Rudolph Hoess, commandant of Auschwitz, went to the gallows for his war crimes. Witnesses were surprised that a man facing imminent execution would set such a rapid pace. The year-old Hoess had expected to be hanged from the moment he was captured in March Being arraigned before a Polish military tribunal a year later was, in his view, a mere formality. As Hoess stood above the gallows trap awaiting death, he was calm and collectedβjust as he had been when ordering the annihilation of millions in the gas chambers.
While Auschwitz is the most potent symbol of the Holocaust, its commandant, Rudolph Hoess, has remained largely unknown. How a seemingly decent solid family man could, without a trace of genuine remorse, become the most infamous mass murderer the world has ever known is a story that is as remarkable as it is shocking. At 15, the young man enlisted in the German Army during World War I and served with distinction on the Turkish Front, becoming at 17 the youngest infantry sergeant in the German armed forces and receiving the Iron Cross First and Second Class for bravery.
Lost and directionless, Hoess soon joined one of the national paramilitary groups fighting the perceived communist threat to Germany in the Baltic region.
In , he was drawn to the fledgling Nazi Party, but within 12 months he was sentenced to 10 years of hard labor for his involvement in a brutal, politically inspired murder.
He was released under a general amnesty in Hoess remained a committed Nazi but spent the next six years working peacefully on various farms and estates where he was remembered as a kindly, unselfish, but introverted man. Hoess was a loner but a model SS man, and he excelled in his duties, leading to rapid promotion and higher responsibilities.
