Rudolf Hoss, Commander of the Auschwitz concentration camp, was hanged in 1947 (Image: Getty Images)
Hitler’s determined, devilish, demented attempt to wipe out Europe’s Jews meant more than six million of them had been murdered before Allied victory finally stopped the slaughter. This was of course remembered this week on Holocaust Memorial Day, marking the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz death camp in Poland.
The commandant at Auschwitz was a man called Rudolf Hoss. He lived with his wife and children in a pleasant house with a pool and garden, just behind the high wall separating them from the horrors on the other side. The juxtaposition of domestic tranquility and industrial-scale genocide was hauntingly portrayed in the recent film, The Zone Of Interest.
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The movie made it clear that, although Hoss’s family could not quite see the horrors taking place yards from where they played and picnicked on their lawn – the brick wall was very high, they could certainly hear them. Firing squads. The constant hum of gas chambers and crematoria. And much more.
But what I want to talk about here today is what happened to Hoss himself. He came, of course, to a sticky end. As the advancing Russians closed in on his disgusting fragment of the Nazi’s collapsing empire, Hoss sent his family back to Germany and fled alone, on false papers.
Hoss managed to evade British intelligence for a few months but was eventually tracked down to a farmhouse. Let’s just say that his arrest there by soldiers was not exactly according to the Geneva Convention. The barrel of a revolver was thrust into his mouth and he was ordered to give his real name.
He lied, repeatedly offering the false one, and was severely beaten with axe handles until he caved in and confessed his true identity.
Hoss went on trial in Poland on March 11, 1947, and was condemned to death by hanging on April 2. Sentence was carried out two weeks later, fittingly next to the crematorium at Auschwitz. He was strung up on a short-drop gallows built on the site of the camp’s Gestapo headquarters. For those with strong stomachs, Wikipedia carries black-and-white photographs of the execution.
Now. Forward to the present day. A poll published this week showed that a majority in the UK think the death penalty should be restored for heinous crimes.
Three in five millennials – those born between the early 1980s and mid-1990s, and who make up the biggest section of the British population – say capital punishment should be reintroduced here.
So. Let’s assume that you, reading this, are personally against the return of the rope (as, on balance, I thought I was). Ask yourself this. Do you think it was wrong for an evil man like Hoss to be put to death? Because if you don’t (and I don’t: he deserved to hang) then there’s a contradiction, isn’t there?
You can’t be against the death penalty on principle, but be prepared to surrender that principle in certain cases. You just can’t. It won’t stand.
I’m still working through the conundrum. If it was right and just for monsters like Hoss (and all the other Nazis convicted at Nuremberg) to hang… why not the monsters of today? I’d be interested to know your thoughts.