Hanns and Rudolph: The True Story Of The German Jew Who Tracked Down And Caught The Commandant Of Auschwitz, Harding - B +

                 "This is a story pieced together from histories, biographies, archives, family letters, old tape recordings and interviews with survivors. "

                  Rudolf Hoss was born in 1901 in Baden-Baden. He was raised a devout Catholic by his dad, who died when he was twelve. Two years later, he lied his way into the army. He fought bravely against the British in Mesopotamia and Palestine. He came home a decorated veteran who was wounded three times. He joined the Freikorps, fought for a few years in Latvia, and joined the nascent Nazi Party in 1923. He worked in Silesia, where he and his friend Martin Bormann were convicted of killing a man they considered a traitor. He served four years of a ten year sentence.

                   Howard Alexander was born in Berlin in 1917. His father was a doctor. Hanns lived a very privileged life as an upper-class Jew in one of the finest neighborhoods in the city. His home was a center of social activity and it wasn't unusual for celebrities such as Richard Strauss, Marlene Dietrich, and Albert Einstein to dine at his home. Hanns and his twin, Paul, were bar mitzvahed at the Neue Synagogue, the largest in the city in 1930. 

                   Hoss went to work on a farm in Pomerania, where he met and married Hedwig Hencel. They proceeded to work the land and build a family. He joined the SS and was recruited by his former Freikorps colleague, Heinrich Himmler, to work at Dachau. In 1938, he was promoted and transferred to Sachsenhausen. Although he felt uncomfortable with the brutality, he followed orders.

                  Although Dr. Alexander, a decorated war veteran, was intent on persevering when the Nazi's took over, it readily became apparent he and his family had to leave. Over a few years, the entire family relocated to England. The Alexanders were part of a 70,000 person Jewish diaspora that had fled central Europe for the United Kingdom. When the war began, Hanns and Paul sought to enlist.

                  After the war broke out, Hoss was sent to Auschwitz Poland to construct a camp.  Upon its completion, Himmler ordered an immediate expansion, and a year later ordered the construction of Birkenau three miles away. The first murders at the camp were by injection of those deemed unable to work. In Himmler's office in 1941, Hoss was told that his camp would be the principal venue for the extermination of Europe's Jews. His adjutant stumbled upon the ultimate method of mass killing when he discovered the toxicity of Zyklon-B. The first Jews were gassed in the summer of 1942. Hoss created the selection process, built much bigger gas chambers, established nearby crematoria, and in essence, personally built the greatest killing machine of all time. In late 1943, Hoss was assigned to the Concentration Camp Inspectorate in Berlin. The following spring he was sent back to Auschwitz to supervise the murder of 400,000 Hungarian Jews.

                 The twins were accepted in the Auxiliary Military Pioneer Corps, an entity created to use the skills of Europe's refugees.  They attended Officer's Cadet Training, and on July 20 1944, Lt. Hanns Alexander arrived in France. The following April, Hanns was assigned to the UK's first war crimes investigation team. His task was to interview the staff at Bergen-Belsen. He was "gripped by a barely controllable rage." He flung himself into his duties. He was denied permission to pursue criminals, such as Hoss, but ignored his superiors and began his search on his off days. The first war crimes trial began in September and focused on Bergen-Belsen. After the successful prosecution, Hanns was given a travel permit, a driver, and a pistol and was sent off to find war criminals.

                 As the Reich was collapsing, Hoss and other SS men fled north with their families. He was able to drop off Hedwig and the children at her brother's home near the Baltic. He adopted a false identity, was released because he was a farm worker, and soon was working on a farm. Hanns was assigned to find the Gauleiter of Luxembourg, Gustav Simon, and accomplished his mission in seventeen days. He was then charged with finding the senior members of the Concentration Camp Group, known as Amstgrupppe D. After investigating the group in Berlin, Hanns learned that Hoss was believed to have fled towards Denmark. He began questioning Hedwig, whom the British were observing. When he threatened to send her son to Siberia, she provided her husband's whereabouts. The arrest was made and within a few days, Rudolph Hoss was telling the British all that had happened at Auschwitz. Within a month, Hanns was back in London, and along with his discharge papers was his new British passport.

                The Allies decided they needed Hoss to bolster their case against the senior defendants at Nuremberg.  He testified that two and a half million people were gassed at Auschwitz and another 500,000 died of starvation and disease. A month later, he was handed over to the Poles and was encouraged to, and did, write a memoir of his life. His defense that he was following orders failed, and he was hung at Auschwitz on April 16, 1947.

                 The author is Hanns' grand-nephew. He heard of Hanns' story for the first time at his funeral. While researching the book, he toured Auschwitz with Hoss' grandson. The gallows where Rudolf Hoss was hung are still there.