Rudolf Höss

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Lore & Background

Höss was born in Baden-Baden into a strict Catholic family, the eldest of three children and the only son. His father Franz, a former army officer, brought him up on strict religious principles and with military discipline, having decided that he would enter the priesthood. Höss began turning against religion in his early teens after his priest broke the Seal of the Confessional by telling his father about an event at school. Soon afterward, Höss' father died, and Höss began moving toward a military life. When World War I began, he briefly served in a military hospital and then, at age 14, was admitted to his father's and his grandfather's old regiment, the 21st Regiment of Dragoons. He fought at Baghdad, at Kut-el-Amara, and in Palestine, rising to the rank of Feldwebel and becoming at 17 the youngest non-commissioned officer in the army. Wounded thrice and a victim of malaria, he was awarded the Iron Crescent, the Iron Cross first and second class, and other decorations. After the armistice, he joined Freikorps units including the East Prussian Volunteer Corps and Freikorps Roßbach, participating in armed terror attacks on Polish people during the Silesian uprisings and on French nationals during the French Occupation of the Ruhr. After hearing a speech by Adolf Hitler in Munich, Höss joined the Nazi Party in 1922 and renounced his affiliation with the Catholic Church. On 31 May 1923, Höss and members of the Freikorps attacked and beat to death local schoolteacher Walther Kadow. Höss was convicted and sentenced to 10 years in prison, but was released in July 1928 as part of a general amnesty. He joined the Artaman League, married Hedwig Hensel on 17 August 1929, and had five children: two sons (Klaus and Hans-Jürgen) and three daughters (Heidetraut, Inge-Brigitt, and Annegret).

Reader's Guide

Rudolf Höss is a central figure in the history of the Holocaust due to his role as commandant of Auschwitz from 4 May 1940 to November 1943 and again from 8 May 1944 to 18 January 1945. Under his command, the camp became the site of the murder of over a million people, primarily Jews. Höss personally tested and implemented the use of Zyklon B in gas chambers, a method that became a key tool of the Final Solution. After the war, he lived under a false name until discovered by British forces, who turned him over to Polish authorities. He was convicted by the Polish Supreme National Tribunal and executed by hanging in 1947. During his imprisonment, at the request of the Polish authorities, Höss wrote his memoirs, released in English under the title Commandant of Auschwitz: The Autobiography of Rudolf Hoess. His life illustrates the bureaucratic and ideological machinery of Nazi genocide, as well as the personal moral collapse that enabled it. His legacy remains a stark warning of how ordinary individuals can become complicit in systematic atrocity.

Did You Know?

• Höss was baptized Rudolf Franz Ferdinand on 11 December 1901.
• He claimed in his autobiography that he was briefly abducted by Romanies in his youth.
• At age 17, Höss was the youngest non-commissioned officer in the German army during World War I.
• Höss fired the finishing shot from his pistol in the execution of August Dickmann, the first conscientious objector executed after the start of World War II.
• On 18 January 1940, Höss ordered prisoners at Sachsenhausen to stand outside in −26 °C (−15 °F) conditions; 78 inmates died that day and another 67 died that night.