Rudolf Höss (1901–1947) was a German SS officer and the longest-serving commandant of Auschwitz, the largest Nazi concentration and extermination camp during World War II. He is best known as the author of Commandant of Auschwitz: The Autobiography of Rudolf Höss, a chilling firsthand account of his role in the Holocaust. Written while he was imprisoned after the war, the memoir details the establishment and operation of Auschwitz, providing insight into the logistics of mass murder and the psychological detachment of its perpetrators.
Höss joined the Nazi Party in 1922 and later became a member of the SS, rising through the ranks to oversee Auschwitz from 1940 to 1943. Under his command, the camp became the site of the genocide of over a million people, primarily Jews, through gas chambers, forced labor, and inhumane conditions. Captured in 1946, he testified at the Nuremberg Trials, showing little remorse for his actions.
Sentenced to death, Höss was executed on April 16, 1947, in Auschwitz. His memoir, though disturbing, serves as an essential historical document, shedding light on the bureaucratic and ideological machinery of the Holocaust and the mentality of those who carried it out.
