Rudolf Hoess - Unparalleled Evil Quiz

Answer: Auschwitz

Rudolf Hoess grew up in a Catholic family. He had a very strict, authoritarian father who gave him the foundations of compliance at all costs. Between 1940 and 1943 he ran the death camp, Auschwitz. He idolised his family, a wife and five children. This was despite the fact that he was the orchestrator of mass murder in the camp's crematoria, whose chimneys could be seen from where he and his family lived.

Answer: Baden-Baden

His father had wanted him to become a priest, however, he decided to volunteer joining the German army. He rose through the ranks as he battled in countries such as Palestine and Turkey during World War I. Baden-Baden is situated in southwest Germany.

Answer: Walter Kadow

Walter Kadow was an elementary school teacher who purportedly betrayed Leo Schlageter to the French during the occupation of the Ruhr. Rudolf Hoess and a colleague-to-be, Martin Bormann, brutally murdered Kadow and they both received very lenient prison sentences. Schlageter's death resulted in his becoming - briefly anyway - a German nationalist hero.

Answer: Artaman Society

Hoess was released from prison in 1928 as part of a national amnesty. He then joined the Artaman society where he met a future collaborator of mass murder, Heinrich Himmler.

The German for the Artaman society is 'Artamanen-Gesellschaft'.

Answer: Death's Head Units

The Death's Head Units were a division within the Schutzstaffel (SS) who were in control of the concentration and death camps situated across Europe. It was members of the SS-Totenkopfverbände who carried out the orders from high Nazi command. Members of this unit gassed, tortured and burnt millions of Jews, homosexuals and gypsies during the holocaust.

Answer: Zyklon B

During his testimonies at trials in Nuremberg and in Poland, he almost 'bragged' about how efficient the extermination process in the death camp, Auschwitz, was. He documented the improvements he had made on the methods used in other camps such as Treblinka.

He stunned people at the trial in Nuremberg with how calmly he stated,"Another improvement we made over Treblinka was that we built our gas chambers to accommodate 2,000 people at one time, whereas at Treblinka their 10 gas chambers only accommodated 200 people each."

Hoess believed that Carbon monoxide wasn't killing the 'undesirables' quick enough and as a result implemented the use of the rapid killer, Zyklon B gas.

Answer: Franz Lang

When the Red Army were approaching, Hoess fled from his job and renamed himself Franz Lang. Early 1946, Rudolf Hoess was captured by allied forces and after appearing as a witness at Nuremberg he was sent to Poland to stand trial for his crimes.

Answer: Hungary

"We executed about 400,000 Hungarian Jews alone at Auschwitz in the summer of 1944." - It seems amazing how a man who was such a caring husband and loving father could speak so coldly about the millions of people that he sent to death. He was a colleague of Adolf Eichmann who was one of the many Nazi war criminals who escaped to South America via the country of Italy. In the beginning, Hoess was nervous about sending many people to their deaths, especially children.

However, Eichmann told Hoess that it was the children that were in most need of extermination, as, they could spawn a whole new generation of the "undesirable" Jewish race.

Answer: Writing his memoirs

The memoirs of Hoess are controversial for many reasons. One of the main factors as to whether or not the literature is accurate and reliable is the circumstances in which it was written. Many holocaust deniers believe that he was beaten and tortured into writing and signing the memoirs.

Constantine Fitzgibbon, a well known translator and biographer, has made this book accessible to the English speaking world.

Answer: In a concentration camp

When he stood trial in Poland, Hoess was sentenced to death by hanging at the place in which he caused mass fear and the place in which millions died. The infamous tyranny of Auschwitz was the backdrop of the execution of a technocratic mass murderer - unparalleled in evil.

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