RUDOLF HÖSS

Rudolf Höß (SS-Obersturmbannführer), born in 1900 in Baden-Baden, grew up in a very Catholic family. Being only 15 years old, he signed up as a volunteer in World War I and was sent to Turkey, where he became "Unteroffizier" (non-commissioned officer) and received some distinctions. After the defeat, he fought within the "Freikorps" (volunteer corps) in the Baltics, in Upper Silesia and in the area of the river Rhur. In 1923, he participated in the so-called "Parchimer Fememord" (Parchimer vehme murder) and was therefore sentenced to 10 years, but released in the course of an amnesty in 1928. In 1933, he joined the SS as so-called Anwärter (aspirant) and was accepted as full member one year later.

In 1934, Rudolf Höß came to Dachau concentration camp was nominated as "Blockführer" and constantly promoted, until he was transferred to Sachsenhausen concentration camp as adjutant, where he was in charge of the commander's office. In 1940, he was sent to Auschwitz concentration camp as commander, where he started organizing mass murder technically. Later he was characterized as a zealous petty bourgeois.

Höß remained commander of Auschwitz until December 1, 1943, then he was followed by Arthur Liebehenschel as camp commander. Höß on the other hand took over Liebehenschel's function as chief of the department D I within the so-called WVHA, but on May 8, 1944, he returned to Auschwitz on Heinrich Himmlers wish in order to prepare the "Action Höß": He was to organize the installation for the mass murder of Hungarian Jews, and he personally supervised the works. Later, when he was imprisoned, he remembered:

"(...) According to the wish of Reichsführer SS, Auschwitz became the biggest extermination place of all mankind... Whether this mass extermination of Jews was necessary or not could not be estimated by me, I could not see that far. There was no doubt for an old National Socialist, even less for an SS-Führer, when the Führer himself had ordered the final solution of the Jewish question."
(Source: Auschwitz state Mueseum: Auschwitz in th eyes of the SS)

Captured in 1946, Höß testified at the Nuremberg trial as witness for Kaltenbrunner and in the trials against Oswald Pohl and IG-Farben and was surrendered to Poland in the same year. In April 1947, he was sentenced to death and hung on the site of Auschwitz concentration camp.