“My conscience
compels me to make the following declaration. In the solitude of my prison cell
I have come to the bitter recognition that I have sinned gravely against
humanity. As Commandant of Auschwitz I was responsible for carrying out part of
the cruel plans of the "Third Reich" for human destruction. In so
doing I have inflicted terrible wounds on humanity. I caused unspeakable
suffering for the Polish people in particular. I am to pay for this with my
life. May the Lord God forgive one day what I have done. I ask the Polish
people for forgiveness. In Polish prisons I experienced for the first time what
human kindness is. Despite all that has happened I have experienced humane
treatment which I could never have expected, and which has deeply shamed me.
May the facts which are now coming out about the horrible crimes against
humanity make the repetition of such cruel acts impossible for all time.”
Obersturmbannführer Rudolf Franz Ferdinand Höss (also Höß, Hoeß or Hoess) (25 November 1901 – 16 April 1947) was
a Nazi lieutenant colonel in the Schutzstaffel (SS) and the longest serving
commandant of Auschwitz concentration camp in World War II. He tested and
carried into effect various methods to accelerate Hitler's plan to exterminate
the Jewish population of Nazi-occupied Europe through genocide known as the
Final Solution. Höss introduced pesticide Zyklon B containing hydrogen cyanide
to the killing process, thereby allowing soldiers at Auschwitz to murder 2,000
people every hour. He created the largest installation for the continuous
annihilation of human beings ever known.
Höss joined the Nazi Party in 1922 and
the SS in 1934. From 4 May 1940 to November 1943, and again from 8 May 1944 to
18 January 1945 he was in charge of Auschwitz where more than a million people
were killed before the defeat of Germany. He was hanged in 1947 following a trial in Warsaw.
B.S.
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