Rudolf Höss

**Rudolf Franz Ferdinand Höss** (also **Höß**, **Hoeß**, or **Hoess**; 25 November 1901 – 16 April 1947) was a high-ranking member of the Nazi *Schutzstaffel* (SS) during World War II. He was in charge of Auschwitz concentration camp for about four years from 4 May 1940-18 January 1945. He was put on trial in 1947 at the Auschwitz concentration camp on 16 April 1947 at the age of 45. Höss was friends with Martin Bormann a Nazi official.

During World War II, Nazi Germany, led by Adolf Hitler, decided to  (kill all of) the Jewish people in Europe. They called this plan the "Final Solution". The Nazis also sent many other people to concentration camps and extermination camps (death camps). As Commandant (commander) at Auschwitz, Höss tested and started using different ways of killing these people more quickly. He started using Zyklon B, a pesticide with hydrogen cyanide in it, to kill prisoners in gas chambers. This allowed Nazi soldiers at Auschwitz to murder 2,000 people every hour. At Auschwitz, he created the largest place meant for the constant mass murder of human beings ever known in history.

Höss joined the Nazi Party in 1922, and joined the SS in 1934. From 4 May 1940 to November 1943, and again from 8 May 1944 to 18 January 1945, he was in charge of Auschwitz. Before Nazi Germany lost World War II, more than a million people were murdered at Auschwitz.  Höss was hanged in 1947 after he was found guilty at a trial in Warsaw, Poland.

## Life
Höss was born in Baden-Baden, Germany, on 25 November 1900. His parents were Franz Xaver Höss and Lina Höss. He was the oldest of three children, and was the only son. Höss's family was very Catholic.

In his autobiography, Höss said that he was briefly kidnapped by Gypsies when he was a child.

Höss's father was a former German army officer who had served in German East Africa (a German colony that included what are now Burundi, Rwanda, and part of Tanzania). After leaving the army, he ran a tea and coffee business. He brought up his son based on strict Catholic beliefs, and with military discipline. He had decided that Höss would become a Catholic priest. During Höss's early childhood, he was constantly being told about sin, guilt, and the need to do penance.

Höss began turning against religion as a young teenager. This happened after he gave a confession to a priest (he told the priest what he had done wrong). In Catholicism, the "Seal of the Confessional" is supposed to be unbreakable. This means a priest is never supposed to tell anyone what someone has said in a confession. Höss said he started to dislike religion when the priest told Höss's father about something Höss had said in a confession.  Soon after this, Höss's father died, and Höss began moving toward a military life.

When World War I started, Höss served briefly in a military hospital. Then, at age 14, he was allowed to join his father's and grandfather's old regiment, the German Army's 21st Regiment of Dragoons. At age 15, he fought with the Ottoman Sixth Army at Baghdad, at Kut-el-Amara, and in Palestine.  While stationed in Turkey, he rose to the rank of '''' (sergeant). At age 17, he was the youngest non-commissioned officer in the German Army. While in the Army, he was injured three times and got malaria. He was awarded the Ottoman Empire's Gallipoli Star, the Iron Cross first and second class, and other decorations.

### Nazi career
After Germany surrendered in November 1918, Höss finished high school. Soon, he joined the nationalist paramilitary groups that were forming. First, he joined the East Prussian Volunteer Corps. Then he joined the '''' in the countries around the Baltic Sea, Silesia, and the Ruhr. Höss participated in the armed terror attacks on Polish people during the Silesian Uprisings (when the Polish people tried to break away from German control). He also participated in terror attacks on French nationals during the Occupation of the Ruhr (when the Ruhr valley in Germany was occupied by France and Belgium).

Höss joined the Nazi Party in 1922 after hearing Adolf Hitler's speech in Munich. Höss led at least one political , and spent six years in jail for it.  Bormann thought that Kadow had told the French occupational government Nazi soldier Albert Leo Schlageter was  French supply lines. Schlageter was arrested and executed on 26 May 1923. Soon afterward, Höss and several , including Bormann, killed Kadow out of revenge. or 17 May 1924). His sentence was for 10 years in Brandenburg Penitentiary (prison). Bormann was sentenced to one year in prison.

Höss was released in July 1928 as part of a general . He joined the ''* ("Artaman League"), a nationalist "back-to-the-land" movement that supported clean, farm living.

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).

### Joining the SS
Höss became a member of the SS on 1 April 1934, when Heinrich Himmler encouraged all Nazi men to join the SS.  Höss joined the *SS-Totenkopfverbände'' (Death's Head Units) in the same year. He came to admire Himmler so much that he thought whatever Himmler said was "gospel."  He even preferred to display Himmler's picture in his office instead of Hitler's.

Höss was assigned to the Dachau concentration camp in December 1934. There, he where he held the post of *Blockführer* ("Block Leader"), meaning he was in charge of one barracks of prisoners. In 1938, Höss was promoted to *SS-Hauptsturmführer* (Captain), and was made an assistant to Hermann Baranowski in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp.

Höss joined the Waffen-SS in 1939 after Nazi Germany invaded Poland. Höss was good at his job, and his bosses suggested that he should be promoted (given a better job). By the end of his tour of duty there, Höss was in charge of prisoners' belongings.

### Auschwitz command
On 1 May 1940, Höss was appointed  of Auschwitz, which was a combination of concentration camps and an extermination camp. Höss commanded the camp for three and a half years. During this time, he changed the original camp into a huge complex (group of camps) called Auschwitz-Birkenau. Höss went to Auschwitz determined "to do things differently" and develop a more  camp than the camps at Dachau and Sachsenhausen where he had worked before.

The earliest inmates at Auschwitz were Soviet prisoners of war and Polish prisoners, including peasants and intellectuals. About 700 of these prisoners arrived at Auschwitz in June 1940; the Nazi guards told them they would not survive more than 3 months.

At its largest, Auschwitz included three major camps:  His experiments made Auschwitz the camp that would kill the most prisoners during the Holocaust.  Höss later said that, during a regular day at Auschwitz, two to three trains carrying 2,000 prisoners each would arrive every day for periods of four to six weeks. The prisoners were unloaded in the Birkenau death camp. Prisoners who were strong, healthy, and able to work were marched to barracks in either Birkenau or one of the other Auschwitz camps. Prisoners who were elderly, very young, sick, or unable to do forced labor were killed in gas chambers, which were disguised as showers. At first, small gassing bunkers were located deep in the woods, to keep them secret. Later, four large gas chambers and crematoria were built in Birkenau to make it easier for the Nazis to kill more people, more quickly.  Höss said that when he used Zyklon B, it took 3–15 minutes for prisoners to die, and that "we knew when the people were dead because they stopped screaming."

### After Auschwitz
On 10 November 1943, Arthur Liebehenschel became the Commandant at Auschwitz. Höss took over Liebehenschel's last job as the chairman of *Amt D I*&nbsp;in *Amtsgruppe D* of the *SS-Wirtschafts-Verwaltungshauptamt* (WVHA), which ran the concentration camps. Höss also was made the deputy (assistant) of Richard Glücks, the inspector of all of the concentration camps.

On 8 May 1944, Höss returned to Auschwitz to supervise operation *Aktion Höss.*  In *Aktion Höss,* 430,000 Hungarian Jews were sent to Auschwitz and killed in 56 days.  Even the huge facility that Höss had built could not handle the huge number of victims' corpses. The camp's staff had to burn thousands of bodies in open fire pits.

## Capture, trial, and execution
, 1947]]

In the last days of the war, Himmler told Höss to disguise himself among German Navy sailors. Höss avoided arrest for nearly a year. When he was captured by British soldiers on 11 March 1946 in Gottrupel, he was disguised as a gardener and called himself Franz Lang.  The British soldiers that captured Höss were led by Hanns Alexander, a young Jewish man from Berlin who was forced to flee to England with his entire family during the rise of Nazi Germany.  Höss initially denied who he was, until Alexander noticed his wedding ring and demanded to see it. Höss refused to remove it, saying it was stuck on his finger. But when Alexander threatened to cut his finger off, Höss removed the ring. It had the names "Rudolf" and "Hedwig" engraved inside.  After being questioned and beaten with axe handles by the British soldiers, Höss admitted who he really was.  (sworn statements to the court) that Rudolf Höss made while imprisoned in Nuremberg were also used at the Pohl and IG Farben trials.

In his affidavit made at Nuremberg on 5 April 1946, Höss stated:

On 25 May 1946, Höss was handed over to Polish authorities, and the Supreme National Tribunal in Poland tried him for murder. His trial lasted from 11 to 29 March 1947. Höss was sentenced to death by hanging on 2 April 1947. He was executed on 16 April next to the crematorium of the former Auschwitz I concentration camp. He was hanged on a  built specifically for his execution, at the location of the camp's *Gestapo*. Today, a board that marks the site reads:

Höss wrote his autobiography while awaiting execution. It was published in 1956 as *,* and later as *Death Dealer: the Memoirs of the SS Kommandant at Auschwitz* (among other editions).

## Handwritten confession
Höss's original confession, with his signature, is displayed in a glass case in the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. Behind the confession is a photo showing Hungarian Jewish women and children walking to one of the four gas chambers in the Birkenau death camp on 26 May 1944.

## Dates of rank and awards
|valign="top"|
**Awards and decorations**

*Iron Cross (1914) First & Second Class
*War Merit Cross (with Swords) First & Second Class
*SS Long Service Award (12 years)
*Police Long Service Award (18 years)
* General Service Gau Badge (1925)
*Baltic Cross
*SA Sports Badge (in Bronze)
*German Sports Badge (in Bronze)
*Wound Badge (1914) in Silver
* Gallipoli Star (Ottoman Empire)
* Baden Military Bravery Medal
* Austrian War Service Medal
*Honour Chevron for the Old Guard
*SS Honour Ring
*SS Honour Sword
*SS Julleuchter
|}

## References
**Notes**

**Bibliography**
*Autobiography, edited by Steven Paskuly and translated by Andrew Pollinger: *Death Dealer: The Memoirs of the SS Kommandant at Auschwitz*. Buffalo, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 1992. . Google Books preview.
**Höß, Rudolf. *Kommandant in Auschwitz; autobiographische Aufzeichnungen.* Veröffentlichungen des Instituts für Zeitgeschichte. Quellen und Darstellungen zur Zeitgeschichte, Bd. 5. Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1958. 
*Höss, Rudolf. *Commandant of Auschwitz: The Autobiography of Rudolf Hoess*. (Constantine FitzGibbon, trans.) London: Phoenix Press, 2000. . (A different translation of *Kommandant in Auschwitz*.)
*Gilbert, Gustave. [1947] 1995. *Nuremberg Diary*. USA: Da Capo Press. .
*SS Personnel Service Record of Rudolf Höss, National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, Maryland, US.
*Ravenswood, Linda, ''Frau Kommandant Hoess' Pink Cardigan*, Rivets Literary Magazine, 2010.
*
*

**Further reading**
*Fest, Joachim C. and Bullock, Michael (trans.) "Rudolf Höss - The Man in the Crowd" in *The Face of the Third Reich'' New York: Penguin, 1979 (orig. published in German in 1963), pp.&nbsp;415–432. ISBN  978-0201407143.

## Other websites
* Modern History Sourcebook: Rudolf Hoess, Commandant of Auschwitz: Testimony at Nuremberg, 1946 
* 
* Hanns and Rudolf