Rudolf Hoss was the commandant of Auschwitz who was known for his immense brutality and
evil. He was a man who hid the killing capabilities of the camp he was overseeing from his wife
but he would testify at the nuremberg trials, almost proud of the atrocities he had committed.
He bragged, ‘I commanded Auschwitz until 1 December 1943, and estimate that at least
2,500,000 victims were executed and exterminated there by gassing and burning, and at least
another half million succumbed to starvation and disease, making a total of about 3,000,000
dead. This figure represents about 70% or 80% of all persons sent to Auschwitz as prisoners,
the remainder having been selected and used for slave labor in the concentration camp
industries. Included among the executed and burnt were approximately 20,000 Russian prisoners
of war (previously screened out of Prisoner of War cages by the Gestapo) who were delivered
at Auschwitz in Wehrmacht transports operated by regular Wehrmacht officers and men. The
remainder of the total number of victims included about 100,000 German Jews, and great numbers
of citizens (mostly Jewish) from The Netherlands, France, Belgium, Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia,
Greece, or other countries. We executed about 400,000 Hungarian Jews alone at Auschwitz
in the summer of 1944.’ However before he was taken to court for being one of the Nazis
worst war criminals, he was subject to a rough ordeal at the hands of soldiers that apprehended
him. Join us today as we look at, ‘The BRUTAL Torture of the commandant of Auschwitz.’
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Rudolf Hoess was the man that oversaw the expansion of Auschwitz and the introduction
of the gas chambers there. He was responsible for over 1 million deaths, but in 1943 he
was relieved of the command of Auschwitz after it was alleged he had an affair with an inmate
who then got pregnant. But he would return to Auschwitz on the 8th May 1944 as he was
to oversee Operation Hoss. This would result in the exterminations of 430,000 Hungarian
Jews in just 56 days. Auschwitz could not cope with the huge numbers of victims and
the crematoriums could not handle the sheer amount of people being slaughtered. Many were
because of this just shot by the SS to speed the process up, avoiding the gas chambers
all together. Rudolf Hoss then made his way to Ravensbruck in November 1944, and he lived
there with his family and he then supervised the creation and use of the gas chamber here,
co-ordinating the female prisoners deaths.
But as the Second World War was coming to an end, he was advised by Heinrich Himmler
the Head of the SS to hide himself to avoid execution and war crimes trials. He was told
to be a member of the Kriegsmarine, and he then lived under the false name of Franz Lang.
He moved and hid himself to Gottrupel and he worked as a gardener. He managed to escape
arrest for around a year, but his wife had been captured. She was interrogated for some
time about where her husband was, and she eventually told the authorities that he was
living under a false name as a gardener. In 1946, Hanns Alexander who was a German Jew
who had fled to England in 1936 became a Nazi hunter, and was part of the British’ Number
1 War Crimes Investigation Team, and they tried to obtain Rudolf Hoss’ location. Alexander
was a captain in the Royal Pioneer Corp, and he then after finding out the name of the
place he was working travelled there to arrest him. Accompanying him were a number of British
soldiers, and the story of Auschwitz was very well documented and some Jewish soldier accompanied
him as they wanted to come face to face with the man who caused such misery.
Alexander’s men approahced Hoss and when he was spoken to he claimed he was just a
lowly gardener, and it was believed that he tried to bite into a cyanide pill to evade
justice. But this did not work, and Alexander then noticed when he came face to face with
Hoss that he had a wedding ring on his finger. Hoss was ordered to take it off, and he refused
but the Alexander threatened to cut it off and he even fetched a kitchen knife ready
to take his finger off. When it was removed, inside the ring was etched the name Rudolf
and Hedwig, the name of his wife. After this, Alexander’s men confirmed that he was Rudolf
hoss and the beating then commenced. Alexander left Hoss alone with the British guards who
were armed with a box of axe handles, and for 10 minutes they beat him and pulverised
the former commandant of Auschwitz. He was then told by a doctor that if he did not tell
his men to stop with the beating, that they would only have a corpse to bring back.
Alexander then told them to back off, but they had administered a serious beating to
the former commandant of Auschwitz. Rudolf Hoss then was held under custody, and he then
testified at the Nuremberg Trials. Whilst in prison he wrote of his mistreatment at
the hands of the British whilst he was in custody. He claimed that, ‘during the first
interrogation they beat me to obtain evidence. I do not know what was in the transcript,
or what I said, even though I signed it, because they gave me liquor and beat me with a whip.
It was too much even for me to bear. The whip was my own. By chance it had found its way
into my wife's luggage. My horse had hardly ever been touched by it, much less the prisoners.
Somehow one of the interrogators probably thought that I had used it to constantly whip
the prisoners. After a few days I was taken to Minden on the Weser River, which was the
main interrogation center in the British zone. There they treated me even more roughly, especially
the first British prosecutor, who was a major. The conditions in the jail reflected the attitude
of the first prosecutor. Compared to where I had been before, Imprisonment with the IMT
[International Military Tribunal] was like staying in a health spa”
He claimed that he had been beaten savagely by the force of his own whip, and that the
British mistreated him. He had been beaten a number of time, and different torture tactics
were used against him to extract information. Hoss was later sentenced to death, and at
the end he finally admitted his crimes and understood the enormity of them. It’s possible
that his ordeal at the hands of the British helped this message get through. He wrote,
‘My conscience compels me to make the following declaration. In the solitude of my prison
cell, I have come to the bitter recognition that I have sinned gravely against humanity.
As Commandant of Auschwitz, I was responsible for carrying out part of the cruel plans of
the 'Third Reich' for human destruction. In so doing I have inflicted terrible wounds
on humanity. I caused unspeakable suffering for the Polish people in particular. I am
to pay for this with my life. May the Lord God forgive one day what I have done. I ask
the Polish people for forgiveness. In Polish prisons I experienced for the first time what
human kindness is. Despite all that has happened I have experienced humane treatment which
I could never have expected, and which has deeply shamed me. May the facts which are
now coming out about the horrible crimes against humanity make the repetition of such cruel
acts impossible for all time.’
Rudolf Hoss when he was captured was subjected to a beating from the people who arrested
him and he was also tortured for information. He made a number of confessions its believed,
but some of these have been claimed to have been under duress. But we know he was a man
who was complicit in the deaths of thousands if not millions at Auschwitz and at other
concentration camps. He was a brutal man, and a man who many would say got his comeuppance
as he was tortured and beaten by the British who apprehended him. He would later be executed
inside of his own camp, as he was brought to Asuchwitz and was hanged on a specially
built gallows at the camp he oversaw so much suffering and killing.
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