Rudolf Hoess

You'll get the testimonies of, of the perpetrators.

Rudolf Höss, for example, um, is put on trial in Poland, and his own estimates are, "We, uh, w- we think we killed about 1.2 million people at Auschwitz-Birkenau." And he's, he's underselling that number, but not by very much.

Um, he's...

If, if anything, he's probably just misremembering, um, because later historical analysis confirms that about 1.3-ish million people were deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau.

If there's a, a witness declaring, "I was a, I w- I was a, I was a death camp inmate, and this is what Eichmann was directing," well, if you were a death camp inmate, how are you here? I mean, I-- [scoffs] W- was this the most inhabit death camp ever? So the prosecution was charged with calling, uh, witnesses who'd served in the SS and SD, the most prominent of whom are pretty obviously intelligence assets or double agents, to testify, you know, contra Eichmann and seek to establish liability based on things like the Einsatzgruppen actions they themselves had participated in.

And these guys, uh, just, you know, there, there'd been a similar, there'd been a similar, um, litany of these sorts of witnesses called to testify against Rudolf Höss, who was the commandant of Auschwitz-Birkenau, and it was, it was the same kind of thing.

You know, I-- These are the most evil men who ever lived, and they're liars, but you've got to trust them and it re- relevant to this testimony.

And, um, this is honestly where a lot of these, uh, strange claims come from.

Millions of bodies have been burned in crematoriums, leaving the sky above Auschwitz permanently choked with an acrid black smog.

But following Himmler's command, Rudolf Hoess has been ordered to halt the systematic slaughter of the camp's inmates and to physically dismantle all evidence that it ever took place.

But the Nazi guards do not perform this intensely laborious work.

Rather, it's the prisoners who are tasked with deconstructing the very machines in which their own families were murdered.

Alexander smiles and asks to come inside.

Reluctantly, the old man agrees.

While sitting around the man's kitchen table, Alexander tells him they're looking for someone named Rudolf Hoess, the former commandant of Auschwitz.

Then Alexander explains that they have received intelligence suggesting Hoess is hiding in the area.

They were supposed to be brutal and ruthless toward prisoners.

But were they actually like that? Do we know what former inmates said about this first group of 30 functionaries? How were they remembered by the camp commandant himself, Rudolf Höss?

This

is also a very interesting question.

Oscar must then bargain to get the women back that were supposed to be going to Berlin.

And the person he has to bargain with is Rudolf Hess, which, if you remember, he's one of the big bad guys.

And he's played by Hans-Michael Leibberg in this movie.

And it's really funny because he puts out some diamonds upon his table.

The Nazi daughter.

Oh, Rudolf Hoss's daughter, Brigitte.

This fascinates me.

Her family didn't know she was related to him until she agreed to do the interview.