An extraordinary and unique document: Hoess was in charge of the huge extermination camp in Poland where the Nazis murdered some three million Jews, from the time of its creation (he was responsible for building it) in 1940 until late in 1943, by which time the mass exterminations were half completed. Before this he had worked in other concentration camps, and afterwards he was at the Inspectorate in Berlin. He thus knew more, both at first-hand and as an administrator, about Nazi Germany¿s greatest crime than did any save two or three other men. Taken prisoner by the British, he was handed over to the Poles, tried, sentenced to death, and taken back to Auschwitz and there hanged. During the period between his trial and his execution, he was ordered to write his autobiography. This is it. Hoess repeatedly says he was glad to write the book. He enjoyed the work. And finally the most careful checking has shown that he took great pains to tell the truth. Here we have, painted by his own hand, a vivid and unforgettable self-portrait of one of the great monsters of all time. To this are added portraits of some of his more spectacular fellow-criminals. The royalties from this macabre but historically important book go to the fund set up to help the few survivors from the Auschwitz camps.
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||
 Trade In this Item for up to £0.50
Trade in Commandant Of Auschwitz (Age of Dictators 1920-1945) for an Amazon.co.uk gift card of up to £0.50, which you can then spend on millions of items across the site. Trade-in values may vary (terms apply). Special Offer until June 30, 2013: Receive an additional £5 promotional Gift Card, when you trade-in at least £10 worth of books. Learn more
|
Book Description
Frequently Bought Together
Product details
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
More About the Author
Discover books, learn about writers, and more.
Product Description
Book Description
Rudolph Hoess was Commandant of Auschwitz during the war. He was taken prisoner by the British. Between his trial and his execution he was ordered to write his autobiography. This is it.
From the Publisher
Introduction by Primo Levi
"This book…………is filled with evil……it has no literary quality and reading it is agony", comments Primo Levi in his introduction. "The author comes across as what he is: a coarse, stupid, arrogant, long winded scoundrel".And yet "…..it is one of the most instructive books ever published".
"This book…………is filled with evil……it has no literary quality and reading it is agony", comments Primo Levi in his introduction. "The author comes across as what he is: a coarse, stupid, arrogant, long winded scoundrel".And yet "…..it is one of the most instructive books ever published".
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
First Sentence
Usually when you agree to write the introduction to a book, you do so because you truly care about the book: it's readable, it's got a high literary quality, so that you like or at least admire the author. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
Usually when you agree to write the introduction to a book, you do so because you truly care about the book: it's readable, it's got a high literary quality, so that you like or at least admire the author. Read the first page
Explore More
Concordance
Browse Sample PagesConcordance
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
This is much more of an exercise in discussing the logistics of setting up and running Auschwitz and other camps than giving any gory details of what went on. If you took the camps out of the equation, you would simply think you were reading a discussion on building a large-scale enterprise with a shortage of resources, poor planning and the usual personnel problems that any big business has.
Hoess does seem rather disingenuous about his activities, but he paints an interesting picture of his interactions with other major players in the RSHA, SS and camp scenes.
Given the sensitivities, it's understandable for the publishers not to try to humanise the man, but I would have appreciated some personal photographs showing the man himself, rather than just the usual photos of general camp misery.
Hoess does seem rather disingenuous about his activities, but he paints an interesting picture of his interactions with other major players in the RSHA, SS and camp scenes.
Given the sensitivities, it's understandable for the publishers not to try to humanise the man, but I would have appreciated some personal photographs showing the man himself, rather than just the usual photos of general camp misery.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
By Roy
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
Potential readers should be aware that Hoess does not start to talk in detail about his time in Auschwitz until after some 100 pages of his life story in a 250 page book. The book does not contain substantial graphic details of his time at Auschwitz but is more a review of his life with apparent justifications for his actions. Still worth a read but not a detailed study of Auschwitz atrocities that some might have expected.
35 of 41 people found the following review helpful
By "jharpur"
Format:Paperback
Media commentators, rather than professional historians, have often been wondered how the Jewish Final Solution programme could have been operated with so little public disquiet. This book goes someway towards an explanation. Early in Hoess' autobiography it emerges that all opponents of the Reich, all those who could cause friction (especially on the Left) were either run off, suppressed, or sent to concentration camps from 1933 onwards. After 1935 the Nazis had no effective opposition to contend with; and excesses mounted after excesses. In many ways it is a terrible book. Terrible in that it reveals how easy it is for people to place a gulf between their actions and any moral court. For instance, Hoess documents the murders of various categories of prisoner (Catholics, homosexuals, gypsies, Jews, Russian POWS)in a manner reminiscent of a quality assurance officer running through a checklist. It is that disassociation between moral judgement and action that haunts the reader throughout the text.
One can also reasonably infer from the text that though the exterminations were a closely guarded secret, the logistics of the operations meant that many more were aware of the operations. Hoess freqently refers to SS 'morale' problems (not moral ones of course).
In Hoess' ideological world the murder of people of all races and creeds, is never understood or presented as murder per se. Instead the matter is addressed through a language of indirection, a euphemistic terminology. Episodes of mass murder and attendant events are referred to as 'actions', the human cargos of captives delivered in appalling conditions by rail are 'transports'. Hoess never questions the 'need' for the camps, and only pesters his superiors when administrative glitches threaten the smooth running of the 'actions'.
... Read more ›16 of 19 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
No doubt about it, whatever your views are on the topic, this is a very gripping and thoroughly interesting read. However, If you have done any research on the subject of the holocaust, you will doubt the integrity of the the author throughout. As with many historical events, there is ordinarily a valid point to be taken from either side, but with these memoirs being written whilst in allied custody, you can't help but feel that there is an overwhelming unnatural sense of "I didn't do it" about the whole text.
In spite of the overwhelming evidence against the Nazis, the author does to some extent attempt to express the pressures upon him to be an active part in their success, and to a larger extent, their downfall. I found the book extremely interesting, regardless of the bias and blame on others that it heavily relies on.
In spite of the overwhelming evidence against the Nazis, the author does to some extent attempt to express the pressures upon him to be an active part in their success, and to a larger extent, their downfall. I found the book extremely interesting, regardless of the bias and blame on others that it heavily relies on.
16 of 19 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Rudolf Hoess details in this book much which has little to do with the title subject matter. Although a morbidly fascinating read, he talks hardly at all of the disgusting realities which he was responsible for. Moreover he talks at length about how he came to be commandant, and the logistical difficulties he faced in implementing his horrific task. Throughout the book he makes excuses and talks about how people outside the german phsychological background fail to understand how germans who say they were following orders really had no choice but to follow to the letter. At times hard work this book is only worth reading for as much as one is more widely read for having done so. Take every chapter with a pinch of salt and try to undertsand the position this man found himself in while writing before accepting it too readily.
10 of 13 people found the following review helpful
By A Customer
Format:Paperback
An essential read for anyone who wants a first hand account, or who has ever asked, "How could they have done that, & then go home to their family?"- here is his point of view, here is how he lived with himself. It isn't comfortable to have his thoughts in your head, but it is revealing.
Some reviewers here are surprised or disappointed not to read any hint of regret in the author's account, but this is to miss the point. -This account is written by someone who believed in Nazi ideology completely. Never having experienced disillusion, even in defeat, how could he experience repentance? What makes this such an uncomfortable read is that the reader enters into this man's mind; into a horribly distorted perspective. You have to stop every now and then, look up and take a breath, because it feels like there's a danger of drowning in this man's outlook.
The book is revealing and historically important not just as an eyewitness account, but in serving as an example of how a human can be trained to believe anything; even that black is white, given the right amount of drilling and growing up with the right amount of propaganda.
(N.B. -As to one reviewer's assertion that this was faked, and written in English- this is a translation from the German. It has been used as a source in several esteemed accounts of the holocaust, which I presume would have checked its provenance first.)
Would you like to see more reviews about this item?
›
Go to Amazon.com to see all 22 reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars
Were these reviews helpful?
Let us know
Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
A truly great book, a chance to get into the mind of a Nazi.....
This is a truly great book, if not shocking at times. The fact that he still doesnt see any wrong in what the Nazis did is a little bit disturbing however that aside, this is a... Read more
Published 6 months ago by Beth
5.0 out of 5 stars
Chilling
This book was a chilling read. I definitely recommend it to anyone with an interest in WWII or even just politics. Not an easy read but worth it
Published 6 months ago by Damian
5.0 out of 5 stars
a sombering read
for any one with a liking for history this is a must read. I cannot comprehend what could make people do this to there fellow man. Read more
Published 8 months ago by Peter E. Wright
5.0 out of 5 stars
A must read for anyone with an interest in WW2 and Auschwitz
I read some reviews on this book and decided to buy it. The book is a very good account of Auschwitz by the man who ran it, Rudolf Hoess. Read more
Published 11 months ago by David P
5.0 out of 5 stars
COMMANDANT OF AUSCHWITZ
This book gives such an insight into the machinations of running a camp such as Aushwitz. Rudolf Hoess writes eloquently enough to take the reader away from what he is actually... Read more
Published 14 months ago by eduardo
5.0 out of 5 stars
An Archetypal Authoritarian Personality
This book is profoundly unnerving. One expects a flamboyant monster revelling in his own depravity and finds instead a man who in many ways is very ordinary, for whom rising up the... Read more
Published 19 months ago by J. Gordon
5.0 out of 5 stars
Terrible testimony of Nazi mass murderer
I gave this book 5 stars, not because I love it, but because of its crucial historical importance as a testimony to the Holocaust. Read more
Published 23 months ago by Bacchus
4.0 out of 5 stars
commandant of auschwitz
A fascinating book and a must read for those who might try to get their heads around what makes people like Hoess tick. Read more
Published 23 months ago by micytay
3.0 out of 5 stars
A man who simply refuses to understand.
I approached this book with some caution, as I knew that I would probably be overwhelmed by general feelings of anger, disgust and disbelief. Read more
Published 23 months ago by Sophie
5.0 out of 5 stars
Sickening yet fascinating
A book full of Evil.Hoess comes across as not the brightest person ever to walk this earth. Spends most of the book trying to justify his actions and bemoan the fact that if he... Read more
Published on 19 May 2011 by Rickety Knee
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
|
|
Look for similar items by category
- Books > Biography > Historical > 1901 Onwards
- Books > Biography > Historical > Countries & Regions > Europe
- Books > Biography > Historical > Countries & Regions > Germany
- Books > Biography > Holocaust
- Books > Biography > Political > Countries & Regions > Europe
- Books > Biography > Political > Countries & Regions > Germany
- Books > Biography > True Crime
- Books > Biography > War & Espionage > World War II
- Books > History > Europe > Germany
- Books > History > Europe > Holocaust
- Books > History > World History > World War II 1939-1945 > Battles & Campaigns
- Books > History > World History > World War II 1939-1945 > Biographies & Memoirs
- Books > History > World History > World War II 1939-1945 > Origins
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
|
