The Commandant. Rudolf Hoess, Jurg Amann

Rudolf Hoess was the first commandant at Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland. Imprisoned and awaiting execution after the war, Hoess wrote a large-scale autobiography, which Jurg Amann has artfully edited to produce a monstrous monologue - The Commandant. In addition to Hoess's early childhood and ascent through the ranks of the SS, it presents the atrocities and mass executions at Auschwitz from the perspective of the camp's highest overseer. This firsthand account by Hoess provides disturbing insight into Hitler's 'final solution' and into the nature of evil itself. 'May the general public simply go on seeing me as a bloodthirsty beast, the cruel sadist, the murderer of millions, because the broad masses cannot conceive the commandant of Auschwitz in any other way.' - Rudolf Hoess