Rudolf Hoess was the notorious Commandant of Auschwitz. Imprisoned and awaiting execution after the war; Hoess wrote a long memoir; a self- serving account of his life and approaches to management. The amoral sensibility Hoess displayed regarding all that went on in the charnal factory where the industrialization of death was practiced--where probably 3 million people were literally worked to death; shot or quickly gassed--is still almost beyond belief today. Jurg Amann has taken Hoess' text and produced a work imaginatively new; always using Hoess' own words; The Commandant is a book Hoess would certainly not have approved--an excruciating insight into Hitler's Final Solution and the nature of evil itself through the prism of the Nazis' totalitarian system; one Hoess and so many others felt no requirement to question. Ian Buruma's introduction sets this frightening work within a both moral and historical context.
#2346716 in Books Georgetown University Press 2008-10-15Original language:EnglishPDF # 1 8.80 x .80 x 5.90l; .80 #File Name: 1589012151240 pages
Review
