Reddit reviews Death Dealer: The Memoirs of the SS Kommandant at Auschwitz

"Death Dealer: The Memoirs of the SS Kommandant at Auschwitz" by, Rudolf Höss
https://www.amazon.com/Death-Dealer-Memoirs-Kommandant-Auschwitz/dp/0306806983

Read Rudolph Hoess' memoirs when you have a minute. Concentration camps were meant, or so he says in the beginning, as a tool to rehabilitate the enemies of the state, really, it was all for their own good, to bring them back as productive members of society.

Then, there was a kind of feature creep that took place. (...and the guy keeps whining about incompetent subordinates, logistics issues, and inconsistent directive from upper management; yep, more training would have helped, that's for sure.)

I'd like to add that apart from having factual history lessons (down to details of some operations), we visited many sites and watched all documentaries (it was important for our teachers that we connect faces and personalities with the names, to understand that they were humans, to see how lovely Hitler treated his dog, what a family man Goebbels was etc. To see how propaganda and charm were used..). It involved many projects, visits (to bunkers, concentration camps, memorials etc.), discussions with contemporary witnesses.


Then, we analyzed the famous speeches for rhetorics, and in German classes, we read war literature (either from that time or about the time). It basically accompanied us throughout secondary school, not just in history classes but also German, arts, social sciences, everywhere! We had started reading war literature at the age of 10-12, though there it was mostly youth literature (still very descriptive and shocking, but with protagonists in our age, so it was easier to identify yourself with). Later, literature got more factual or encrypted.


I remember having to read the autobiography of the Kommandant in Auschwitz (Rudolf Höss) at the age of 16 and how truly shocking this was.

The basis for a lack of re litigation at the time of the trial could also be put on the fact that many allied commanders had been to and liberated camps- to claim those camps where "staged" was unlikely to sway them since they had personally viewed them and seen many victims

Additionally there was the thousands of hours of film, the medical and scientific research records found at many camps, the money trail connected to people and organizations supplying the camps- there was simply a great deal of evidence that the camps existed and where not a hoax

https://www.amazon.com/Death-Dealer-Memoirs-Kommandant-Auschwitz/dp/0306806983

I assume you are claiming these memoirs by hoess when you bring up his confession and it's lack of veracity

Much of these memoirs are made from before and during the war and was corroborated by other Nazis, physical evidence, photographs and films

Again, I feel that memoirsike these, and belonging to others in the high command show that it is likely a holocaust occurred similar to the narrative put forth, there was a simply not as compelling evidence on the denial side

This goes to the heart of the issue, it requires so many Nazis lieing, in addition to a Jewish and European conspiracy for a "holohoax" to work as opposed to the available evidence of the camps

Example: David Irving claimed that he viewed arial photos of ausheitz that do not show any crematorium, however in court he could not produce these photos and changed his story to that he was informed of those photos- this was a major issue in his narrative was having physical evidence in contravene of the narrative, but he did not actually posses them

I don't purport to be a perfect historian, I just and very well read on the topic, I encourage you to read more of the available history

Edit: eichman did not really put forward any defense to his actions in the war, he maintained that he simply did not commit a crime based on the fact that genocide was not a crime

>The basis for a lack of re litigation at the time of the trial could also be put on the fact that many allied commanders had been to and liberated camps- to claim those camps where "staged" was unlikely to sway them since they had personally viewed them and seen many victims
>
>Additionally there was the thousands of hours of film, the medical and scientific research records found at many camps, the money trail connected to people and organizations supplying the camps- there was simply a great deal of evidence that the camps existed and where not a hoax

I don't know anyone. ANYONE who claims that the camps were "staged" or "a hoax." Whose claims are you attempting to refute?

>https://www.amazon.com/Death-Dealer-Memoirs-Kommandant-Auschwitz/dp/0306806983
>
>I assume you are claiming these memoirs by hoess when you bring up his confession and it's lack of veracity

Not specifically, he did sign a confession that was delivered as part of the evidence at the IMT at Nuremberg. It stated that he had personally overseen the gas chamber executions of 2.5 million Jews. He was the first of the commandants of Auschwitz, and therefore this number confessed to was used to validate the original number claimed to have been murdered, around 4 million at Auschwitz alone.

The only problem... he got it wrong. Way wrong. The museum curators at Auschwitz even had a plaque changed when the story of 4 million gassings at Auschwitz was rubbished by historians in favor of something close to 1 million. Yet Hoess's confession is held out to this day by Holocaust promoters as definitive evidence of what the Nazis were involved in.

>Much of these memoirs are made from before and during the war and was corroborated by other Nazis, physical evidence, photographs and films
>
>Again, I feel that memoirsike these, and belonging to others in the high command show that it is likely a holocaust occurred similar to the narrative put forth, there was a simply not as compelling evidence on the denial side

Memoirs are papers compiled after the fact, in this case Hoess's memoirs were compiled while he was in jail.

>This goes to the heart of the issue, it requires so many Nazis lieing, in addition to a Jewish and European conspiracy for a "holohoax" to work as opposed to the available evidence of the camps
>
>Example: David Irving claimed that he viewed arial photos of ausheitz that do not show any crematorium, however in court he could not produce these photos and changed his story to that he was informed of those photos- this was a major issue in his narrative was having physical evidence in contravene of the narrative, but he did not actually posses them

Source? Again, I'm not aware of any skeptic who's taken seriously that denies there having been crematoria at Auschwitz.

>I don't purport to be a perfect historian, I just and very well read on the topic, I encourage you to read more of the available history

Oh, gosh, I don't know how, in my utter ignorance on this matter, that I'd ever keep up with you, O exalted one among amateur historians!

I'm sorry, you seem to be mixing up Hoess and Wisliceny. Anyway, if you enjoy so much material written by Hoess, I can recommend his memoirs:

http://www.amazon.com/Death-Dealer-Memoirs-Kommandant-Auschwitz/dp/0306806983