Rainer Höss is the grandson of Rudolf Höss, who was the former and founder of the Auschwitz concentration camp in 1940 and served as its commander for three and a half years.
To all appearances Höss was an introverted family man and animal lover, a perfectionist who took great pride in his work, noting in his memoirs that “by the will of the Reichsfuhrer, Auschwitz became the greatest human extermination centre of all time”.
It was Höss, the perfect example of the conscientious, self-disciplined, petty –bourgeois automaton whose golden rule was “Only one thing is valid – orders”, who ensured the smooth functioning of the extermination system at Auschwitz, treating mass murder as a purely administrative procedure.
In his memoirs he takes pride in being the first to utilise successfully the gassing agent “Zyklon B” – the squeamish Höss, who could not bear shootings and bloodshed found gas to be infinitely more rational, bloodless and hygienic. He regarded the compulsion to obey orders and to surrender all personal independence as a hallmark of his morality and bourgeois decency: “Even while I was carrying out the task of extermination, I lived a normal life and so on.”
Whilst in custody Höss wrote a detailed statement about his stewardship of Auschwitz-Birkenau, extracts are as follows:
“I was given the order... to transform the former Polish Artillery Barracks near Auschwitz into a quarantine camp for prisoners coming from Poland... After Himmler inspected the camp in 1941 I received the order to enlarge the camp and to employ the prisoners... to drain the swamps and inundation area on the Weichsel... The number of prisoners grew daily in spite of my repeated interventions that billets were not sufficient, and further intakes were sent to me. Epidemic diseases were unavoidable because medical provisions were inadequate. The death rates rose accordingly, as prisoners were not buried, crematoriums had to be installed... In 1941 the first intakes of Jews came from Slovakia and Upper Silesia. People unfit to work were gassed in a room of the crematorium in accordance with an order which Himmler gave me personally... I was ordered to see Himmler in Berlin in June 1941 and he told me, approximately, the following:
The following method was used in the process of extermination [in the already running extermination facility of Treblinka]: Small chambers were used equipped with pipes to induce the exhaust gas from car engines... This method was unreliable as the engines, coming from old captured transport vehicles and tanks, very often failed to work. Because of that the intakes could not be dealt with according to the plan, which meant to clear the Warsaw Ghetto. According to the Camp Commandant of Treblinka, 80,000 people have been gassed in the course of half a year... As the new crematoriums were only to be finished in late 1942, the prisoners had to be gassed in provisionally erected gas-chambers and then had to be burned in pits. I am now going to explain the method of gassing... When they were undressed, they went into the room according to size, 2-300 at a time. The doors were locked and one or two tins of zyklon B were thrown into the room through holes in the wall... Valuables were sent monthly to the Reichsbank in Berlin. Clothing was sent to armament firms, after having been cleaned, for the use of forced labour and displaced persons. Gold from teeth was melted down and sent monthly to the medical department of the Waffen –SS’”.
Hoss continues describing later phases of the Auschwitz's operation:
“Owing to the mass intakes, the number of prisoners fit to work grew immensely. My protests to the RHSA to slow down the transports, which means to send fewer transports, was rejected every time. The reason given was the Reichsfuhrer SS had given an order to speed up extermination and every SS Fuhrer hampering same will be called to account... Owing to the immense over-populating of existing barracks and owing to the inadequate hygienic installations, epidemic diseases like spotted fever, typhus, scarlet fever and diphtheria, broke out from time to time, especially in the camp Birkenau... When they were undressed, they went into the room according to size, 2-300 at a time. The doors were locked and one or two tins of zyklon B were thrown into the room through holes in the wall. It consisted of a rough substance of Prussic acid. It took, according to the weather 3-10 minutes. After half an hour the doors were opened and the bodies were taken out by the commando of prisoners, who were permanently employed there, and burned in pits. Before being cremated, gold teeth and rings were removed. Firewood was stacked between the bodies and when approximately 100 bodies were in a pit...”.
At the end of March 1947, Höss was sentenced to death by a Polish military tribunal.
1.1 million men, women and children perished in auschwitz. 960,000 of them Jews.
השם יקום דמם.
