Death Dealer: The Memoirs of the SS Kommandant at Auschwitz

by Rudolf Höss

Book Overview

SS Kommandant Rudolph H ss (1900-1947) was history's greatest mass murderer, personally supervising the extermination of approximately two million people, mostly Jews, at the death camp in Auschwitz, Poland. Death Dealer is a new, unexpurgated translation of H ss's autobiography, written before, during, and after his trial. This edition includes rare photos, the minutes of the Wannsee Conference (where the Final Solution was decided and coordinated),...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0306806983
• ISBN13: 9780306806988
• Release Date: March 1996
• Publisher: Da Capo Press
• Length: 414 Pages
• Weight: 1.34 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 6.3" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

The Final Solution: An Inside View

On April 16, 1947, Rudolph Hoess, the infamous Kommandant of Auschwitz was hanged in his former concentration camp for, "crimes against the Polish people." While awaiting trial, Hoess, who knew he would pay for his crimes with his life, sought to renew the spiritual connection he had eschewed as a youth. Accordingly, he recounted his time in the SS for his captors. His story is also that of the darkest side of the Third Reich. The book begins with a discussion of the, "final solution," of the Jewish Question. He tells how he was ordered to establish a camp at Auschwitz for the purpose of eliminating, "enemies of the state." Details of camp construction and experiments to find the appropriate gas he describes without emotion. Yet he relates questions asked by young SS soldiers and inmates as to how small children could be an "enemy." His "party line" response fooled some, but never himself. Hoess also describes the victims he tried to destroy. Jews had "strong family ties;" gypsies were, "childlike;" the Jehovah's Witnesses were worthy of emulation. The SS was challenged to have the same devotion to the Fuhrer as they had to Jehovah. In chapter 22 he describes the gassing process as only he could do. His primary concern was to dispatch his victims quickly and efficiently without displaying emotion that would affect young guards. Here, he admits, he hid behind an iron mask. Particularly interesting is the story of a young, extremely attractive, Jewish girl who fought back even as she was undressing for the gas chamber. Resistance was rare but in this case, effective, very effective! The book describes his early life and the events that caused him and many others to blindly follow the SS motto: "Fuhrer, you order. We obey!" Hoess gives a detailed description of the hierarchy of the SS. Men, who had been portrayed as super-human, are shown to have been far short of that ideal. Alcoholism and suicide rates were high; competence was low! Still, operations continued despite all difficulties because, "Orders were orders!" Death Dealer is a first person account of the operations of the most infamous death camp in history. After sending an estimated 2.5 million people to their deaths, the Kommandant, ended his life by doing one decent thing: he left his memoirs so no one could deny this ever happened. For that, the world owes Rudoph Hoess, the Kommandant of Auschwitz, a debt of gratitude.

A Truly Disturbing Book

This book shows how a blind adherance to 'doing one's duty' can lead to horrifying results. The calmness in which Hoess relates his story is disturbing. Regardless of whatever was in this man's background that led to his beliefs and actions does not lessen the lack of morals and ethics exhibited by him, unless a person's actions can be merely attributed to his upbringing. Unfortunately, the real value of this book is not recognized by recent events in Bosnia, Palestine, Israel, and other parts of the world. 'Ethnic cleansing' is a term I detest. Why not call it what it is, mass murder with a capital 'M'. There is no room for euphemisms when it comes to millions of people being slaughtered. A disturbing book indeed, but one that should be more widely read and understood. None of us should ever forget what happened at the hands of the criminals that ruled Germany at that point in history. I only wish the lessons that we could have learned from it all would have been better learned.Recommended!

THE BANALITY OF EVIL AND THE DEMISE OF REVISIONISM

This book provides a first hand account about the youth, carrier and the personal participation in the Holocaust, extermination of gypsies, russian prisoners and other human beings, of a man that was Kommandant at Auschwitz, from 1940 until 1943 and then Chief of the Department of Inspectors of the Concentration Camps. Rudolph H?ss, a man with a psychopathic personality, tells a gruesome, personal and detailed tale about the inception of Auschwitz, the logistical problems of its expansion, the gassings, his quarreling with other camp commanders due to their unproficiency, with the detachment and the normalcy of a bureaucrat, all of which not only makes a case study in the psychiatry of mass murder, but also recalls the concept of the banality of evil, elaborated by Hanna Arendt in her book about Adolph Eichmann's trial ( no surprise here, since these two fellows used to cooperate in their endeavour). The reasons given for their participation in the crimes committed, reveal the danger of a totalitarian or fanatical education, not only for the feeble minded, but also for "normal people" without a clear perception of the distinction between evil and good, from an ethical standpoint. Reading this book we confirm the distinction made by the scholars between the psyche of a serial killer (an intimate act) and that of the mass murderer (ideologically driven detachment).H?ss tells us about an infancy without real love, and how he couldn't relate with affection to his parents, sister, and then his wife. After he marries, his real dream is to have a farm, but the opportunity is given to him to enter in the S.S. by Himmler himself. In Auschwitz, he claims never to have mistreated personally any prisoner and that he always behaved in a professional manner. However, his detached or impersonal fight against what the S.S. taught him to be the COMMON ENEMY, involved a participation in the first experimentation of Cyclon B in order to find a more expedient and humane manner to kill hundreds of thousand faceless human beings. And we must believe H?ss when he tells us that the methods of shooting all the poor devils or gassing them with carbon monoxide, were in fact burdensome, logistically complicated and not that "human". Regarding his personal attitude towards the gassings, we get a perverse but fascinating explanation of how difficult it was for H?ss to bury all his human inhibitions, so as not to give a bad example to the other "employees" of Auschwitz. In order to better understand, I have selected this paragraph: "On one occasion two little children were involved in a game they were playing and their mother just couldn't tear them away from it. Even the jews from the Sonderkommando didn't want to pick up the children. I will never forget the pleading look in the face of the mother, who certainly knew what was happening. The people in the gas chamber were becoming restless. Everyone was looking at me. I had to act. I gave the sergeant in charge a wave, and h

Inside the mind of a mad man.

Enter the mind of a mad man. LTC Rudolph Hoess, while in prison awaiting trail for his role in the systematic extermination of 2 million jews while kommandant of KL Auschwitz, spills his thoughts on to paper for the whole world to read. Although Hoess does makes numerous "I was only following orders" to excuse his wicked actions through out the book,it is his cold unblinking honesty about how a child destinded to become a priest instead became the self admitted "the greastest killer of all time" is what really grabbed me. He also provides glimes into his childhood, his experiences in WW1, joining the Nazi party and his years in prison- plenty of imformation for pyschologist today to peek into the mind of a mad man. In short Hoess writes with the manial coolness of a real life Hannibal Lecter.

Horrifying, but startling insight.

This book is by far the single most important book about the Holocaust. Rudolf Hoess wrote these memoirs while he was drying off in prison after his capture by the British. Voluntarily, he wrote in detail about his life, as well as some pretty nasty occurances which occured in Auschwitz. Hoess was the type who denied personal responsibility with all the atrocities which occured in Auschwitz. He himself said that he never personally had anything against the Jews and he never killed one--let alone tourtured one--yet he authorised the murder of some four million inmates. His memoirs, aside from the odd bout of denial of responsibility, are a rare piece of information into both the nature and workings of the Holocaust and they serve as a terrific example of how one stupid man let his family-oriented sense of obeying orders and duty get the best of him. Everybody should read this book, for inside it are the writings of the first Kommandant of Auschwitz: one who watched millions of innocent human beings dissolve in the gas chambers, burn in the crematoriums, and their teeth melted into gold bars. His greatest crime of all was the submission into the workings of this terrifying regime, while forgetting all human nature and feelings, and acting only on behalf of orders and a sense of duty. I repeat, this is a must read for everybody, whether or not they are interested in the Holocaust, for it also serves as a very big lessson to never, ever, no matter what, let a senseless killing of people take place again. If we do not learn from this, and such a thing happens again, then there may be not a single survivor to live and tell the tale.