ePub Hanns and Rudolf: The True Story of the German Jew Who Tracked Down and Caught the Kommandant of Auschwitz by Thomas Harding in History

Review

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful. Compelling; factual; detailed and utterly absorbingBy Allen SmallingTwo sons of Germany; born with the 20th Century. One; Hanns Alexander; was cosmopolitan; affluent; urbane; urban (Berlin) and liberal Jewish. Although he and his twin brother were the class cut-ups; they could look forward to stepping into the family's banking business as adults. The other; Rudolf Hoess; was small-town (Baden-Baden); Catholic; conservative; and destined to become a Priest. But then Rudolf's hated and feared father died; and after that Germany was plunged into the Great Depression. Then the Nazi Party came to power in 1933 and the whole country was upended; tossing these two young men into very different life courses than they could possibly have imagined as boys. In the course of a very few years the Alexander family had to give up its German holdings and escape as refugees to the U.K.; and while Rudolf at first was drawn to an agrarian reform movement; he later took up with the Nazis and advanced so well that he was made commandant of Auschwitz; the most hated and feared of all the Third Reich's death camps.HANNS AND RUDOLF is the brilliantly told story of these two disparate men and how the hunted; Hanns; after World War II became the hunter who dedicated his life to bringing Rudolf Hoess to justice. Author Thomas Harding; a descendant of the Alexander family; narrates his story precisely and factually; without excessive background or stylistic glitz. The result is a relatively fast; and very absorbing nonfiction book that anyone who has an interest in this period should pick up and read. This is one of those "international best-sellers" truly worthy of the name; and I for one am very glad it came to my attention through an discussion thread.1 of 1 people found the following review helpful. superb history; admirably toldBy John E. DruryWith admirable objectivity strengthened with deep research; Thomas Harding’s “Hanns and Rudolf” is the fascinating well told story of the 1946 capture of Rudolf Höss; the Kommandant of Auschwitz by “Hanns” Alexander; the author’s great uncle; on a small farm near the German Danish border. Harding’s book; while laudably personal; never preachy; hews to the facts and records by drawing not only on the life of Höss but on the life of Alexander; a twin; whose brother; Paul; fought in the war as well. In a book about the absence of; and the denial of humanity; of monstrous deeds by humans against humans; Harding cleverly and artfully makes the parallel of lives of both “Hanns and Rudolf” about the complexities and compassions in "our humanity."The book has a superb map in the beginning; telling photos and a fine bibliography. This is the second book by Thomas Harding ; read and reviewed; the first; being “The House by the Lake.”3 of 3 people found the following review helpful. Two lives and the banality of evilBy Errol LevineThis highly-readable and interesting book by Thomas Harding relates the interesting parallel stories of Hanns Alexander and Rudolf Höss. Hanns Alexander; who was a great uncle of the author; left Germany in 1936 as a teenager with his family to escape anti-Semitic persecution. Rudolf Höss was Kommandant of the Auschwitz Extermination camp. According to Höss's later testimony at the Nuremberg trial of the major Nazi War criminals; at least one million victims were exterminated at Auschwitz by gassing and burning; and at least another half-million succumbed to starvation and disease. The victims were mostly Jews from all over occupied Europe but they also included Russians; Poles and Roma. Mr. Harding presents the stories of Hanns and Rudolf in alternating chapters. This changes after the end of the war when these two individuals met under extraordinary circumstances. Then they are both included in the same chapters.After reaching England; Hanns Alexander almost immediately enlisted in the British military becoming part of the Pioneer Corps which consisted mainly of foreign émigrés such as himself. His service to his adopted country gradually got him promoted through the ranks. Towards the end of the war; he was sent to Europe and because of his fluency in both English and German; he was assigned the tasks of hunting down those who had been designated as war criminals by the Allies. His first major capture was that of Gustav Simon; the notorious Gauleiter of Luxembourg.Rudolf Höss originated from a farming family. He had an abusive father and learned to obey authority figures absolutely and without question from a very early age. He joined the Nazi party at an early stage of its evolution and became a protégé of sorts of the notorious Heinrich Himmler. He received his training in the management of prisoners at the Dachau concentration camp near Munich. Höss prided himself on his efficiency in the management of detainees as a result of which Himmler tasked him with setting up the Auschwitz camp in Upper Silesia which was a part of Poland that was annexed by the Third Reich. Höss's efficiency was such that the camp rapidly enlarged and received its first assignment of Jews in 1942.Höss in his striving for efficiency realized that Hitler and Himmler's intention to annihilate European Jewry could not be achieved by murders of small groups of victims. He was therefore instrumental in promoting the use of the poison gas Zyklon B in the gas chambers of Auschwitz. Höss was a hands-on Kommandant. He often witnessed the death agonies of victims through a small peephole in the door to the main gas chamber. He was recalled for a while in 1943 to serve at a desk job at the Concentration Camp Inspectorate adjacent to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp. However; after the German invasion of Hungary in 1944; Himmler perceived a need for greater efficiency at Auschwitz because of the imminent deportation there of the large and hitherto untouched Jewish population of Hungary. Therefore; Höss; as a known specialist in mass extermination; was transferred back to Auschwitz where he personally supervised the murder of at least four hundred thousand Hungarian Jews. He clearly enjoyed his work as shown from a smiling group photograph with other camp personnel including Dr. Mengele.The paths of Höss and Alexander converged after the German surrender. Höss had fled to northern Germany where he lived on a farm close to the Danish border under an assumed name. There he was tracked down by Hanns Alexander and arrested. After his arrest; Höss gave testimony at the Nuremberg trials of the Nazi bigwigs including Goring; Ribbentrop and Hess. He provided the first real testimony of the methods used to perpetrate the Nazi's Final Solution. Höss was subsequently handed over to the Polish government which tried him and sentenced him to death by hanging.Mr. Harding's book makes for very gripping reading. However; it has an almost surreal quality about it. We learn that Hoss and his wife Hedwig and their children lived in a luxuriously-appointed villa at Auschwitz. Hedwig loved camp life and wished that it would go on forever! The Höss family loved taking photographs and the photographs of them relaxing during Höss's leisure time are amazing considering what was happening nearby. Even though the main Auschwitz crematorium was just over the yard wall from the villa; Hoss claimed implausibly that his wife was unaware of what was happening until a visiting official spilled the beans during a conversation. This was despite the fact that the smell of burning flesh spread far and wide over the surrounding countryside.Hanns Alexander emerges from the book as a colorful character who was grateful for being given refuge by his adopted country and who quite rightfully detested the country of his birth for all that had been done and countenanced by his fellow Germans. The main value of the book lies in its depiction of Höss and his mentality based on the author's review of Höss's correspondence after his detention and his autobiography written while in a Polish prison and entitled "Commandant at Auschwitz Rudolf Hoess."Hannah Arendt had used the famous phrase the "banality of evil" to describe Adolph Eichmann during his trial in Jerusalem. However; as Deborah Lipstadt and others have made clear Eichmann was not a simple clerk in mass murder but was an enthusiastic participant and innovator in the mass murder of European Jewry. The phrase "banality of evil;" seems more fitting as a description for Höss. He was very proud of his efficiency in running Auschwitz and seems to have regarded it as being like any ordinary factory except that its end product was millions of dead bodies.All this information has been conveyed previously in statistical and historical terms in such magisterial works as Saul Friedländer's "The Years of Extermination: Nazi Germany and the Jews; 1939-1945." However; Mr. Harding's contribution is important and possibly unique because it shows us the mind of a Nazi mass murderer; such as it was; and therefore puts a human face on the Holocaust. This excellent book makes a major part of the Holocaust; namely the actual process of extermination; accessible to the average person in a very readable form. Mr. Harding has succeeded in providing a gripping nonfiction psychological thriller. It is not pleasant reading but I think it is a valuable resource for those wishing to know more about this dreadful period in world history.