Rudolf Franz Ferdinand Höss (also Höß, Hoeß, or Hoess; ; 25 November 1901 – 16 April 1947) was a German SS officer, the commandant of the Auschwitz concentration camp, and a war criminal. After the defeat of Nazi Germany and the end of World War II, he lived under a false name until discovered by the British, who then turned him over to Polish authorities. Höss was convicted in Poland and executed for war crimes committed on the prisoners of the Auschwitz concentration camp and for his role in the Holocaust.
Höss was the longest-serving commandant of Auschwitz Concentration Camp (from 4 May 1940 to November 1943, and again from 8 May 1944 to 18 January 1945). He tested and implemented means to accelerate the systematic extermination of the Jewish population of Nazi-occupied Europe, known as the Final Solution. On the initiative of one of his subordinates, Karl Fritzsch, Höss introduced the pesticide Zyklon B to be used in gas chambers, where over a million people were killed.Piper, Franciszek & Meyer, Fritjof. "Overall analysis of the original sources and findings on deportation to Auschwitz". Review of the article "Die Zahl der Opfer von Auschwitz. Neue Erkentnisse durch neue Archivfunde", Osteuropa, 52, Jg., 5/2002, pp. 631–641.
Höss was hanged in 1947 following a trial before the Polish Supreme National Tribunal. During his imprisonment, at the request of the Polish authorities who gave the aura of lenient treatment, Höss wrote his memoirs, released in English under the title Commandant of Auschwitz: The Autobiography of Rudolf Hoess. which helped to identify further war criminals involved in Auschwitz, prior to his execution.
The Polish authorities built a makeshift gallows in Auschwitz to execute Rudolf Höss, to symbolically signify he was always going to be the last person to die at the camp. Until 1990/2026,Until 1990 in primary and 2026 in secondary schools a photo of the executed Rudolf Höss accompanied every Polish Second World War textbook in schools, making his face a memorable affixation to that period of history.
Early life Höss was born in Baden-Baden into a strict Catholic family.Michael Phayer (2000), The Catholic Church and the Holocaust: 1930–1965 Indiana University Press, ; p. 111. He lived with his parents, Lina (née Speck) and Franz Xaver Höss. Höss was the eldest of three children and the only son. He was baptized Rudolf Franz Ferdinand on 11 December 1901. Höss was a lonely child with no companions of his own age until entering elementary school; all of his associations were with adults. Höss claimed in his autobiography that he was briefly abducted by Romanies in his youth. His father Franz was a former army officer who served in German East Africa and ran a tea and coffee business. He brought his son up on strict religious principles and with military discipline, having decided that he would enter the priesthood. Höss grew up with an almost fanatical belief in the central role of duty in a moral life. During his early years, there was a constant emphasis on sin, guilt, and the need to do penance.
Youth and World War I Höss began turning against religion in his early teens after an episode in which, he said, his priest broke the Seal of the Confessional by telling his father about an event at school wherein Höss had pushed another boy down the stairs, breaking the boy’s foot. Höss also felt betrayed by his father, because he had used the information against him. Höss had described this event during his confession. Soon afterward, Höss' father died, and Höss began moving toward a military life.
When World War I began, Höss briefly served in a military hospital and then, at age 14, he was admitted to his father's and his grandfather's old regiment, the 21st Regiment of Dragoons. When Höss was 15, he and the Ottoman Sixth Army fought at Baghdad, at Kut-el-Amara, as well as in Palestine.Hilberg, Raul, Destruction of the European Jews (New York: Quadrangle Books, 1962), p. 575 While stationed in the Ottoman Empire, Höss rose to the rank of (sergeant-in-chief), and at 17 was the youngest non-commissioned officer in the army. Wounded thrice and a victim of malaria, Höss was awarded the Iron Crescent, the Iron Cross first and second class, and other decorations. He also briefly commanded a cavalry unit. When the news of the armistice reached Damascus, where Höss was serving at that time, he and a few others decided not to wait for Allied forces to capture them as prisoners of war. Instead, they decided to attempt to travel all the way back to their homeland of Bavaria. This attempt forced them to traverse through the enemy territory of Romania, but they eventually reached Bavaria.
Freikorps fighting and joining the Nazi Party
After the Armistice of 11 November 1918, Höss completed his secondary education and soon joined some of the emerging nationalist paramilitary groups including the Freikorps, first the East Prussian Volunteer Corps, and then Freikorps Roßbach, a unit associated with the Baltic area, Silesia and the Ruhr. Höss recalled this early mission into the Baltic in his autobiography:"The fighting in the Baltic States was more savage and more bitter than any I had experienced [in the first] World War... There was no real front, for the enemy was everywhere. When it came to a clash, it was a fight to the death, and no quarter was given or expected... [Houses were] set on fire and burned the occupants to death. On innumerable occasions I came across this terrible spectacle of burned-out cottages containing the charred corpses of women and children... Although later on I had to be the continual witness of far more terrible scenes, yet the picture of those half-burned-out huts at the edge of the forest beside the Dvina, with whole families dead within them, remains indelibly engraved on my mind."Rudolph Höss. Commandant of Auschwitz, 1951. p. 44.Höss participated in the armed terror attacks on Polish people during the Silesian uprisings against the Germans, and on French nationals during the French Occupation of the Ruhr. The Roßbach Freikorps transformed into a feeder group for the early Nazi movement once its activities were unequivocally banned following their participation in the Third Silesian Uprising. The group's leader, Gerard Rossbach, became the first adjutant of the SA. After hearing a speech by Adolf Hitler in Munich, Höss joined the Nazi Party in 1922 (member number 3240) and renounced his affiliation with the Catholic Church.
On 31 May 1923, in Mecklenburg, Höss and members of the Freikorps attacked and beat to death local schoolteacher Walther Kadow on the wishes of farm supervisor Martin Bormann, who later became Hitler's private secretary. Kadow was believed to have tipped off the French occupational authorities that Freikorps paramilitary soldier Albert Leo Schlageter was carrying out sabotage operations against French supply lines. Schlageter was arrested and executed on 26 May 1923; soon afterwards Höss and several accomplices, including Bormann, took their revenge on Kadow. In 1923, after one of the killers confessed to a local newspaper, Höss was arrested and tried as the ringleader. Although he later claimed that another man was actually in charge, Höss accepted the blame as the group's leader. He was convicted and sentenced (on 15 or 17 March 1924) to 10 years in prison, while Bormann received a one-year sentence. Höss served out his prison sentence in the Brandenburg penitentiary. Due to his exemplary behavior while an inmate there, he gained privileges such as the light in his cell being kept on after 10 PM lights out, being allowed to write letters to relatives every two weeks, and a job in the prison's administration. These privileges were in part due to him being considered a "delinquent motivated by conviction" (offender whose motives had been on moral, political, or religious grounds) and partly because of prison officials who sympathized with Höss' cause and his political views.
Höss was released from prison in July 1928 as part of a general amnesty and joined the Artaman League, an anti-urbanization movement, or back-to-the-land movement, that promoted a farm-based lifestyle. On 17 August 1929, Höss married Hedwig Hensel (3 March 1908 – 15 September 1989), whom he met in the Artaman League. Between 1930 and 1943, they had five children: two sons (Klaus and Hans-Jürgen) and three daughters (Heidetraut, Inge-Brigitt, and Annegret). Klaus, Höss' eldest son, was born in 1930; Heidetraut, Höss' eldest daughter, was born in 1932; Inge-Brigitt was born on a farm in Pommern in 1933; Hans-Jürgen, Höss' younger son, was born in 1937; and Annegret, the youngest child, was born at Auschwitz in November 1943."Hitler's Children", BBC documentary
During this time, Höss worked and lived at a farm in Sallentin, whose owner wanted to establish a horse stable, and his experience with horses from being in the cavalry in World War I gave him the necessary experience to do so. Höss would later join the cavalry squadron of the Schutzstaffel on 30 September 1933, and become a SS-Anwärter. Also during this time, Höss was noticed by Heinrich Himmler during an inspection of the SS in Stettin. They also were previously acquainted (according to Höss) from their Artaman League days, although other sources claim they knew each other from Höss' involvement in the Nazi party in the 1920s.
SS career On 1 April 1934, Höss joined the SS, on Himmler's effective call-to-action, and moved to the SS-Totenkopfverbände (SSDeath's Head Units) that same year. Höss was assigned to the Dachau concentration camp in December 1934, where he held the post of Block leader. His mentor at Dachau was the then SS-Brigadeführer Theodor Eicke, the reorganizer of the Nazi concentration camp system. In 1938, Höss was promoted to SS-captain and was made adjutant to Hermann Baranowski in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp. There, Höss led the firing squad that, on Himmler's orders on 15 September 1939, killed August Dickmann, a Jehovah's Witness who was the first conscientious objector to be executed after the start of the Second World War. Höss fired the finishing shot from his pistol. He joined the Waffen-SS in 1939 after the invasion of Poland. Höss excelled in that capacity and was recommended by his superiors for further responsibility and promotion. By the end of his tour of duty there, Höss was serving as administrator of prisoners' property.Douglas O. Linder, "Testimony of Rudolf Höß at the Nuremberg Trials, April 15, 1946" available online at Famous World Trials: The Nuremberg Trials: 1945–48, UMKC School of Law. On 18 January 1940, as head of the protective custody camp at Sachsenhausen, Höss ordered all prisoners not assigned to work details to stand outside in frigid conditions reaching . Most of the inmates had no coats or gloves. When block elders dragged some of the frozen inmates to the infirmary, Höss ordered the infirmary doors to be closed. During the day, 78 inmates died, and another 67 died that night.
Auschwitz command