contrast with the political prisoners whose conduct he found impressive, particularly the Communists who went to their death with head held high. Höss constantly criticizes his prisoners, as if driven by a compulsion.
On the subject of the Jews, Höss has plenty to say even if he takes quite some time to get there. To have an idea of the level of mental gymnastics involved, Höss offers us this precious gem of distortion:
"I must emphasize here that I have never personally hated the Jews. It is true that I looked upon them as the enemies of our people. But just because of this I saw no difference between them and the other prisoners, and I treated them all the same way. I never drew and distinctions. In any event the emotion of hatred is foreign to my nature. But I know what hate is, and what it looks like. I have seen it and I have suffered it myself."
One cannot, and should not, take the above lines seriously. Höss himself seems to challenge us as much when he affirms, glibly and with the usual self-assured sense of importance,
"As a fanatical National Socialist I was firmly convinced that our ideas would gradually be accepted and would prevail throughout the world(...). Jewish supremacy would thus be abolished. There was nothing new in anti-Semitism. It has always existed all over the world, but has only come into the limelight when the Jews have pushed themselves forward too much in their quest for power, and when their evil machinations have become too obvious for the general public to stomach."
The 'evil machinations' of the Jews join his chorus of complaints; at one point Höss seems genuinely upset over the influx of gold that Jewish prisoners brought into the Camp as the corruption that followed caused nothing short of chaos and undercut his ability to keep things under his control. Höss may, on times, claim not to feel any animosity toward the Jews but throughout this account the mask slips, keeps slipping, and finally slips away entirely as before his execution- at Auschwitz, no less- Höss extends an apology to those he killed, 'in particular the Poles', without doing as much as saying a word about the Jews.
But that is beyond the bounds of this review that will try to focus on Höss's words alone. Höss displays a disturbing fascination with the Sonderkommando, the group of Jews in charge of guiding their brethren to the gas chambers. They would help them undress, lull them with lies about the shower that awaited, weed out the troublesome ones that could not be calmed (these were taken by the SS and shot dead out of sight), then once they were killed it was up to this special contingent of Jewish prisoners to transport the bodies, shear and store the hair, remove gold teeth/fillings, and finally cremate them and transport the ashes.
Höss sees in this the ultimate proof that the Jews are traitors, traitors to their own race, no less, an implication that he never states but is all the more pressing for that. The way in which these Jews, that were themselves executed wholesale when a certain quota was reached, treat their own is something that the ever moralistic Höss finds absolutely disgusting. He mentions a man who, upon wheeling a dead body to the ovens, stopped momentarily upon realizing it was his own wife but then went on with his job as if utterly nonplussed.
That it was Höss himself, and the machinery to which he so thoughtfully obeyed, were directly responsible for bringing human beings to this point is not something that he seems to consider, at all.
Höss has moments of borderline lucidity when it seems that had he been reached at some point- long before he became entangled in the SS and soiled with the Camps- it might have been possible to make him see the error of his ways. Because Höss actually is aware of the effect of propaganda in utterly distorting the truth, he witnessed it firsthand in Dachau where Eicke, a foe to Höss, marshaled all the tools of brutality and skewed 'information' in order to instill an artificial hatred for the political enemy of the State. Höss himself is aware that this was nothing short of a systematic brutalization of the guards and up in order to stir up a deep hatred but shows a complete lack of awareness when it comes to how the very same methods were employed against the Jews.
It might very well be that since there is 'nothing new' about Anti-Semistism Höss just could not make the connection, the Jews were so hateful to him that it did not cross his mind that this stripe of hatred was every bit as artificial as any other that is based on prejudice: people need be taught to hate and Höss was a very apt pupil. Even as he nears the end of his account, even as Höss expresses in unequivocal terms that the extermination of the Jews was 'fundamentally wrong', he then adds so that it did nothing to serve the cause of Germany and only reinforced a sense of Jewish identity so that one is left to infer that the real problem with the Holocaust is that it backfired.
Höss's final words, the culmination of a series of badly cobbled excuses offered as if to wipe away the gassings, the cannibalism, the genocide, pain, horror, endless and unforgivable monstrosity, are given here:
"Unknowingly I was a cog in the wheel of the great extermination machine created by the Third Reich. The machine has been smashed to pieced to pieces, the engine is broken, and I, too, must now be destroyed.
The world demands it.
(...)Whenever use is made of what I have written, I beg that all those passages relating to my wife and family, and all my tender emotions and secret doubts, shall not be made public.
Let the public continue to regard me as a blood-thirsty beast, the cruel sadist, and the mass murderer; for the masses could never imagine the commandant of Auschwitz in any other light.
They could never understand that he, too, had a heart and that he was not evil."
What to make of this? Is it an attempt at reserve psychology, trying to get his work published posthumously? Is Höss truly repented and as he faces his certain death by hanging, fumbling for some justification in order to convince himself, us, both?
It is, ultimately, impossible to tell. I am inclined to think that Höss, to the very last, is angling for redemption but not because he genuinely feels any bit of regret but because he feels himself wronged.
This is, without a doubt, a very relevant work for anyone interested in understanding the Nazi mindset and perhaps more importantly, in making sure such mindset never gains traction ever again. Unfortunately, the ones for whom this should be mandatory reading are precisely the ones who will either avoid it or actually believe the final quotation, namely, Holocaust deniers.
Reading this book was, for me, a way of fighting the surge of Holocaust deniers that seems to be swelling a bit all over. We must never, ever, forget that Rudolf Höss was not just a freak of nature, an isolated aberration, and Auschwitz is not just history: Hösses still abound in this world and Auschwitz is right around the corner if we don't do all in our power to keep it from creeping up from the very depths of the slime of the horrors that only humanity can bring about and only humanity can keep at bay.
March 7, 2019
This is a good read that has to be taken with a pinch of salt. Most of the stories/narrative in the book are accurate and backed by historians except with some inconsistencies that the reader will be able to notice (the careful reader) within the book itself.
In my opinion, the book was left as a kind of explanation for his family. It is obvious that there is no remorse in Hoss' narrative.
Please do not miss the appendices, they are dry but they will help the reader recognize inconsistencies within the main read.
In my opinion, the book was left as a kind of explanation for his family. It is obvious that there is no remorse in Hoss' narrative.
Please do not miss the appendices, they are dry but they will help the reader recognize inconsistencies within the main read.
July 25, 2018
Along with many other reviewers on this site, I have mixed feelings about giving this book a 5-star rating. The stars here don't reflect the quality of the writing, or any valuation of the narrative arc of this astoundingly painful read, or any other sort of ordinary meaning of rating or review. However, students of authoritarianism (aren't we all, these days) ought to pick this one up, for a number of reasons.
Firstly, it is very interesting and also important to study the ways that, in the weeks between his trial and execution, Hoess commits impressive feats of logical acrobatics in order to paint himself as a victim of fascistic circumstance. He reiterates his love of animals and of his own family, and his dreams of a escaping to a quiet farmsteading life as if those personal inner feelings absolve him of his chosen SS career path and its murderous daily reality. He frequently provides examples in order to demonstrate to posterity that he was capable of feeling emotions and that he did not personally think the Final Solution was necessary or good (even though he was principal executioner of this multifaceted genocide). Yet, his actions and indeed his words in this book prove otherwise. To give one memorable example, upon describing the first mass use of zyklon gas to murder approximately 800 women and children in a single room, he writes that he observed the gas's effect through a peephole and felt "uncomfortable" as the people inside panicked, suffered, and died. Although perhaps this self-characterization was intended to humanize him, for me it certainly has the opposite effect. This is just one example of many, where in an almost defensive tone Hoess seems to attempt to reiterate his humanity, and even his own victimhood, to fascinating effect.
Secondly, the first half or so of the book consists of Hoess discussing his childhood, family, and early life, including his first years in the military. What stuck out to me here was the fact that, although he later lost his faith and obviously joined the by-and-large antireligious National Socialist party, he was raised by a traditional Catholic family and as a youth he and his family had planned on his joining the priesthood. His faith in God and the Catholic Church was crushed forever when at a young age his confessor broke the seal of the confessional and told his father about some petty infraction he had confessed to during reconciliation. Due to this breach of the rules, Hoess lost respect for his entire religion and for the priesthood. This anecdote really stayed with me because, above every other value in the human heart, Hoess held aloft the concept of Order . "The rules," procedures, and the concept of duty held all sway for him, to a disturbingly inhumane degree. For this reason he could hate all priests and lose his faith forever due to a childhood resentment, yet was able to serve in many top NS positions where he diligently managed the systematic liquidation of millions, so long as the principles of order, rules, and duty were respected.
Firstly, it is very interesting and also important to study the ways that, in the weeks between his trial and execution, Hoess commits impressive feats of logical acrobatics in order to paint himself as a victim of fascistic circumstance. He reiterates his love of animals and of his own family, and his dreams of a escaping to a quiet farmsteading life as if those personal inner feelings absolve him of his chosen SS career path and its murderous daily reality. He frequently provides examples in order to demonstrate to posterity that he was capable of feeling emotions and that he did not personally think the Final Solution was necessary or good (even though he was principal executioner of this multifaceted genocide). Yet, his actions and indeed his words in this book prove otherwise. To give one memorable example, upon describing the first mass use of zyklon gas to murder approximately 800 women and children in a single room, he writes that he observed the gas's effect through a peephole and felt "uncomfortable" as the people inside panicked, suffered, and died. Although perhaps this self-characterization was intended to humanize him, for me it certainly has the opposite effect. This is just one example of many, where in an almost defensive tone Hoess seems to attempt to reiterate his humanity, and even his own victimhood, to fascinating effect.
Secondly, the first half or so of the book consists of Hoess discussing his childhood, family, and early life, including his first years in the military. What stuck out to me here was the fact that, although he later lost his faith and obviously joined the by-and-large antireligious National Socialist party, he was raised by a traditional Catholic family and as a youth he and his family had planned on his joining the priesthood. His faith in God and the Catholic Church was crushed forever when at a young age his confessor broke the seal of the confessional and told his father about some petty infraction he had confessed to during reconciliation. Due to this breach of the rules, Hoess lost respect for his entire religion and for the priesthood. This anecdote really stayed with me because, above every other value in the human heart, Hoess held aloft the concept of Order . "The rules," procedures, and the concept of duty held all sway for him, to a disturbingly inhumane degree. For this reason he could hate all priests and lose his faith forever due to a childhood resentment, yet was able to serve in many top NS positions where he diligently managed the systematic liquidation of millions, so long as the principles of order, rules, and duty were respected.
March 28, 2021
I find it interesting that the book was written after he was sentenced to death but he still clings on to the Nazi ideology. He clings to the idea that he was only taking orders to get him off the hook. I'm not surprised by this phrase because it was used by many Nazi who were captured. I mention all this so other readers may read this book with a certain amount of honest skepticism. Hoss uses the Nazi argument that criminals, the mentally defective and members of non-Arian races were largely responsible for all of the dreadful horror that he describes. It was the carelessness of higher authority, poor administration, lack of understanding and the difficulties arising from wartime circumstances all combined to create a situation that inevitably led to the deaths of millions. It was never the evil in the souls of the men administering the killing that caused the suffering. It was their criminal underlings, the guards. Hoss explains over and again how neglect and callous disregard for prisoner health caused many more deaths than the gas chambers. Yea right. Of the 1.3 million people sent to Auschwitz 1.1 million died The death toll includes 960,000 Jews (865,000 of whom were gassed on arrival). All of this while he was Commandant of Auschwitz. As he said in his book, "You can fool all the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time,"(p.13) and there is large number of Germans knew a great deal about what went on in the concentration camps and as far I can tell did nothing. Our entire post-war understanding of wartime atrocities are built on books like this. However there is enough here for us to know that we must never again follow ideologies that promote an elite group of humans and allow them to degrade, humiliate and destroy all others. There is much to learn from this book. It is written by psychotic personality and his thoughts are heavily tainted by the worst Nazi ideology.
March 2, 2018
The Greek philosopher Socrates used to win his arguments not by attacking his adversaries but by instead asking them open, seemingly innocent questions. In their confident answering of such intellectual trojan horses, his sophist opponents would have the frailties of their logic exposed. I’m not sure if the British captors of Rudolf Hoess were aware of the socratic technique when they forced him to write his autobiography but, in getting Hoess to write this horrible, self-aggrandising book, similar results are achieved.
Predictably, ‘Commandant of Auschwitz� is dripping with denial. Hoess even has the audacity to claim that all he ever wanted to do was to live the life of a farmer with his wife and children (the romantic Nazi ideal), but that the lure of being a soldier again after the first world war was too much. When urged by old comrades to return, he found he just could not say no to joining the SS. Chance, sliding doors and it-could-happen-to-anyone is Hoess’s first insult to the reader’s intelligence.
Most of his rationalisations, however, are suggested indirectly. Hoess attempts to manipulate the reader through describing the most excruciating banalities about the difficulties of running a concentration camp. It is within the very ordinariness of the detail offered that the reader is lured into unwittingly normalising Hoess. He bemoans, for instance, the difficulties of procuring barbed wire in a war as if he were a housewife during the blitz worrying about rations. The quality of guard allotted to him is another of his gripes. His own ‘goodwill and all the best intentions were doomed to be dashed to pieces against the human inadequacy and sheer stupidity of most the officers and men posted to [him].� Hoess himself, he claims, wanted ‘to obtain the willing cooperation of the prisoners.� The brutality of the camp being due to circumstances beyond his control is the tacit but clear implication.
It will come as no surprise to learn that Hoess is no writer. Ironically however, once he gets to the minutiae of the mass murdering of prisoners his turgid, matter-of-fact style becomes a blow for the truth and hoists him by his own petard. His unapologetic and banal detailing of events unwittingly makes for a crucial historical primary source. The passages concerned disturb all the more for the lack of awareness in their teller, but they should be required reading for all holocaust deniers.
This is an odious book and a difficult read but is nevertheless a compelling read: the holocaust should be understood fully, and hearing it from a Nazi is part of such a process. In his lies, myriad defences and inadequate acknowledgements, Hoess illustrates not just the evils of Nazism with which we are already familiar but also, its mean-spiritedness and poverty of imagination. Recommended.
Predictably, ‘Commandant of Auschwitz� is dripping with denial. Hoess even has the audacity to claim that all he ever wanted to do was to live the life of a farmer with his wife and children (the romantic Nazi ideal), but that the lure of being a soldier again after the first world war was too much. When urged by old comrades to return, he found he just could not say no to joining the SS. Chance, sliding doors and it-could-happen-to-anyone is Hoess’s first insult to the reader’s intelligence.
Most of his rationalisations, however, are suggested indirectly. Hoess attempts to manipulate the reader through describing the most excruciating banalities about the difficulties of running a concentration camp. It is within the very ordinariness of the detail offered that the reader is lured into unwittingly normalising Hoess. He bemoans, for instance, the difficulties of procuring barbed wire in a war as if he were a housewife during the blitz worrying about rations. The quality of guard allotted to him is another of his gripes. His own ‘goodwill and all the best intentions were doomed to be dashed to pieces against the human inadequacy and sheer stupidity of most the officers and men posted to [him].� Hoess himself, he claims, wanted ‘to obtain the willing cooperation of the prisoners.� The brutality of the camp being due to circumstances beyond his control is the tacit but clear implication.
It will come as no surprise to learn that Hoess is no writer. Ironically however, once he gets to the minutiae of the mass murdering of prisoners his turgid, matter-of-fact style becomes a blow for the truth and hoists him by his own petard. His unapologetic and banal detailing of events unwittingly makes for a crucial historical primary source. The passages concerned disturb all the more for the lack of awareness in their teller, but they should be required reading for all holocaust deniers.
This is an odious book and a difficult read but is nevertheless a compelling read: the holocaust should be understood fully, and hearing it from a Nazi is part of such a process. In his lies, myriad defences and inadequate acknowledgements, Hoess illustrates not just the evils of Nazism with which we are already familiar but also, its mean-spiritedness and poverty of imagination. Recommended.
Read
March 8, 2024Apesar de “The Zone of Interest� (2023) de Jonathan Glazer ser baseado no livro (2014) homónimo de Martin Amis, o livro que melhor sustenta a realidade descrita por Glazer é “Comandante de Auschwitz: A Autobiografia de Rudolf Hoess� escrito em 1946, um ano antes de se cumprir a pena de morte ditada pelo Supremo Tribunal da Polónia. Primeiro, porque a adaptação de Glazer se destaca totalmente do livro de Amis, este usa nomes ficcionais à mistura com um enredo romântico! Segundo, porque Glazer coloca em cena a pessoa de Rudolf Hoess e a sua família, tal como a casa em que viveram. Comecei a ler a autobiografia atraído por um desconhecimento total da sua existência poucos dias antes de ver o filme e acabei de o ler poucos dias depois. A experiência de ambos forma um todo bastante desconfortável, com o livro a enquadrar a obscenidade e o filme a transgredir o espectador.
A "normalidade" de Auschwitz
A "normalidade" de Auschwitz
February 10, 2022
When Höss wrote this in his prison cell he knew he was going to be executed. Attorney Jan Sehn, who was tasked in looking after Höss, recommended he write about his life. And so with a with pencil and cheap paper he wrote on what might be his memoir and perhaps it is the only artifact we have that delves into the psyche of the high ranking members of the Nazi party.
According to the translator the penciled writings usually begin with sharp clarity, deteriorating to a flattened-out scrawl. This tends to indicate that Höss was not allowed to keep a knife to sharpen the pencil. A careful review of the actual handwritten documents, one can deduce that Höss reread what he wrote, because he added phrases between the written lines to help clarify what he was attempting to explain. He also retraced a weakly written word or phrase with a newly sharpened pencil to make the words more legible.
For me the memoir does not attempt to justify his actions rather it comes more of as a report from a soldier that served his country and accepts his fate upon it's loss. And that despite everything he did, he argues that he has in fact, "a heart". I infer that the memoir is sort of an antithesis to McNamara's Fog of War, both having mass murderers spin their tales out with the difference of one being in the side of the victor and the other on the losing side.
At times reading this gave me goosebumps and reminds me of the famous Stalin quote, "Death of one is a tragedy, death of many is a statistic", for the way he listed off the millions of people he murdered as if he were simply citing an inventory... utterly horrifying. However there are also times when it breaks my heart like when he talks about his family, his past and his faith (it is the longest section in his memoir, he wrote 228 pages about this) in effect he presents himself as a manifestation of the heart of darkness and a person simply lost in the fog of war.
At the end of this book you will learn about history in the eyes of the executioner. It is heinous but essential in comparing the evidence compiled by the allies regarding the camps. Anyone who denies the holocaust is an idiot. It also serves as a lesson to us future generations that blind faith is truly an unpardoned sin.
“There is a crime here
that goes beyond denunciation.
There is a sorrow here
that weeping cannot symbolize.
There is a failure here
that topples all our successes.�
- John Steinbeck (Grapes of Wrath)
According to the translator the penciled writings usually begin with sharp clarity, deteriorating to a flattened-out scrawl. This tends to indicate that Höss was not allowed to keep a knife to sharpen the pencil. A careful review of the actual handwritten documents, one can deduce that Höss reread what he wrote, because he added phrases between the written lines to help clarify what he was attempting to explain. He also retraced a weakly written word or phrase with a newly sharpened pencil to make the words more legible.
For me the memoir does not attempt to justify his actions rather it comes more of as a report from a soldier that served his country and accepts his fate upon it's loss. And that despite everything he did, he argues that he has in fact, "a heart". I infer that the memoir is sort of an antithesis to McNamara's Fog of War, both having mass murderers spin their tales out with the difference of one being in the side of the victor and the other on the losing side.
At times reading this gave me goosebumps and reminds me of the famous Stalin quote, "Death of one is a tragedy, death of many is a statistic", for the way he listed off the millions of people he murdered as if he were simply citing an inventory... utterly horrifying. However there are also times when it breaks my heart like when he talks about his family, his past and his faith (it is the longest section in his memoir, he wrote 228 pages about this) in effect he presents himself as a manifestation of the heart of darkness and a person simply lost in the fog of war.
At the end of this book you will learn about history in the eyes of the executioner. It is heinous but essential in comparing the evidence compiled by the allies regarding the camps. Anyone who denies the holocaust is an idiot. It also serves as a lesson to us future generations that blind faith is truly an unpardoned sin.
“There is a crime here
that goes beyond denunciation.
There is a sorrow here
that weeping cannot symbolize.
There is a failure here
that topples all our successes.�
- John Steinbeck (Grapes of Wrath)
April 26, 2025
An extremely revealing autobiography & memoirs. It's hard to rate as "I liked it" because this is not an easy read, by any means. His descriptions of his horrendous crimes against humanity are chilling, but revealing. He is an extremely unreliable narrator, and while reading, you must not only understand that, but see it as part of the whole performance and what it reveals about his nature, what it reveals about how he truly feels about what he's done, and what it reveals about the lengths his soul went to justify his actions to himself. If monsters walk amongst us, there is no doubt that Rudolf Hoss was one. But the amount of expansion this creates in the reader - I'm finding trouble picking another word - is critical. By expansion, I don't mean empathy, per se. More a sad acceptance, an unearthing of pieces that fit together in a way you thought they might, and in ways you didn't expect. One thing you will walk away with from his story is the overwhelming relief of knowing he suffered - of knowing there was, somewhere within him, enough guilt to attempt to assuage himself. Whether he was trying to assuage himself of his guilt or perhaps, piece together enough visible humanity to make himself seem comprehensible, the reader has to decide. Sometimes, the image one tries to paint of oneself is even more interesting than the stories they tell to try to perform it.
September 23, 2020
This book is downright disturbing! Rudolph Hoess, who oversaw the Auschwitz camps during the time that the crematoriums were built, during the time when millions of Jews and other human beings were exterminated there, finds it within himself to spend an entire book explaining why he's at no fault at all, and shows no regret whatsoever. The blame seems to lay all around him (he blames his superiors as well as his subordinates) but somehow manages to escape him.
What's even more disturbing is how he fills entire pages questioning the moral standards of the prisoners who were part of the "special detachment" (sonderkommando), or the kapos. Failing to admit that these ppl, though truly behaved badly, were a product of his doing (besides, how does someone like him get to judge anyone).
By reading this book, one can see how an ordinary person with a "soldier" mentality can be sucked into a system of evil. Because unfortunately, Rudolph Hoess does not come across as an evil man, which makes it all so incomprehensible.
What's even more disturbing is how he fills entire pages questioning the moral standards of the prisoners who were part of the "special detachment" (sonderkommando), or the kapos. Failing to admit that these ppl, though truly behaved badly, were a product of his doing (besides, how does someone like him get to judge anyone).
By reading this book, one can see how an ordinary person with a "soldier" mentality can be sucked into a system of evil. Because unfortunately, Rudolph Hoess does not come across as an evil man, which makes it all so incomprehensible.
November 16, 2015
This was a very disturbing and eye-opening account of the operations of Auschwitz-Birkenau from 3 select SS-Men. I bought it at the bookstore in Auschwitz and the vivid descriptions from the authors were made very real to me since I spent a whole day at both camps. It was different from accounts by Holocaust prisoners or survivors (ex. Anne Frank, Elie Wiesel) since it was coming from condemned officers who rarely showed emotion or sympathy. Rudolph Hoss wrote his autobiography in prison with the intentions of making himself look good to the world (or as good as one can in his situation) but his words still lack humanity. You might have to take breaks from this book, as it is very haunting and disturbing, but it is a very important read.
May 3, 2024
Sono paradossali la lucidità e la freddezza con cui il comandante di Auschwitz racconta ciò che si faceva nel più grande campo del complesso concentrazionario nazista.
Fa effetto rendersi conto di leggere l'autobiografia del "mostro", ma ancora più fa effetto rendersi conto che il mostro non è, come siamo abituati a pensare, un "deviato", uno che "ha qualche problema per essere così", bensì è una persona normale, fin troppo, che si è trovata a svolgere il proprio lavoro - ed è paradossale come dal racconto sembri quasi un lavoro comune - in un luogo e in un momento storico particolari.
Alcune scene descritte sono da torcere lo stomaco, e ciò nonostante "era il suo lavoro".
Una testimonianza fondamentale, che illustra alla perfezione l'altro lato della barricata.
Fa effetto rendersi conto di leggere l'autobiografia del "mostro", ma ancora più fa effetto rendersi conto che il mostro non è, come siamo abituati a pensare, un "deviato", uno che "ha qualche problema per essere così", bensì è una persona normale, fin troppo, che si è trovata a svolgere il proprio lavoro - ed è paradossale come dal racconto sembri quasi un lavoro comune - in un luogo e in un momento storico particolari.
Alcune scene descritte sono da torcere lo stomaco, e ciò nonostante "era il suo lavoro".
Una testimonianza fondamentale, che illustra alla perfezione l'altro lato della barricata.
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July 9, 2017So far, chilling, self-serving and self-justifying, but undeniably fascinating glimpse into the mind and motivations of the man who was Commandant at Auschwitz. The classic "I was only obeying orders" line. However, from some of what Hoess has revealed thus far it would appear he came to realise the horror of what he had done in the name of Hitler and the SS, and accepted judgement and punishment.
Not an easy book to read. Hoess matter-of-factly details the ideology behind the camps and what has become known as the Holocaust, and the methods employed to carry out genocide. There's a whining tone and self-aggrandisement that makes for uncomfortable reading even before it fully sinks in what exactly he's talking about so coldly, so calmly, so quietly. It's all "Me me me", how hardworking he is, all the problems he encounters, the incessant demands and necessity for complete, unquestioning obedience, how difficult it was to have to deal with 'childlike' Gypsies who insisted on stealing and had to be punished. With no sense he understands the irony of doling out 'justice' in a facility dedicated to exterminating human beings or working them to death on starvation rations. Still worse, Hoess claims to understand how inmates feel because he served several years in a Weimar era prison for murder, as though his experience in ANY way compares with Auschwitz. It all induces a need to scream and shout.
Why do we read these accounts? To try to understand how a husband and father could also be a murderous monster. It's a horrible fascination we have with the crimes of the Third Reich, yet our contemporary world shows how vital it is that we remember and try to learn from past mistakes. Germans might have sleep-walked into genocidal totalitarianism but with their example we have no excuse to allow it to happen again.
And yet it would appear we have learned little. You only have to go to page two of a Google search on this book to find a link to a Holocaust denial Revisionist history forum. Before recent exposure of the way Google's algorithm worked to give prominence to far right extremism in search results that might've been page one, so some progress has been made, I suppose. Reading about how Hoess confessed under torture by his British interrogators and got some details wrong doesn't to my mind invalidate this account. Neither does it make me feel any sympathy for Hoess. But I am not a Nazi apologist who refuses to accept the Holocaust.
I have only just realised why Hoess seems familiar to me, with his petty complaints about how the burden of dealing with Himmler's orders falls upon him and no one appreciates how awful it is, how hard to get good staff and accomplish what is expected: Paul Doll, the Commandant in Martin Amis' Zone of Interest is, of course, partly based on Rudolf Hoess.
It's the banality of evil. Hoess calls himself 'a cog in the machine', but it was the bureaucrats and administrators who enabled what the Nazis did. Doll says at one point in Amis' novel words to the effect that "When you come to the Zone of Interest [concentration camp] it tells you who you are." That is why it's valuable to read accounts like Hoess', because it reminds us the perpetrators of evil deeds are by and large ordinary men and women who participated in genocide as part of their day job and then went home to dine with their families, put the children to bed, listen to music, etc. The book includes Hoess' final letters written from his prison cell to wife and children, allowing brief insight into the husband and family man not the Commandant and SS officer. A man who clearly loved his family yet could watch mothers and fathers take their children into the gas chambers.
Hoess assesses colleagues and those primarily responsible for the KL structure and the Final Solution, often found wanting in some way in comparison to Hoess himself in terms of enthusiasm or ability, or for making his work difficult. Others are driven by ambition or greed, or subject to weakness whether women, alcohol, lack of work ethic or ability, whereas Hoess strives always to follow Himmler's orders, for the Reich even at the expense of personal happiness, stymied in his desire to make Auschwitz a well-functioning camp by lack of support and sufficient resources.
Hoess had two years between the end of the war and his execution to reflect upon his life and deeds, his guilt, and, obviously, he was aware of the family he would leave behind and the need to make things easier for them, so his memoir must be read with caution. As an attempt to limit his own culpability, the testimony fools no one, probably least of all Hoess himself.
Finished this a couple of days ago. What can you say? Read if you are interested in the mindset of a mass murderer but don't expect much insight or reflection. To be fair to Hoess he did accept his guilt and judgement at the end for the war crimes for which he was responsible. He seems to have realised what he did was wrong though continued to maintain he was only doing his duty under oath to the SS and the Reich by following orders. Worth reading if you have the stomach for it.
I am not going to rate the book because it doesn't feel right to do so.
Not an easy book to read. Hoess matter-of-factly details the ideology behind the camps and what has become known as the Holocaust, and the methods employed to carry out genocide. There's a whining tone and self-aggrandisement that makes for uncomfortable reading even before it fully sinks in what exactly he's talking about so coldly, so calmly, so quietly. It's all "Me me me", how hardworking he is, all the problems he encounters, the incessant demands and necessity for complete, unquestioning obedience, how difficult it was to have to deal with 'childlike' Gypsies who insisted on stealing and had to be punished. With no sense he understands the irony of doling out 'justice' in a facility dedicated to exterminating human beings or working them to death on starvation rations. Still worse, Hoess claims to understand how inmates feel because he served several years in a Weimar era prison for murder, as though his experience in ANY way compares with Auschwitz. It all induces a need to scream and shout.
Why do we read these accounts? To try to understand how a husband and father could also be a murderous monster. It's a horrible fascination we have with the crimes of the Third Reich, yet our contemporary world shows how vital it is that we remember and try to learn from past mistakes. Germans might have sleep-walked into genocidal totalitarianism but with their example we have no excuse to allow it to happen again.
And yet it would appear we have learned little. You only have to go to page two of a Google search on this book to find a link to a Holocaust denial Revisionist history forum. Before recent exposure of the way Google's algorithm worked to give prominence to far right extremism in search results that might've been page one, so some progress has been made, I suppose. Reading about how Hoess confessed under torture by his British interrogators and got some details wrong doesn't to my mind invalidate this account. Neither does it make me feel any sympathy for Hoess. But I am not a Nazi apologist who refuses to accept the Holocaust.
I have only just realised why Hoess seems familiar to me, with his petty complaints about how the burden of dealing with Himmler's orders falls upon him and no one appreciates how awful it is, how hard to get good staff and accomplish what is expected: Paul Doll, the Commandant in Martin Amis' Zone of Interest is, of course, partly based on Rudolf Hoess.
It's the banality of evil. Hoess calls himself 'a cog in the machine', but it was the bureaucrats and administrators who enabled what the Nazis did. Doll says at one point in Amis' novel words to the effect that "When you come to the Zone of Interest [concentration camp] it tells you who you are." That is why it's valuable to read accounts like Hoess', because it reminds us the perpetrators of evil deeds are by and large ordinary men and women who participated in genocide as part of their day job and then went home to dine with their families, put the children to bed, listen to music, etc. The book includes Hoess' final letters written from his prison cell to wife and children, allowing brief insight into the husband and family man not the Commandant and SS officer. A man who clearly loved his family yet could watch mothers and fathers take their children into the gas chambers.
Hoess assesses colleagues and those primarily responsible for the KL structure and the Final Solution, often found wanting in some way in comparison to Hoess himself in terms of enthusiasm or ability, or for making his work difficult. Others are driven by ambition or greed, or subject to weakness whether women, alcohol, lack of work ethic or ability, whereas Hoess strives always to follow Himmler's orders, for the Reich even at the expense of personal happiness, stymied in his desire to make Auschwitz a well-functioning camp by lack of support and sufficient resources.
Hoess had two years between the end of the war and his execution to reflect upon his life and deeds, his guilt, and, obviously, he was aware of the family he would leave behind and the need to make things easier for them, so his memoir must be read with caution. As an attempt to limit his own culpability, the testimony fools no one, probably least of all Hoess himself.
Finished this a couple of days ago. What can you say? Read if you are interested in the mindset of a mass murderer but don't expect much insight or reflection. To be fair to Hoess he did accept his guilt and judgement at the end for the war crimes for which he was responsible. He seems to have realised what he did was wrong though continued to maintain he was only doing his duty under oath to the SS and the Reich by following orders. Worth reading if you have the stomach for it.
I am not going to rate the book because it doesn't feel right to do so.
March 30, 2025
An utterly repugnant book. It's sole redeeming feature is helping us to further understand how the Holocaust happened in order for us to stop it happening again. In that sense it feels terribly relevant.
December 20, 2024
Nazis are bad, mmkay. I have a lot more, but I need to organize it a little better if I'm going to roast these turds. To be continued.
[WORK IN PROGRESS]
[WORK IN PROGRESS]
May 27, 2020
Rudolf Hoess, one of the central figures of the Nazi mass murder of Jews, Poles, Russians, Catholics, and other enemies of the Third Reich, wrote his memoirs shortly before he was hanged by the Nuremberg Trials. His autobiography serves as a unique and valuable window into the mind of National Socialism and how such a monstrous crime could have taken place.
Hoess's memoirs are his apologia for his actions. He knew that his book would be his great testament to the world, so he tries his best to excuse his actions and portray himself as just a cog in a massive machine that he was powerless to resist.
He is certainly not above lying to justify his actions. Hoess was raised in a devoutly Catholic family from Baden-Baden. His father wanted him to be a priest. But in his twenties Hoess left the Catholic Faith and instead joined the Nazi Party. To justify his apostasy, Hoess claims that as a teenager, he went to confession once to a priest who afterwards revealed the sins that he had confessed to his father (breaking the seal of confession). This is almost certainly a lie. The Catholic Church has always taught and still teaches that breaking the seal of confession is one of the gravest of mortal sins that merits an automatic excommunication. Both the priest and Hoess's father would have known and believed that. Even today, breaking the seal of confession is unheard of. A devout Catholic like his father would have been shocked and disgusted by the priest breaking the seal of confession. He certainly would not have indicated to Hoess that the priest told him what he had confessed.
At any rate, Hoess makes it clear that he left the Church shortly before he became a National Socialist.
Hoess was one of the first members of the National Socialist German Workers Party, joining in 1922. A veteran of WWI and the Freikorps, his political activities landed him in jail for a few years as a political prisoner during the Weimar years. While in jail, Hoess became an astute observer of human nature, analyzing how different categories of prisoners interacted with and dominated each other. He developed a keen psychological sense that he used later at Auschwitz.
Hoess was released from prison in 1928 thanks to a general amnesty for political prisoners. He quickly joined the SS and, after Hitler took power in 1933, became a functionary overseeing German prisons. He rose in the ranks thanks to his administrative competence, his conscientious dedication to duty, and unquestioning belief in the Nazi cause. After World War II began he was transferred to Poland where he built Auschwitz-Birkenau from scratch into the largest concentration camp in the world. It was thanks to Hoess that the Third Reich was able to murder on a truly industrial scale.
Although most of the victims at Auschwitz were Jews, a very large number were Poles, Russians, and Gypsies as well as Catholics and other Christian opponents of the regime. One of his victims was the famous Polish priest and canonized saint Father Maximilian Kolbe. Hoess admits that some of the most hardened resistors were Christians.
Hoess manipulated prisoners to struggle against each other to survive. He described how the SS used a system of "capos," or prisoner guards. In exchange for slightly better treatment and a chance at survival, the capos would help the SS guards to calm the prisoners and herd them quietly and peacefully into the gas chambers. They were usually from the same country of the prisoners and would talk to them in their native language and could more easily coax the men, women, and children into the gas chamber to take a "shower." Few showed any emotion, even when helping to murder their own relatives.
But the most important lesson from Hoess's autobiography is that such an atrocity could certainly happen again. Seventy-five years later, most people seem to think that in our times such a crime is impossible. Or, if it were to happen, they assure themselves that they would fight to the death rather than participate. Many would resist, of course, but human nature is the same. As Mark Twain said, history doesn't repeat itself but often rhymes.
How many people, for example, are opposed to abortion that has killed more than 50 million unborn human beings in the United States since 1973 (far more than the Holocaust)? Very few. Like the average German civilian during World War II, most prefer to live their lives ignoring the monstrous crime happening right up the road.
Today, far fewer children are taught Christian morality than a century ago. Most people believe morality is relative and certainly not something to die for. Morals today are based on feelings, not eternal truths given to us from Almighty God. As Hoess and the Nazis understood, Christianity and especially Catholicism is the greatest bulwark against tyranny and totalitarianism. As the Western world abandons God, such atrocities as what happened during World War II become more likely than ever.
Hoess's memoirs are his apologia for his actions. He knew that his book would be his great testament to the world, so he tries his best to excuse his actions and portray himself as just a cog in a massive machine that he was powerless to resist.
He is certainly not above lying to justify his actions. Hoess was raised in a devoutly Catholic family from Baden-Baden. His father wanted him to be a priest. But in his twenties Hoess left the Catholic Faith and instead joined the Nazi Party. To justify his apostasy, Hoess claims that as a teenager, he went to confession once to a priest who afterwards revealed the sins that he had confessed to his father (breaking the seal of confession). This is almost certainly a lie. The Catholic Church has always taught and still teaches that breaking the seal of confession is one of the gravest of mortal sins that merits an automatic excommunication. Both the priest and Hoess's father would have known and believed that. Even today, breaking the seal of confession is unheard of. A devout Catholic like his father would have been shocked and disgusted by the priest breaking the seal of confession. He certainly would not have indicated to Hoess that the priest told him what he had confessed.
At any rate, Hoess makes it clear that he left the Church shortly before he became a National Socialist.
Hoess was one of the first members of the National Socialist German Workers Party, joining in 1922. A veteran of WWI and the Freikorps, his political activities landed him in jail for a few years as a political prisoner during the Weimar years. While in jail, Hoess became an astute observer of human nature, analyzing how different categories of prisoners interacted with and dominated each other. He developed a keen psychological sense that he used later at Auschwitz.
Hoess was released from prison in 1928 thanks to a general amnesty for political prisoners. He quickly joined the SS and, after Hitler took power in 1933, became a functionary overseeing German prisons. He rose in the ranks thanks to his administrative competence, his conscientious dedication to duty, and unquestioning belief in the Nazi cause. After World War II began he was transferred to Poland where he built Auschwitz-Birkenau from scratch into the largest concentration camp in the world. It was thanks to Hoess that the Third Reich was able to murder on a truly industrial scale.
Although most of the victims at Auschwitz were Jews, a very large number were Poles, Russians, and Gypsies as well as Catholics and other Christian opponents of the regime. One of his victims was the famous Polish priest and canonized saint Father Maximilian Kolbe. Hoess admits that some of the most hardened resistors were Christians.
Hoess manipulated prisoners to struggle against each other to survive. He described how the SS used a system of "capos," or prisoner guards. In exchange for slightly better treatment and a chance at survival, the capos would help the SS guards to calm the prisoners and herd them quietly and peacefully into the gas chambers. They were usually from the same country of the prisoners and would talk to them in their native language and could more easily coax the men, women, and children into the gas chamber to take a "shower." Few showed any emotion, even when helping to murder their own relatives.
But the most important lesson from Hoess's autobiography is that such an atrocity could certainly happen again. Seventy-five years later, most people seem to think that in our times such a crime is impossible. Or, if it were to happen, they assure themselves that they would fight to the death rather than participate. Many would resist, of course, but human nature is the same. As Mark Twain said, history doesn't repeat itself but often rhymes.
How many people, for example, are opposed to abortion that has killed more than 50 million unborn human beings in the United States since 1973 (far more than the Holocaust)? Very few. Like the average German civilian during World War II, most prefer to live their lives ignoring the monstrous crime happening right up the road.
Today, far fewer children are taught Christian morality than a century ago. Most people believe morality is relative and certainly not something to die for. Morals today are based on feelings, not eternal truths given to us from Almighty God. As Hoess and the Nazis understood, Christianity and especially Catholicism is the greatest bulwark against tyranny and totalitarianism. As the Western world abandons God, such atrocities as what happened during World War II become more likely than ever.
Read
January 27, 2023I’m not going to rate this book, particularly on Holocaust Memorial Day. The genre intrigued me - an edited memoir of one of the worst people who ever lived, the commander of Auschwitz. This short book shows his total self-pity and how he saw himself as a victim as opposed to the real victims, the millions of Jews murdered under his control. I read this book because the original author would have hated this version. I also read this book to honour the millions of people who lost their lives in this genocide and to commemorate the lives they could have lived.
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