| Summaries
of Interrogations of Rudolf Höss | INTERROGATIONS by American
and British officers at Nuremberg prison, of
Rudolf Franz Ferdinand Höß, born
in Baden, Germany. Höß was Kommandant of
the KZ (concentration camp) at Auschwitz
from May 1, 1940 to December 1, 1943. These original interrogations
and affidavits ("made voluntarily and without
compulsion") are from US National Archives
(Washington, DC)
microfilm M.1270, roll 7. | These brief
excerpts are made by David
Irving |
See also Eichmann
Papers and
especially the Notes
[both in German]| | Interrogation of April 1, 1946: About
Freikorps Rossbach, etc., KZ Dachau. Appointment to
Auschwitz May 1, 1940. Whole area was very swampy
and under water (p.11). "Cannot remember" the exact
sequence of arrivals of Jews. RFSS had ordered him
in mid 1941 (July) to exterminate, order received
in person "before the Russian campaign had started"
at Prinz Albrecht Str 6, since the three camps in
Generalgouvernement were unable to cope--Belzek,
Treblinka, and a third ["Walzek
[sic]"?] "about 40 km in the direction
of Kulm". "It was past Kulm in an easterly
direction." "One train [at Treblinka?]
generally handled 2000 people." [sic].There
were two old farms, a small hole "through which the
gas was blown in … Zyklon B, a crystal like
substance." Three to fifteen minutes everybody was
dead: average of two trains a day. He could hear
the screams (those waiting outside could not.)
After half an hour the bodies were removed and
burned in open pits behind the farm houses. Gold
teeth extracted after execution but before
burning. | Interrogation of April 2, 1946:
Refers to statement by Höß in Minden
Jail on 20.3.1946 (#D479B) Said he Höß
was also at Auschwitz for two months from Jun
--Aug.1944 to introduce the new commandants Baer,
Kramer, Schwarz. Höß was confused as to
train capacity, now says two trains equals 1,600 to
1,700 people. He cannot give numbers. "Perhaps
10,000 Russians." Interrogator at Minden had told
him 100,000 but he thought that
impossible.--Eichmann told Höß Mar/Apr
1944 [sic. 1945?] that he was reporting to
RFSS that he had sent 2·5m to Auschwitz. "We
had an order by the RFSS to destroy all materials
in numbers immediately and not to preserve any
records of the extermination being carried
out."[1] "In the
ceilings of these gas chambers there were three or
four openings that were fenced around with a
grating that reached to the floor of the gas
chamber and through these openings the gas was
poured in…" Electrical ventilators removed the
fumes in half hour. (Question: "Was it not
dangerous…?")[2]
Two larger Kremas with five double furnaces "could
burn 2,000 human beings in twelve hours." Used
coke. Each double-furnace held three corpses.
Höß ducks a reply on how long each
cremation process took. | Interrogation of April 3, 1946 (morning):
Höß's career before Auschwitz.
"Genickschußautomat" demonstrated at KZ
Sachsenhausen. Attempt to incriminate
Schwerin-Krosigk, who once visited Auschwitz. | Interrogation of April 3, 1946
(afternoon): KZ Dachau. Personnel. Last days.
Relations with and of Adolf
Eichmann. | Interrogation of April 4, 1946: again
lists "Treblinka, Wolzek, and Belzek"
(p.5).--Exterminations in Riga in the woods
witnessed by SS Stubaf Sauer.--KZ
Dachau.--2·5m killed plus 0·5m died in
Auschwitz | Affidavit and interrogation of
April 5, 1946: Höß estimates at
least 2·5m were executed by gassing at
Auschwitz, and 0·5m died of starvation and
disease, total of 3m.[3]
"We executed 400,000 Hungarian Jews alone at
Auschwitz in the summer of 1944."[4]
In Jun 1941 there were three other extermination
camps: Belzek, Treblinka, and Walzek [sic].
--This interrogation is signed (1. Ausfertigung)
by interrogators and interpreters but
neither this document nor the affidavit is
signed by Höß. | Interrogation of April 5, 1946: Question:
"We have prepared an affidavit written in
English…" ("Whereupon witness reads the
affidavit as follows") Answer [by
Höß]: "Yes, I understand everything
that I read." Comments: (1) Höß could
not understand any English whatever. (2) None of
this document is signed. | Interrogation of April 8, 1946 morning:
Makes reference to now getting a German
translation "of the affidavit which you
[Höß] signed."--Visits by IG
Farben officials. Why did not IG Farben workers
know about the exterminations, nor did the "7,000
Waffen SS guards." Dr Dürrfeld once asked him,
says Höß; he evaded reply. | Interrogation of April 8, 1946 afternoon:
Shown the affidavit of 5.4.1946 in German
translation, Höß makes changes. IG
Farben visits. Frau Höß's knowledge of
goings-on at Auschwitz. | Interrogation of April 16, 1946
morning (by Col Harry Phillimore et al.):
Relations at Auschwitz with Otto Moll. Moll ran one
of the farm buildings. He was a
Genickschußspezialist. Highest
capacity was 10,000 gassed and burned in one
day.[5] | Interrogation of April 16, 1946 afternoon:
Most interesting is this confrontation of
Höß with Otto Moll, which Moll had
demanded: "It hurts me to see that he, the
commandant, is running around free, when I have to
go around shackled to a guard." Moll was a
gardener, responsible for digging the mass graves.
Moll admits shooting "some" in the neck; admits
putting between 30 --40,000 people in those mass
graves. "I don't know who those people were or how
they got there." Moll says he was only responsible
for the graves and burning the bodies.
Höß disagrees on the figures: says
106,000 or 107,000 "were burned in the mass graves
of the so-called dug-outs" [sic. The
Bunkers?] But Moll could not complete the
excavation Aufgabe, because he caught
typhus(!). Later the 40 --50,000 bodies went
through Moll's crematoria, from 1941 to the end.
The two other large Kremas were run by SS Corporals
Mußfeld and Voß. Moll says women and
men were 50:50 among the bodies; about 1% were
children. Two or three corpses were in each
furnace. He denies that the Krema work detail
[Sonderkommando] was ever
exterminated (as Höß had testified.) | Interrogation of April 30, 1946:
Höß reads Moll's statement of April
29, 1946, and makes the following reservations: He
had ordered Moll to exhume the mass grave of
105,000 --106,000 bodies in the winter of 1941/42
and to burn them, on orders from the RFSS Himmler
and Eichmann. SS-Reichsarzt Dr Grawitz also
witnessed the burning, once. They had difficulty in
finding one of the mass graves. The "bunker" was
"behind [Kremas] 3 and 4, somewhat removed
from 3 and 4." |
|
Comments by David
Irving:- 1. Then why the very detailed daily
Tätigkeitsberichte
from Höß to Berlin, that were decoded by
Bletchley?! [RETURN] 2. For security precautions required in
handling hydrogen-cyanide fumigants, see 1946
British
regulations.[RETURN] 3. He does not address the logistic
problems of disposing of three million corpses,
approximately a quarter of a million tons of
cadavers.[RETURN] 4. Again (see note 3) 400,000
corpses would amount to about 35,000 tons: requiring a pit
of over 30,000 cubic metres, or alternatively 400,000 x 40
kg of coking coal (sixteen thousand metric tons); neither
such pits nor such coke-heaps are visible on aerial
photograph taken that
summer.[RETURN] 5. Again --
logistics problems?[RETURN]
Your answers are
invited and will be posted
here. Responses: [1]
|
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