Hanns and Rudolf

by Thomas Harding

  “She could expect, he said, their guest book . . .” Hedwig, like Henny Alexander, also kept a guest book—hers filled with the names of various Nazi luminaries who visted the Höss family from early September 1940 through to March 1945. The guest book was found at the Old Sugar factory in St. Michaelisdonn by FSS92 officer Karl Abrahams in 1946 and donated to Yad Vashem.

  “Heinrich Himmler, or ‘Uncle Heiner’ . . .” Ever since a boy, Himmler had frequent stomach trouble and may have abstained from meat at times but, unlike Hitler, he was not a vegetarian. Rudolf Höss’s second daughter, Brigitte, told me that she called Himmler “Uncle Heiner.” This is somewhat different from the nickname given by others, who somewhat sarcastically called him “Heini,” meaning “little boy who is scared” (Himmler had never seen action during the First World War).

  “Each week Rudolf had his hair cut . . .” I interviewed Jozef Paczynski, the “Little Pole,” in his apartment in Krakow, Poland. He remembered cutting Rudolf’s hair each week and how, the first time, he was very nervous as he had only just started cutting hair. “He did not speak to me,” Jozef recalled. “He just looked disgusted that a prisoner was cutting his hair. My hands were shaking, but I had seen his hair cut before, it was not too difficult.” Over the next three years, Jozef cut Rudolf’s hair every week and during this time the Kommandant never spoke a word to him. “He was always pleasant to his family and children. If you didn’t know about the killings you wouldn’t have thought he was a bad man; he seemed normal.” Jozef had also seen Rudolf at the entrance gates to the camp when the prisoners went off to work. “When they came back, exhausted and carrying the bodies of corpses, he just looked on; he never interfered.”

  “Yet other prisoners had less favorable memories . . .” The memories of prisoners who came into contact with Rudolf Höss during their captivity in Auschwitz have been captured in video testimonies collected by Steven Spielberg’s Shoah Archive. It is possible to download video testimony from this at various sites, including the University of California, San Diego, as well as Royal Holloway, University of London.

  “He also said that he wanted to build . . .” By 1941 IG Farben was the largest chemical company in the world, with more than 100,000 employees. It had close ties to the Nazi regime, funding the party’s rise to power and participating in its war machine. IG Farben owned 42.5 percent of Degesch, the company that owned the patent for and manufactured Zyklon B, the chemical used in the gas chambers. IG Farben also built a huge oil and rubber factory called Buna, four miles from the Auschwitz II/Birkenau camp. There, tens of thousands of prisoners worked under brutal conditions. Later, a new concentration camp, known as Monowitz, was built specifically to house IG Farben prisoner laborers. Thirteen of IG Farben’s twenty-four directors were sentenced to prison following the Nuremberg IG Farben Trial, but almost all went on to enjoy long and successful careers after the war.

  “including hundreds of children . . .” According to the Auschwitz Museum, of the 1.3 million or more people deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau approximately 232,000 were children under the age of eighteen. Immediately upon arrival, the vast majority of these children were selected and sent to the gas chambers. A few boys and girls were selected for work. From the middle of 1943, some children were kept alive for “medical” experiments supervised by Josef Mengele. When the Red Army liberated Auschwitz it found around seven hundred children among the seven thousand surviving prisoners.

  “Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact with the Soviet Union . . .” Russia became known as the “Soviet Union” in 1922. It was officially recognized as such by Britain in 1924. I have left Rudolf Höss’s references to “Russia” after 1922—for example when he talks about “Russian prisoners” in Auschwitz, even though they may well have been Ukrainian or from Belarus—to ensure authenticity.

  ‘In the summer of 1941 . . .’ In his memoirs, and in interviews conducted before the Nuremberg Trials, Rudolf insisted that this meeting with Heinrich Himmler in which he was ordered to carry out the Final Solution took place in the summer of 1941, before Germany’s attack on the Soviet Union, and that soon afterwards, he visited Treblinka, where he saw Jews from the Warsaw Ghetto exterminated. This version of history is supported chiefly by Richard Breitman, Washington, DC, Holocaust Museum historian and chairman of the U.S. Congressional Commission for the Declassification of Nazi Documents. But many scholars have disputed the claim, arguing that Rudolf Höss misremembered the dates. They point to the fact that the Warsaw Ghetto was not liquidated until the summer of 1942 and Treblinka was not operational until the same time. What is likely is that Rudolf met Himmler more than once about this sensitive matter and, given the consistency of his testimony (to the British, Americans and Poles), the date for this historic meeting is entirely possible.

  Chapter Eight

  “When it was finally their turn to go . . .” When the time came, Hanns and Paul’s departure from France was further delayed while their commander, Major Gordon Smith, was given orders to destroy the bridge approaching St. Malo.

  “Hanns did not view . . .” Hanns’s name change had been officially registered, and later on in life Hanns would regret this, viewing it as yet another loss that he had suffered at the hands of the Nazis. Ironically, the obituary in the Telegraph spelled his name incorrectly as “Harvey” rather than “Hervey.” The British were not the only ones to make mistakes. Many of his German documents also include inaccuracies. For example his German passport has his name as “Hans” rather than “Hanns.”

  “had by now adopted the name Harding . . .” Erich and Elsie changed their name to Harding after the war, with Erich also shortening his first name to Eric. The name change was poorly handled. To this day, and to much hilarity, their son Michael is known as Michael Harding Harding.

  “With Paul nowhere to be seen . . .” Hanns recalled the story in which he chatted up the French girl in an interview given many years later with his nephew John Alexander.

  Chapter Nine

  “Usually Rudolf would let the junior officers . . .” Rudolf included this recollection in his signed witness statement that he gave to the British on March 14, 1946 (certified by Captain Cross): “I remember one particular incident . . . When I arrived there I gave the immediate orders to close all the doors and continue with the gassing of the two-thirds which had entered the chamber. After this was finished I proceeded together with the sentries into the dressing room using hand searchlights. We succeeded in pressing the prisoners into a corner and then let them out individually. They were then shot in another room of the crematorium with small arms ammunition on my orders.” I found an original carbon copy of this statement in a file at the Intelligence Museum in Chicksands, UK, another at the U.S. National Archive in College Park. A copy is also hung on the wall of the Holocaust exhibit at the Imperial War Museum in London. This incident is also described in a report by Jerzy Tabau that was smuggled out of the camp and later entered into the Nuremberg Trials (“The Polish Major’s Report,” L-022). It is also included in Martin Gilbert’s book The Holocaust.

  “Their father would drive them across the fields . . .” Even in her later years, Brigitte still savored the moments that she had shared with her father: “He was the nicest man in the world,” she told me. “He was kind and was only ever good to us.” She remembered them eating lunch and dinner together, playing in the garden and, sometimes, while sitting in the living room, yards from the camp’s crematorium, he would tell them the story of Hansel and Gretel. Brigitte was convinced that her father was a sensitive man and had guessed that he was involved with something bad. “I’m sure he was sad inside,” she recalled. “It is just a feeling. The way he was at home, the way he was with us, sometimes he looked sad when he came back from work.” But, she was also aware of another side to her father: “I have been reading his book. I cannot read much of it. I’m not sure what to believe. There must have been two sides to him. The one that I knew and then another . . .” Brigitte struggled to reconcile her father
’s dual nature. When asked how he could be the “nicest man in the world” if he was responsible for the deaths of at least one million Jews, she said: “He had to do it. His family was threatened; we were threatened if he didn’t. And he was one of many in the SS. There were others as well who would do it if he didn’t.”

  “While the Höss children may not have noticed the gas chambers . . .” When I interviewed Rudolf’s daughter Brigitte, she was clear that she had no knowledge of the gas chambers. Rudolf’s daughter-in-law Irene also said that her husband, Hans-Jürgen, claimed he had no knowledge of the gas chambers nor of the murders that took place in the camp. However, Brigitte said that she was aware that her father had supervised a camp and that she herself had seen prisoners working in the villa’s garden as well as in the house itself. “We didn’t know what he did,” Brigitte told me. “We were only ten, eight, seven, five years and one years old. We did not know what he did, even if it was close by. We didn’t see smoke, we didn’t see what people now write and say. We didn’t know anything. We maybe knew that there was something there, but not what.” Brigitte claimed that all she knew was that her father ran some kind of prison and that her only exposure to it was the zebra-striped prisoners who worked in the villa, whom she describes as always “happy and kind.”

  “Indeed, to a certain degree . . .” Stanislaw Dubiel remembered Hedwig discussing her views on the Jews from his time working as a gardener at the Höss villa. His testimony was recorded as part of the evidence submitted for Rudolf’s trial in 1947.

  “Hedwig stopped having sex . . .” Anieli Bednarskiej—a young woman from Oświęcim who worked as a servant in the Höss villa—said that Hedwig was having an affair with a prisoner. Bednarskiej’s testimony was collected after the war. Hedwig’s lover was Karola Bohnera, a German Kapo who cleaned boots and fried fish for them in the villa. Since he didn’t have a number or a prisoner designation, he was allowed to move around freely. One day, Rudolf returned unexpectedly and found Hedwig and Bohnera in the greenhouse. He quickly understood what was going on and “made a scene.” Hedwig was able to pacify Rudolf, but on the condition that Bohnera never return to the villa. However, she continued to see him when her husband was away.

  “In the spring of 1942 . . .” This remarkable story of Eleanor’s time with Rudolf was captured in detailed testimony that Eleanor provided two years later to SS investigative judge Konrad Morgen. After the war it was included in the report SS Dachau and entered into evidence by the Americans during the Nuremberg Trials.

  Chapter Ten

  ‘Receiving alarming reports stating that . . .’ This telegram from 1942 describing the Nazi plan to exterminate the Jews is quoted in Blind Eye to Murder by Tom Bower and Holocaust Encyclopedia by Walter Laqueur.

  “By the start of 1945 . . .” The lack of resources and preparation in support of the war crimes effort didn’t have to be this way. In sharp contrast to the ill-prepared war crimes efforts, high priority was being given to tracking down the German scientists. Even before the end of the war, the Allies had focused considerable efforts on locating nuclear scientists and transporting them to the UK and U.S. One earlier OSS mission, codenamed “Alsos,” was designed to locate and when possible interrogate German nuclear physicists. By March 1945, a new initiative codenamed “Operation Paperclip” was proposed. It involved the dispersal of over three thousand specialists across Europe to pick up engineers, technicians, and rocket scientists. Once found, these scientists were transported to Britain and America, in the process denying the Soviets their knowledge. Operation Paperclip would be a spectacular success, giving the British and Americans a significant advantage in their postwar military efforts.

  “The British were even less ambitious . . .” One of the causes for the investigators’ lack of resources stemmed from the policy vacuum back in England. War crimes had fallen under the purview of the Foreign Office, and in particular forty-nine-year-old Viscount Bridgeman. Upon taking up his command Bridgeman had been told that the war crimes efforts should be limited to only what was absolutely necessary. One of the main reasons given was that they didn’t want to repeat the “Hang the Kaiser” campaign that had been so unpopular after the First World War. Furthermore, they expected that most of the war criminals would be gathered in the American Zone and therefore would not be the responsibility of the British occupying forces.

  “In early 1945 . . .” A few weeks earlier, in December 1944, Hanns and Paul had been approached by a certain Captain Harvey from the Intelligence Corps to see if they wished to become interpreters. They had to complete a series of linguistic tests and interviews. In a letter to his parents, dated December 9, 1944, Paul explained why he was not interested in this position: “As they don’t pay or promote us they can stick their lousy specialist jobs in any case. I have been for three months with prisoner-of-war prisoners and now when they promote the officers they say ‘sorry no aliens.’ So as far as I am concerned they can stick their jobs. All I want is a cushy job in a safe nice area.” Hanns was keener on accepting the new position, seeing it as an opportunity to take on more interesting work.

  “Paul also thought that Hanns was being unfair to Ann . . .” In this same letter, Paul wrote to Elsie asking her to help find him a wife: “The following conditions must be adhered to: she can be impossibly ugly or old, if she gives me freedom to satisfy my own feelings somewhere else. She must get me out of the army, and into a good business, which must be a reserved occupation for the next war. She can be any nationality she bloody well feels like. If not, English is an asset. She should or must be Jewish (easier for the holidays). If she lives in Whitechapel she must move. Otherwise I leave the details to you. (One more point about nationality if she is French, she must be a good whore, otherwise not interested in that sort of nation.)”

  Chapter Eleven

  “Morgen immediately visited . . .” Konrad Morgen described his investigation during a series of testimonies and affidavits provided to the Nuremberg Trials.

  “He also discovered that Maximilian Graebner . . .” In his paperwork to Berlin, Graebner had misleadingly stated that the prisoners at Auschwitz had died from disease and malnutrition.

  “At the end of the month . . .” Upon his return to Berlin, Rudolf once again became the focus of Konrad Morgen’s inquiry. The SS judge had met Eleanor Hodys in Dachau in the autumn of 1944, and she had told him about her affair with Rudolf. Konrad immediately initiated criminal proceedings against Rudolf Höss, along with the other top SS officials tasked with what he called the “blood orders,” including Adolf Eichmann, Hans Loritz and Oswald Pohl. Morgen later told the Nuremberg Trials that he was surprised to realize that Himmler had been playing him all along. “It just seemed to be unthinkable, in view of the education of the SS and its values of sincerity, frankness and honesty, to think that the Reichsführer-SS was capable of such insidious activities and of being two-faced, the hidden face bearing the characteristics of a common criminal.” Sometime in late autumn of 1944, the Reichsführer then told the judge to cease the investigation into Rudolf Höss and others. Morgen was taken off the case and reassigned as Breslau’s chief judge.

  Chapter Twelve

  “Nonetheless, he agreed to help . . .” At the end of the war the Germans had evacuated some of the Belsen inmates to the nearby Hermann Göring factory. When the British had arrived the Germans had attempted to relocate these prisoners once again, but their train had broken down and the prisoners had instead been placed in a camp outside Wolfsburg, near Hanover.

  “Hanns drove the child and the nurse . . .” According to Hanns, reuniting that child with her mother was the most cherished achievement of his six and a half years in the army. He recounted this story to another member of the Belsize Square Synagogue, Herbert Levy, in a recorded interview in 1995.

  “On May 16 . . . Leo Genn . . .” Leo Genn had grown up in a Jewish family in Stamford Hill, north London. He had studied law at Cambridge and, after qualifying as a barrister, had worked as a
lawyer in a London theater. While never giving up his legal practice, he had also become a professional actor, performing Horatio to Laurence Olivier’s Hamlet at the Old Vic in 1937. He was a man of immense charisma, with a smooth but authoritative voice and a calm demeanor. At the outbreak of war he had joined the British Army’s Judge Advocates Office.

  “In the three weeks since the camp’s liberation . . .” In a memo written on May 21, 1945, Leo Genn updated Brigadier H. Scott-Barrett at the War Crimes Commission in London on the “unsatisfactoriness of the position.” He wrote, “I am very far from complete as to personnel and the work, which in any case could only proceed at slightly better than its somewhat pedestrian speed up to now, will now be very little accelerated.” At this time hundreds of thousands of Germans were held in displacement camps across Europe. Many were disoriented and identified themselves without any attempt at deceit. This would have been the perfect time to focus efforts on catching and prosecuting the war criminals. Instead, the vast majority weren’t even identified, let alone seriously interrogated. For example, Gustav Wagner, the “Angel of Death” from the Sobibor concentration camp, and Ernst Heinrichsohn, who supervised the deportation of Jews in Paris, were both held in internment camps, but went unquestioned and were soon after released. Another example was Adolf Eichmann, who was held for a brief time in an American POW camp before escaping. He was never identified even though he was on the CROWCASS watch list. It would be decades before he would face justice in an Israeli courtroom.

  “Beyond this, however, they were on their own . . .” According to the Times, in an article published on June 18, 1945, there were “many complications” hampering the war crimes investigators, including the fact that many of the witnesses had already left the camp and those who remained spoke numerous languages. Perhaps most important, according to the article, the British were simply unprepared to carry out the required investigative and legal effort: “The full horror and chaos of Belsen took us [the British] unawares.” Nevertheless, by the publication of this article, 86 SS guards, including 28 women, had been taken into custody and 300 affidavits had been collected.