Welcome to House of History. The internet is an incredible tool for research and stumbling
upon information you never knew existed. Personally, I really enjoy browsing through online photography-archives
of museums and memorials. Some of my viewers may remember my video about Sergei Prokudin-Gorsky,
his pioneering work in colour photography and his incredible collection documenting
early 20th century Russia. Now, online archives sometimes also remind us of past crimes against
humanity and the darkest days of humankind. One of the collections that really captivated
me is the Höcker album, published online by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
The Hoecker Album consists of 116 photographs taken during the last several months Auschwitz
was still operating. It literally shows Auschwitz through the lens of a Nazi. The photographs
were taken between June 1944 and January 1945, during the most deadly phase of the concentration
camp when the Nazis knew the war was lost and all there was left between them and a
trial for war crimes was time. During this time over 400.000 Hungarian Jews were murdered,
Jews that were previously protected by the government but due to a coup by the Arrow
Cross Nazis in Hungary were now sent off to concentration camps if the Arrow Cross party
themselves didn’t kill them. But the Hoecker Album doesn’t show these war crimes or the
grim situation of the camp during the last months of the war. The album was compiled
by Karl Hoecker, a pre-war bank teller but now the adjutant to Richard Baer, the last
commandant of Auschwitz. The photographs are a candid portrayal of daily life in the camp
for the SS officer guards and official visitors. On the 22nd of July 1944, the day for the
Auschwitz officers is one like any other. Actually, it’s a bit more quiet than usual,
only 180 new arrivals are registered of whom ⅔ are gassed immediately. Because it is
a calm day, Karl Hoecker is able to accompany several young German girl volunteers to the
small resort of Solahütte, around 30 kilometres to the south of Auschwitz. Höcker took his
personal camera, the one he would carry throughout his entire term as adjutant to Baer. He takes
many photographs, probably to serve as souvenirs for after the war. The pictures show how the
girls and Hoecke enjoy the weather, accordion-music, the landscape near Solahütte and the freshly
picked blueberries. 30 kilometres to the north one of the worst crimes in the history of
humankind takes place and continues to take place, but the photographs only reveal a happy
bunch of officers with girls. The Hoecker Album consists of 116 photographs
from hell on earth. The photographs are stuck on 16 double-sided cardboard. Following the
war, nobody knew of the existence of the album, however, and it didn’t surface until 2007.
It turned out that after the second world war and the liberation of Auschwitz, a US
counterintelligence officer discovered the album in an apartment in Frankfurt. He took
the album with him to the United States but waited until January 2007 to donate it to
the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. He was well over 90 at that point and passed
away that same summer. I can’t overstate the historical value and uniqueness of the
photographs because up until then there had barely been any photographic material of daily
life of the SS mass murderers, especially of the largest concentration camp of the Nazi
regime. Between 1941 and 1945 approximately 1 million people were gassed in Auschwitz.
One of the photographs shows Auschwitz’s Angel of Death, Josef Mengele. Mengele became
notorious for his human experiments in Auschwitz and the immeasurable suffering he inflicted
on children and adult victims alike. Another photograph shows Mengele together with commandant
Richard Baer and Rudolf Höß. The latter was the commandant of the camp before Baer,
and in 1944 was recalled in order to ‘efficiently organise the elimination of several hundred-thousand
Hungarian jews.’ Basically, this photograph is a portrait of 3 of the most unscrupulous
mass-murderers of the war. But these portraits are only so daunting because
we know the evil that is behind it. The photographs themselves show senior officers enjoying themselves
and relaxing. Enjoying music, going out and just portraits of them during the down-time
of their work or in candid private moments. There’s even a photograph of Hocker shaking
the paw of his dog, Favorit. It is odd to think all these light-hearted photographs
were taken inside a camp where over a million people were murdered.
Judith Cohen, the historian of the US Holocaust Memorial Museum, explains that the men we
see on photographs “considered themselves to be good men, friends and civilised colleagues.”
Take for instance the photographs of Hoecker decorating a so-called Jultanne, a tree that’s
akin to a Christmas tree except they’re celebrating Yule, a pagan festival and the
Nazi equivalent of Christmas. Two days after these photographs were taken
the US air force bombed a nearby factory, with some of the bombs hitting the nearby
SS-hospital. It killed around 20 SS soldiers. Their funerals were photographed by Hoecker,
including the funeral march and their paying of respects. Hoecker’s handwriting accompanying
the photographs says ‘Funeral of SS-comrades, killed by a terrorist attack.’
On the 18th of January 1945, a few weeks after these photographs, Auschwitz was evacuated
and its surviving prisoners were forced onto a death march. Only those that were too weak
to walk were left behind. A week later the last crematoriums were blown up by SS guards,
one day before the 60th Soviet Army liberated the camp. The SS officers had already fled
to the West by this point - and during the last months of the war, Baer and Hoecker remained
on-duty in concentration camp Mittelbau in Thüringen, in central Germany.
Fate of the Nazis
Following the end of the Second World War, many Nazis disappeared and tried to flee to
evade prosecution. The officers Hoecker photographed were no exception. Rudolf Höß assumed a
fake name, Franz Lang, a German sailor but was arrested in 1946. He was extradited to
Poland where he was sentenced to death. Symbolically, the execution happened in Auschwitz in April
1947. Another senior Nazi that fled was Richard Baer, and he’s the actual reason I stumbled
upon the Hoecker Album. Initially, I wanted to create a video about Baer and how he evaded
capture. He used the fake identity Karl Neumann and spent his days in Hamburg, working as
a forestry worker. It was not until the first Frankfurt Auschwitz
Trial that he was discovered, 15 years after the war ended. A warrant for his arrest was
printed in German newspapers in October 1960, upon which a forestry colleague recognized
Karl Neumann to be Richard Baer. Police went to investigate and arrested Baer when they
verified he was the last commandant of Auschwitz. Baer died in prison of a heart attack before
he could be brought to trial, however. As for Josef Mengele, I will create an entire
video about him because his whole being is harrowing but interesting nonetheless. He
assumed a fake name and took care of a tractor-factory ran by his family. In 1949 he fled to Latin
America and remained undiscovered, even though the Israeli secret services and basically
everyone, the West Germans and CIA were searching for him. He died in 1979 during a swim near
his home. In official reports, it says he drowned due to a heart attack whilst in the
water. As for Karl Höcker, he wasn’t on the list
of most-wanted Nazi prisoners. He was arrested after the war but was released in 1946. He
returned to his birthplace, Engershausen, and worked as a bank clerk. During the Auschwitz-trial
that led to Baer’s arrest, Höcker too was re-arrested, charged and convicted for aiding
and abetting murder. In his closing statement, Höcker said he “could not influence the
events and nobody died at Auschwitz because of him.” He spent seven years in prison
and was re-hired by the bank he worked at upon his release. He passed away in 2000 at
the age of 88. The Hoecker album certainly isn’t the last
album that captured candid moments of Nazi officials. Historians and museum-directors
alike figure that many are still hidden in boxes on attics, waiting to be discovered.
And if you’re interested in the full Hocker album, I’ll leave the link to the website
of the US Holocaust Memorial Museum in the description.
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