The trial of Rudolf Höss and other SS garrison

The transcription of the podcast

In the Auschwitz camp garrison, around 8,200 SS men and approximately 200 female overseers served. How were the perpetrators from Auschwitz — including the camp’s first commandant, Rudolf Höss, and other staff — held accountable? Dr. Wojciech Płosa, head of the Memorial’s Archives, explains.

To start, could you outline how the pursuit of war criminals was handled in Poland and in other countries after the end of the war?

Poland, like other countries that fought against the Third Reich and were among the victorious Allied powers, considered bringing war criminals to justice one of its primary postwar responsibilities. Of course, we must remember that in postwar Poland, particularly in the immediate aftermath, it was out of the question to pursue all war criminals — there was simply no possibility of prosecuting Soviet war criminals. The matter of the Katyn massacre and other crimes committed by the Soviet Union was entirely off-limits. The focus was strictly on crimes committed by the Third Reich. In this context, Poland carried out the responsibilities that had already been outlined by the Allies at the end of October 1943. At that time, the so-called Moscow Declaration was issued, in which the leaders of the United Kingdom, the United States, and the Soviet Union identified the prosecution of war criminals from Nazi Germany as one of the absolute priorities following the conclusion of World War II. One outcome of this was the establishment of the International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg during the summer of 1945. This tribunal tried the highest-ranking Nazi leaders whom the Allies had managed to capture and arrest. Of course, some could not be tried because they had committed suicide to avoid falling into the hands of the victorious powers. As for Poland, the Supreme National Tribunal was established by decree of the State National Council on January 22, 1946. That decree was later amended on October 17, 1946, but it was under this legal framework that the Tribunal was empowered to issue verdicts in cases concerning war crimes committed in Poland during the German occupation. It’s worth emphasizing that, under this decree, trials were meant to be conducted with impartial adherence to the law and with due process guarantees for the accused. In other words, these trials were to proceed in such a way that the accused would be allowed to testify, would have legal representation, could speak in their own language — typically German — and would have access to interpreters. The same applied to witnesses: if they were called to testify, they too would be entitled to interpretation and were to be treated with the appropriate respect by both sides of the proceedings. The Supreme National Tribunal consisted of three judges and four lay assessors. These four lay assessors were significant because, in the emerging communist legal system, they were meant to represent the "social element" — trusted individuals appointed to represent the public and observe how justice was carried out. The Tribunal also included a prosecutor’s office, which conducted investigations and was responsible for presenting evidence, securing witness testimony, and providing written records of interrogations for witnesses who could not appear in person. And one final important note: verdicts issued by the Supreme National Tribunal could not be appealed to any other court. The only person who could change a sentence was the President of the State National Council, that is, Bolesław Bierut, who could grant clemency if a request was made for it.

In the context of Auschwitz, could you tell us about the trial of the camp commandant, Rudolf Höss? But before we discuss the trial, let’s begin with when Höss left Auschwitz and what happened to him afterward.

Höss parted ways with his position as Auschwitz commandant under rather unpleasant circumstances for him. In early November 1943, he was replaced by Arthur Liebehenschel. This change was related to an investigation being conducted at Auschwitz by SS prosecutor Konrad Morgen. The investigation concerned the embezzlement of valuables—especially jewelry and other items left behind by victims of the mass extermination—by members of the SS garrison. Höss held a strong enough position within the SS structure that a formal conviction was unlikely, but a transfer to another post was entirely feasible. Thus, beginning on December 1, 1943, he became head of Department I of Department D within the Inspectorate of Concentration Camps in Oranienburg and had to leave Auschwitz. However, his family remained at the so-called Höss Villa located in the proximity of the Auschwitz I camp. In this new role, Höss was responsible for supplies, transports, armaments for camp personnel, and the approval of punishments for prisoners—since such disciplinary requests were submitted by camp commandants to the central authority in Oranienburg. As we know, from May 1944, Höss returned to Auschwitz, where he supervised the mass extermination of Jews deported from Hungary. He remained there until the end of July 1944, after which he was again transferred back to Oranienburg. He stayed there until April 1945, continuing in his previous functions. His family likely left Auschwitz by the end of 1944 and relocated to Berlin. Around mid-April 1945, on Himmler’s orders, Höss supervised the destruction of documents at the Inspectorate of Concentration Camps in Oranienburg. Afterward, he joined a group of high-ranking SS officers heading from Ravensbrück toward northern Germany, near the Danish border, likely with escape in mind. His family joined him in Ravensbrück, and later, Höss, his wife, and children left the SS group once they reached northern Germany, near Flensburg. They then moved to, where they hid with the brother of Hedwig Höss, Rudolf’s wife. Eventually, Höss relocated to Flensburg, where he obtained false identity documents under the name Franz Lang. This identity had belonged to a young sailor who had died some time earlier. Under this alias, Höss went into hiding in the village of Gottrupel, where he worked as a farm laborer. It was a small, remote area, and he considered it relatively safe. However, British intelligence quickly picked up the trail of Hedwig Höss and began surveillance of her home, suspecting that she remained in contact with her husband. On March 7, 1946, British agents summoned her for questioning. She was detained after stubbornly denying any contact with Rudolf Höss. The British, aiming to resolve the matter quickly, threatened that her children would be sent with her to the Soviet occupation zone—something that clearly implied falling into Soviet hands. On March 11, 1946, Hedwig Höss finally disclosed her husband’s alias and location. That very night, British military intelligence agents arrested Rudolf Höss and transported him to Nuremberg. There, on April 15, 1946, Höss testified as a witness. He was not one of the accused in the main Nuremberg Trials before the International Military Tribunal, but he testified about the functioning of the SS, the extermination process in the concentration camps, and the treatment of prisoners. After giving his testimony, Höss remained in Nuremberg for some time. On May 25, 1946, he was placed aboard an aircraft and flown to Warsaw, where preparations for his trial began. He was to be tried in front of the Supreme National Tribunal.

And how did those preparations and the trial itself proceed?

As we mentioned earlier, the Supreme National Tribunal operated as a regular court. The first step was to file an extradition request. Cooperation between the Polish authorities and the authorities of the various Allied occupation zones in Germany was very effective. It is estimated that around 1,000 individuals, mostly from the American and British zones, were extradited to Poland at the request of the Tribunal.

Some surviving documents from the liberated Auschwitz camp were secured, and a site inspection was conducted in close coordination with the Main Commission for the Investigation of Nazi Crimes Against the Polish Nation. We must remember this was 1946: there was no internet, and media coverage was limited. Yet information about the upcoming trial of Rudolf Höss—and soon afterward, the trial of 40 other SS personnel—was announced in newspapers and on the radio. Survivors and witnesses were called upon to testify, and this effort proved successful. In total, 206 witnesses—many of them Auschwitz survivors—either testified in person at Höss’s trial or provided written statements recorded elsewhere. These were used as part of the trial record. After his transfer to Warsaw, Höss was held in a local jail. On July 30, 1946, he was moved to the prison on Montelupich Street in Kraków. Since the preparations for the trial took some time, he had little to do while in prison other than reflect on his fate. In early November 1946, Judge Jan Sehn, who had conducted the Auschwitz investigation on behalf of the Main Commission, visited him. Judge Sehn easily persuaded Höss to use the time to write down his recollections on matters likely to arise during his trial. At first, Höss was hesitant, but he quickly found that writing gave structure to his prison routine. These writings gradually evolved into what is now known as the autobiography of Rudolf Höss. Although not all of it was used during the trial, parts of it did serve as evidence. By March 1947, it was officially decided that Höss would be tried in Warsaw. He was transferred from Kraków to the capital, where his trial was held from March 11 to March 29, 1947. On April 2, 1947, the court pronounced its verdict: Rudolf Höss was sentenced to death.

Let’s return to the history of the trial itself, for which documentation is preserved in the archives of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum. What can we say about the testimonies of the witnesses and those of Höss himself?

This has already been emphasized in scholarly literature, but let us recall that the transcripts of the hearings—though they naturally cannot convey the atmosphere in the courtroom—clearly show that witnesses, that is, Auschwitz survivors, men and women, were treated with genuine respect during the trial. Let me mention the example of Feliks Myłyk, a prisoner from the first transport to Auschwitz, who testified extensively, recounting his experiences. At one point, while describing how he was arrested and then brought to Auschwitz in the very first transport on June 14, 1940—up to the point of registration—he paused and respectfully asked the court whether his account might be too long-winded. Presiding Judge Alfred Eimer reassured him, telling him to speak calmly and to include any details he felt were important. I mention this because Polish survivors who testified later, for example, during the first Frankfurt Auschwitz trial in 1963–64, were treated quite differently. They were often attacked, particularly by the defense attorneys representing the former SS men and functionary prisoners. Even outside the courtroom, they did not feel safe—subject to verbal abuse or provocative behavior by journalists. By contrast, nothing of the sort occurred during Höss’s trial before the Supreme National Tribunal. In fact, it is evident from the transcripts that when a witness became overwhelmed with emotion and had to stop, the judge would call for a break. Sometimes the testimony was even postponed to the next day to allow the witness time to recover. The approach of the judges and prosecutors was noticeably empathetic. Furthermore, because the court relied on expert witnesses and had extensive evidentiary material, the questions were consistently precise. Höss, too, was questioned in a direct and factual manner. His testimony—as far as we can tell from the transcript—did not convey strong emotion. Commentators have repeatedly noted that the former commandant of Auschwitz testified in a calm, matter-of-fact tone. It must be stressed, however, that both in his autobiography and during the trial, Höss sought to portray himself primarily as someone who was simply carrying out orders. He did not shy away from accepting responsibility when it was undeniable—he acknowledged his role as commandant, that he gave orders, etc.—but he downplayed his knowledge of the extermination process. He often said other SS men were in charge of it, and when asked about the number of victims, he said Eichmann would have better information—knowing full well Eichmann was in hiding and unreachable. He also emphasized that punishments for prisoners in Auschwitz had to be approved by the Inspectorate of Concentration Camps in Oranienburg—conveniently omitting the fact that the entire camp system was designed to inflict the harshest punishments possible. Approvals were issued en masse, with no consideration for individual cases. The 38 volumes of trial materials and testimony we have from the Supreme National Tribunal’s case against Rudolf Höss provide extraordinarily detailed knowledge about all aspects of Auschwitz's operation. Höss described, in meticulous detail, not only the camp’s administrative structure but also testified about mass extermination, punishments, medical experiments, food rations, and how prisoners were systematically destroyed through forced labor. All of this was corroborated by the precise, thorough, and credible testimonies of survivors. So it’s fair to say that the Supreme National Tribunal was well prepared for this trial.

The trial ended with a death sentence. Rudolf Höss was executed in Auschwitz.

This decision was made by Judge Dr. Alfred Eimer, who presided over the Tribunal. Eimer was a judge of the Supreme Court, well known and respected in the legal community. The motion for the execution in Auschwitz came from prosecutors Dr. Tadeusz Cyprian and Mieczysław Siewierski. It was intended to serve as a symbolic closure to one of the most tragic chapters of World War II. After the verdict, Höss was transferred to the prison in Wadowice, because Auschwitz fell under the territorial jurisdiction of the District Court and Prosecutor’s Office there. On April 3, 1947, he arrived at the Wadowice prison, where he awaited his fate. His defense attorneys, Tadeusz Ostaszewski and Franciszek Umbreit, advised him to submit a request for clemency to Bolesław Bierut —but it’s unlikely Höss expected to be pardoned. He began preparing for his final days. On April 10, 1947, he requested a confession. A Jesuit priest, Father Władysław Lohn —who spoke fluent German—was brought to Wadowice prison. Father Lohn held a long conversation with Höss, which ended with the former SS officer returning to the Catholic Church, to which he had been baptized as a child. His father had been a devout Catholic, but Höss had lost his faith early in life. It is clear that at the end, he wished to be reconciled with the Church. On April 11, 1947, he received Holy Communion from Father Lohn. Then, on April 15, he was taken to the grounds of the former Auschwitz camp, where the gallows had been prepared. There is a noteworthy anecdote here: word of the planned execution had spread, and a sizable crowd had gathered near the former camp. Polish soldiers tasked with security grew concerned about the possibility of a lynching or major unrest. To avoid any such incident, they decided to delay the execution. Soldiers calmed the crowd by claiming that the rumor had been false and that Höss was not present. That night, from April 15 to 16, 1947, Höss was not returned to his former villa, but instead spent the night in the basement of Block 11. On the following day, April 16, 1947, Rudolf Höss was hanged at Auschwitz. The execution was officially recorded in a protocol signed by the medical examiner and the supervising prosecutor. His body was likely cremated either in Kraków or Wadowice. The location of his ashes remains unknown.

In addition to the trial documents, the archives of the Auschwitz Museum also contain the handwritten autobiography of Höss, which you mentioned earlier, and a farewell letter.

Yes, and there’s an interesting detail about that autobiography: for example, the orders issued by Höss during his time as camp commandant usually do not bear his signature. These documents were typically signed by lower-ranking SS men or assistants acting on his behalf—likely typed up by them as well. However, in the autobiography, we do find Höss’s own handwritten signature. He also attempted to correspond with his family, but it appears the prosecutor’s office did not permit this, as he never received any replies. One final unsent farewell letter survives, in which he addresses his wife and children. Summarizing his life in a fairly general manner, he writes that he accepts responsibility for his actions, but hopes that his wife and children will go on to live happy lives. He includes a few words of life advice for his children, encouraging them to grow into good and decent people—which, in light of how his own life turned out, is tragically ironic in its tone. Still, we can understand that, facing death, Höss may have been reflecting on more universal values. In any case, the letter was never sent and remains among the documents related to the execution of Höss.

Other war criminals from Auschwitz also stood trial before the Supreme National Tribunal. Aside from Höss’s trial, there was a second important one—the so-called Auschwitz Garrison Trial—where 40 former SS personnel were brought to justice, including the second camp commandant, Arthur Liebehenschel.

Yes, in total there were seven trials conducted by the Supreme National Tribunal, but this second one is of particular interest. It took place from November 24 to December 16, 1947, and involved 40 former SS personnel, including several female overseers. For this trial, a hall in the National Museum in Kraków was transformed into a courtroom. Loudspeakers were installed outside so the public could listen in. It was significant because the group of defendants was highly representative of the Auschwitz camp staff. Among them were Erich Muhsfeldt, who was responsible for the crematoria; Arthur Liebehenschel, who succeeded Höss as commandant; Hans Aumeier, a camp manager; Maximilian Grabner, head of the camp Gestapo; and Maria Mandel, one of the most notorious female SS overseers. Camp doctors were also among the accused. These individuals represented virtually every component of the Auschwitz killing and exploitation system—mass extermination, prisoner abuse, and forced labor to the point of death. Most of the accused gave similar testimony, claiming either not to remember events or asserting that they were just following orders. They portrayed themselves as subordinates in a rigid SS hierarchy. Once again, the Supreme National Tribunal called upon a large number of witnesses—375 survivors in total. They provided detailed testimony and identified the accused in court, confirming their identities. Surviving documents from Auschwitz, witness statements, and evidence gathered by the Main Commission for the Investigation of Nazi Crimes in Poland helped establish the defendants' guilt. All testimonies clearly helped to easily contradict the narratives presented by the defendants, allowing for a complete picture of how Auschwitz functioned.

The transcripts of this trial are also preserved in the archives of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum. What can we say about the verdicts issued by the Tribunal in that trial?

As mentioned, 40 individuals were tried. The judges were Dr. Alfred Eimer, Witold Kutzner, and Dr. Józef Zembaty. The prosecutors were Stefan Kurowski, Dr. Tadeusz Cyprian, Dr. Mieczysław Szewczyk, and Edward Pęchalski. On December 22, 1947, the court handed down 23 death sentences. However, in two cases—Arthur Breitwieser and SS doctor Johann Paul Kremer—the sentence was commuted to life imprisonment.

Additionally, 6 people were sentenced to life in prison, 10 received prison terms ranging from 3 to 15 years, and one person, SS physician Hans Münch from the SS Hygiene Institute in Rajsko, was acquitted. Testimonies consistently indicated that Münch had made efforts to save prisoners when he could, and so he was the only one of the 40 to be found not guilty.

Can you briefly mention other trials involving Auschwitz personnel?

Chronologically, the first trial was the one that took place before the British Military Tribunal in Lüneburg. It lasted from September 17 to November 17, 1945, and that is important. It concerned crimes committed at the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. The camp, located near Hanover, was liberated by the British Army, and SS men apprehended there, as well as certain prisoners who had served as functionary inmates — for example, in Auschwitz — were later brought to trial. In that trial, 45 people were prosecuted, including 14 individuals who had previously served at Auschwitz, either as SS men or female overseers. Among them was Stenia Starostka an infamous prisoner and kapo from the women’s camp. The majority of verdicts in that case were death sentences, which were in fact carried out by hanging, or long-term prison sentences — that is, 10 to 15 years. Two individuals were acquitted at that time. In Poland, apart from the trials conducted before the Supreme National Tribunal, a total of 673 members of the Auschwitz staff were tried, according to historical sources. These smaller-scale trials were conducted before district or regional courts in Kraków, Katowice, Gliwice, Racibórz, and Sosnowiec, and generally continued until 1948–1949. The establishment of the German Democratic Republic caused a shift in how these German war criminals were pursued. Now, part of Germany — in this new post-war reality, the eastern portion — had become an ally of the Polish People’s Republic and the Soviet Union. In East Germany, the issue of prosecuting war criminals, including former functionary prisoners from concentration camps, was very quickly closed. A convenient propaganda formula was used: that there were no Nazi war criminals in East Germany. In West Germany, initially, there were only isolated trials. Eventually, however, in the 1950s, a decision was made to assign the Federal Prosecutor’s Office in Frankfurt am Main to handle these cases so they would not be scattered among various prosecutors’ offices throughout the Federal Republic of Germany. Prosecutor Fritz Bauer played a key role in organizing these trials. He worked closely with Hermann Langbein, who was himself an Auschwitz survivor and an Austrian, and who was active in the International Auschwitz Committee after the war. Langbein significantly contributed to raising public awareness in the Federal Republic of Germany regarding the importance of prosecuting war criminals. Thus, four trials concerning crimes committed at Auschwitz took place in Frankfurt am Main between 1963 and 1976. The most famous of these was the first trial, which took place from December 20, 1963, to August 10, 1965. During this trial, Auschwitz survivors were asked to come from Poland to testify as witnesses. This is quite a fascinating matter, because the Federal German Prosecutor’s Office established cooperation with the Polish Prosecutor’s Office, and in 1963, a site inspection took place at the grounds of the former Auschwitz camp — today’s Museum. Prosecutors from the Federal Republic of Germany, defense attorneys, and even the accused themselves were allowed to travel and familiarize themselves with the former camp grounds. Naturally, this raised significant alarm within the Polish Security Services, and these visitors from Germany were subjected to massive surveillance. However, the overall course of this site visit and the subsequent trial proved that the cooperation was not bad at all. As for the verdicts that were handed down: 6 people were sentenced to life imprisonment, 3 were acquitted, and 10 others — for a total of 19 people tried — received prison sentences. In Poland, for example, the media criticized these sentences as being disproportionate, in other words, too lenient. But one must also understand that this was a completely different political and social reality in West Germany. Nonetheless, what was important was that the subject was at least raised — there was no longer a pretense in West Germany that something like Auschwitz simply never happened. In conclusion, one might refer to the findings of Professor Aleksander Lasik, who estimated that, in total, across various countries — not just Poland, but also East and West Germany, Austria, and others — 789 members of the Auschwitz staff, or about 15%, were prosecuted. That is not a large proportion, but in light of all we have discussed, I believe the story of the prosecution of Auschwitz war criminals has, in a sense, reached its conclusion. Even many years later — indeed, quite recently, 10 to 12 years ago — there were still trials in Germany in which former SS members from the Auschwitz staff appeared before the court. This was due to a change in the legal interpretation — it was no longer necessary to formulate detailed charges against them. It became sufficient to accuse them of being SS members. That alone was enough to justify prosecution. However, when such cases involve people who are 90 years old or older, in very advanced age, with serious health conditions, the likely outcomes are predictable. In those cases, the trials often became purely symbolic, as some proceedings could not even begin due to the accused’s health status, or only symbolic sentences were handed down. So, one might say that, in this way, the pursuit of Auschwitz war criminals came to an end.