Hanns and Rudolf by Thomas Harding 2013 288pgs

  18/10/19

 The narrator as a child says, you never asked survivor their story but when Hanns died, his nephew spoke at the funeral, and mentioned that Hanns had been a Nazi hunter. This is one of the best Holocaust history books I have read. Rudolf Hoss was 15 when WW1 started and enrolled was sent to fight the British in Mesopotamia, then Palestine. He returned home and joined the Freikorps a militia that went to Latvia and fought the Reds then Latvians till they were beaten and the Freikorps were banned in Germany. At a Berlin night club they set up a base and kept the militia together. So when Hitler set up a private militia it already existed and was looking for a leader. He was sent to Sachsenhausen camp when the war began 5000 communists 900 Jewish merchants and professionals and 1200 Prague student who protested against the Nazi's arrived there.

 He was now sent to Poland to a German speaking area to set up Auschwitz and right from the beginning it slowly expanded under his charge. His wife and 5 children lived in a luxury villa just outside the prison. SS Judge Konrad Morgen was sent to the camps because lots of assets taken from the Jews especially gold was being stolen by the guards and not coming into the coffers to pay for the war effort, he was shocked to discover what the extermination camps were about.  By 1945 Jan. The Red Army was moving into Poland with 2 million troops 100 000 vehicles and 6000 tanks. The inmates of Auschwitz were then marched westwards and died of cold and starvation. The Russians then found Auschwitz. Rudolf Hoss and family started moving northwards to try get to Denmark. They moved to near Rostock. When Hann's came investigating he threatened Hedwig that he would send her son off to the Russians and Siberia and she told him that he was hiding on a farm with the name Franz Lang. Her children always believed her brother gave him away. After the war people did not associate with families of war criminals and one grand daughter in law only discovered later who her husband grandfather was. Notorious Nazi Dr Hans Lolling committed suicide when he was caught. Heirich Himmler shaved his head and wore an eye patch, at a checkpoint along the road a British officers was suspicious and arrested him and he immediately bit a cyanide capsule. 

There was the ODESSA network getting Nazi's out and into South America. Rudolf was to be tried in Poland but was subpoenaed to give evidence at Nuremburg. The judge gave him paper and pencils and asked him while in jail to write his auto biography in which he admitted that he had supervised the gassing of 2 and a half million and another half a million died of starvation and illness. Nuremburg also set a precedent that "just taking orders is no value as an excuse" 1946 July Rudolf was tried in Krakow with 7 other SS officers and was hung at Auschwitz away from the press just witnesses. Hanns Alexander had a twin brother Paul there father was a leading doctor with high class clients in Berlin. Though secular Jews they had inherited the family Alexander Torah. Hanns met every important artist who came to their house while he was a kid Marlene Dietrich, Max Reinhart , Max Pallenburg, Richard Strauss, Albert Einstein, James Franck. 

While Dr Alexander was on a trip to London his wife got a message that the Gestapo was coming to get him, his wife sent him a message not to return. Hanns got a visa to England 1936 but could not get a transit via France so he had to go to his relatives in Switzerland with only the 10 marks allowed in his pocket and fly from there to Croydon. Slowly the whole family got to England. Henny the mother had to sell the property and practice for very little, pay the Reich escape tax and follow her husband. Their possessions were packed up by the housekeeper and sent to them including the Alexander Torah. 1938 Nov Kristallnacht. Paul Graetz was arrested and taken to Sachsenhausen prison and released 18 days later with a exit document issued by Rudolf. Between 1934 and 1939, 70 000 Jews fled Nazi controlled countries and entered the UK including almost 10 000 Kinder transport children. From1 Sept 1939 till the US entered the war letters came out of Germany to them via family in the States. German synagogue were set up in Belsize Park and St. Johns Wood. The Alexander Torah ended up at Belsize Square synagogue which is the used by the Alexander family till today.

 1939 Sept when war broke out Hanns enlisted and was in the Pioneer Corps (motto Labor omnia vincit). Later German aliens could avoid being interned by joining this. They worked as "jobniks" and the Corp was under Lord Reading command. Hann"s was amongst the last to get back from Dunkirk. He later did an officers course and on Victory Day landed in Europe to be a translator in the post War. In this he was working in the Nazi war crimes dept. in Operation Haystack. The Belson trial of Joseph Kramer and 44 others took place in Sept 1945 in Luneburg, Germany. These were guards both male and female as well as Kapos. 11 of this group were sentenced to death and hanged a short while later. This was a preparation for the Nuremburg Trail. He later caught Gustav Simon the Gauleiter of Luxembourg. He went to his home and asked a neighbour who told him what she knew, at this stage there were many Germans who held a grudge against the Nazi's. The Nuremberg trials took place in the American zone next to the building where Hitler's rallies had been In April 46 he was demobilized and a few days later he got his naturalization papers.