Rating: 
Summary: Historically significant.
Review: The power of this book is beyond description. I think that Rudolph is obviously less than honest and downplays his significance in the Holocaust. The power in this book is the fact that you are reading the words, including letters, of one of the most notorious Nazi's of the war. You will be affected by this book when you are through reading.
Rating: 
Summary: May help to work toward the answer of some questions.
Review: There have been several reviewers asking the who and why and how questions relating to the question of those that commit Genocide. This book by no means answers all of these questions. There are strong arguments that there are no real answers to the atrocities that were committed, and by what means the thousands that were needed to implement them did bring themselves to do so. This book is interesting as it is a first person account of the man who supervised Auschwitz, a man considered the individual to have supervised well over 2,000,000 murders.The only reason this lacks a 5th star is that there is some question as to whether or not everything Rudolpf Hoss wrote is 100% accurate. As this man was heading toward his death, it is generally felt that what is written represents his true feelings and thoughts about what he did. This memoir/diary was written during his incarceration prior to his eventual execution, over a period of time from October of 1946 to April of 1947. This is not a pleasant book; the pictures that are a part of it were even more horrific for me, as they accompanied the text of the man who created the situations that are depicted. This work is also difficult as you read of a life that starts in no remarkable way, yet leads to this individual becoming one of the key players in the actual implementation of The Holocaust. The horror in the tale is the manner he carried out his tasks. He did not place any distance between himself and the day-to-day activities. He was fully immersed in them, and in many cases was there designer. He was central to the methods developed for the methodically efficient killing, the gas to be used, and disposal of victims. When you get to the end you will understand more about one mind that participated in an unthinkable act. Your questions may not be all answered, but you will have gained a valuable insight into the mind of one of the perpetrators of this 20th century slaughter.
Rating:
Summary: A very, very disturbing man.
Review: This book has proven to be an invaluable addition to my study of the Shoah. I believe that Hoss was unusually truthful in his writing and that makes him even more unnerving. His forthright narration of the events of his life is most useful, but perhaps his ability to rationalize absolutely anything in support of Nazism may be the most important aspect of the book. It was very good also to find the minutes of the Wannsee Conference included, but being written in typical oblique Nazi-speak, more information from the editors about the real meaning of the minutes would have been helpful. The book should be a requirement for anyone attempting to understand the Final Solution.
Rating:
Summary: Horrifying, but startling insight.
Review: This book is by far the single most important book about the Holocaust. Rudolf Hoess wrote these memoirs while he was drying off in prison after his capture by the British. Voluntarily, he wrote in detail about his life, as well as some pretty nasty occurances which occured in Auschwitz. Hoess was the type who denied personal responsibility with all the atrocities which occured in Auschwitz. He himself said that he never personally had anything against the Jews and he never killed one--let alone tourtured one--yet he authorised the murder of some four million inmates. His memoirs, aside from the odd bout of denial of responsibility, are a rare piece of information into both the nature and workings of the Holocaust and they serve as a terrific example of how one stupid man let his family-oriented sense of obeying orders and duty get the best of him. Everybody should read this book, for inside it are the writings of the first Kommandant of Auschwitz: one who watched millions of innocent human beings dissolve in the gas chambers, burn in the crematoriums, and their teeth melted into gold bars. His greatest crime of all was the submission into the workings of this terrifying regime, while forgetting all human nature and feelings, and acting only on behalf of orders and a sense of duty. I repeat, this is a must read for everybody, whether or not they are interested in the Holocaust, for it also serves as a very big lessson to never, ever, no matter what, let a senseless killing of people take place again. If we do not learn from this, and such a thing happens again, then there may be not a single survivor to live and tell the tale.
Rating:
Summary: THE BANALITY OF EVIL AND THE DEMISE OF REVISIONISM
Review: This book provides a first hand account about the youth, carrier and the personal participation in the Holocaust, extermination of gypsies, russian prisoners and other human beings, of a man that was Kommandant at Auschwitz, from 1940 until 1943 and then Chief of the Department of Inspectors of the Concentration Camps.
Rudolph Höss, a man with a psychopathic personality, tells a gruesome, personal and detailed tale about the inception of Auschwitz, the logistical problems of its expansion, the gassings, his quarreling with other camp commanders due to their unproficiency, with the detachment and the normalcy of a bureaucrat, all of which not only makes a case study in the psychiatry of mass murder, but also recalls the concept of the banality of evil, elaborated by Hanna Arendt in her book about Adolph Eichmann's trial ( no surprise here, since these two fellows used to cooperate in their endeavour).
The reasons given for their participation in the crimes committed, reveal the danger of a totalitarian or fanatical education, not only for the feeble minded, but also for "normal people" without a clear perception of the distinction between evil and good, from an ethical standpoint. Reading this book we confirm the distinction made by the scholars between the psyche of a serial killer (an intimate act) and that of the mass murderer (ideologically driven detachment).
Höss tells us about an infancy without real love, and how he couldn't relate with affection to his parents, sister, and then his wife. After he marries, his real dream is to have a farm, but the opportunity is given to him to enter in the S.S. by Himmler himself. In Auschwitz, he claims never to have mistreated personally any prisoner and that he always behaved in a professional manner. However, his detached or impersonal fight against what the S.S. taught him to be the COMMON ENEMY, involved a participation in the first experimentation of Cyclon B in order to find a more expedient and humane manner to kill hundreds of thousand faceless human beings. And we must believe Höss when he tells us that the methods of shooting all the poor devils or gassing them with carbon monoxide, were in fact burdensome, logistically complicated and not that "human".
Regarding his personal attitude towards the gassings, we get a perverse but fascinating explanation of how difficult it was for Hëss to bury all his human inhibitions, so as not to give a bad example to the other "employees" of Auschwitz. In order to better understand, I have selected this paragraph:
"On one occasion two little children were involved in
a game they were playing and their mother just
couldn't tear them away from it. Even the jews from the Sonderkommando didn't want to pick up the children. I
will never forget the pleading look in the face of the
mother, who certainly knew what was happening. The
people in the gas chamber were becoming restless.
Everyone was looking at me. I had to act. I gave the
sergeant in charge a wave, and he picked up the screaming, kicking children in his arms and brought them in the
gas chamber along with the mother, who was weeping in
the most heart-braking fashion. Believe me, I felt like shrinking into the ground out of pity, but I was not
allowed to show the slightest emotion. Hour upon hour
I had to witness all that happened. I had to watch
day and night, whether it was the dragging and burning
of the bodies, the teeth being ripped out, the cutting
of the hair; I had to watch all this horror..... I also
had to watch the process of death itself though the
peephole of the gas chamber because the doctors called
my attention to it. I had to do all of this because I
was the one to whom everyone looked, and because I had
to show everybody that I was not only the one who gave
the orders and issued the directives, but that I was
willing to be present at whatever task I ordered the men
to perform."
The fine foreword by the italian writer Primo Levi, himself a survivor of the Nazi concentration camps, refers to the two main reasons to bring out and divulge this book after so long. The first, to neutralize the efforts of the revisionists. The accurate description and details given by Höss, confirmed by his testimony at Nuremberg, by the survivors and material evidence, prevent the possibility of denying or downscaling the gassings at Auschwitz. The second reason is to present, in graphic manner, the ultimate consequences of accepting blindly a totalitarian ideology.
Rating:
Summary: A Truly Disturbing Book
Review: This book shows how a blind adherance to 'doing one's duty' can lead to horrifying results. The calmness in which Hoess relates his story is disturbing. Regardless of whatever was in this man's background that led to his beliefs and actions does not lessen the lack of morals and ethics exhibited by him, unless a person's actions can be merely attributed to his upbringing. Unfortunately, the real value of this book is not recognized by recent events in Bosnia, Palestine, Israel, and other parts of the world. 'Ethnic cleansing' is a term I detest. Why not call it what it is, mass murder with a capital 'M'. There is no room for euphemisms when it comes to millions of people being slaughtered. A disturbing book indeed, but one that should be more widely read and understood. None of us should ever forget what happened at the hands of the criminals that ruled Germany at that point in history. I only wish the lessons that we could have learned from it all would have been better learned. Recommended!
Rating:
Summary: A Truly Disturbing Book
Review: This book shows how a blind adherance to 'doing one's duty' can lead to horrifying results. The calmness in which Hoess relates his story is disturbing. Regardless of whatever was in this man's background that led to his beliefs and actions does not lessen the lack of morals and ethics exhibited by him, unless a person's actions can be merely attributed to his upbringing. Unfortunately, the real value of this book is not recognized by recent events in Bosnia, Palestine, Israel, and other parts of the world. 'Ethnic cleansing' is a term I detest. Why not call it what it is, mass murder with a capital 'M'. There is no room for euphemisms when it comes to millions of people being slaughtered. A disturbing book indeed, but one that should be more widely read and understood. None of us should ever forget what happened at the hands of the criminals that ruled Germany at that point in history. I only wish the lessons that we could have learned from it all would have been better learned. Recommended!
Rating:
Summary: One must believe another man's belief
Review: Torture, death, & the atrocities of war are not easily swallowed or digested by those who were neither there nor on the receiving end of the realities, but one has to read the words of Rudolf Hoess and belieive them to be what they are -HIS BELIEFS. Too many historical biographies of the SS leave one with the taste of the writers interpretation of the person, and we are all left to wonder about truths, half-truths, desires & perceptions. Some even take their word as gospel. History becomes anything the writer wants it to become for whatever reason he feels he needs to express the information. This book gives one the reality of Hoess according to Hoess - and a foundation for our own interpretations of his psychological make-up. I am an American of Polish descent, having many friends & family (both Polish Roman Catholic & Polish Jew) personally affected by this man during WWll - and it was like a breath of fresh air to hear his side so that I may put the pieces of the puzzle together to get a more complete picture of what was really going on. I try and live my life as non-judgementally as I can, believing understanding is far better than blame - and understanding how this man was raised gives me greater insight into what he had become. Like many who found this book hard to read, I found it easy - for it was his perception of the truth. I may not like his "truth" and I may not agree with his "truth" - but I am not in a position to deny it. If you are really seeking the truth behind the man and his actions, this is a remarkable book
Rating: 
Summary: Interesting/controversial
Review: When I first read that Rudolf Hoss' memoirs were being published, I approached the situation with a certain amount of caution. Rudolf Hoss and his memoirs has been the subject of much scrutiny and speculation over these last few decades. It was suggested, a few years after the conclusion of World War Two, that Hoss had been "encouraged" to confess and indeed admit his guilt in his memoirs. Historical documentation has proven that Hoss was physically abused for a prolonged period of time after his arrest. A few authors, most notably David Irving, have suggested that his memoirs are indeed tainted. The original manuscript contained several different styles of handwriting, some of which was in English (!). That said, I read the Hoss memoirs with a certain degree of suspicion. I suspect that most of the memoirs are accurate and true, but I would not hesitate to speculate that they might have been doctored. Why they would have been doctored, I'm not sure. Perhaps to guarantee his execution or for post-war purposes unbeknownst. Parts of the text of this book seem to be translated rather poorly as well. The German to English conversion did not always seem very faithful, and in a few instances awkward and incorrect (it makes me wonder what the editor was doing!). In summary, read this book, but approach it with caution.
Rating:
Summary: A glimpse into the devil's reincarnation
Review: While my rating this book five stars does not indicate I enjoyed reading of the mass murdur of 2 million innocent people, it simply means I acknowlage the author's accuracy on the most part. Hoss was history's greatest mass murdurer, appearing quite calm throughout the book and never renouncing his political views or fascist ideas. The one sign he had any regrets was just before he was hanged he uttered a vague sentence of asking for forgiveness. This shows how Nazis viewed the mass murdurs as a "Solution"; to them, Jews were not humans, just a germ that must be exterminated as quickly as possible so as not to spread a disease. It is impossible to imagine what the world would be like today if Himmler, Hitler and Hoss had acomplished what they had set out to do; and, through it all, he retained a sense of moral, bidding his children to take care of "dear, darling mommy," and requesting his wedding ring be officaly delivered to his wife. One request I was particularly disgusted with was his request to be killed by a firing squad rather than the less dignified hanging he eventually recieved. This represents how he thought he, a mass murdurer of millions, thought he deserved a better death than the thousands of Jewish children he had starved to death or buried alive. A truly evil and pathetic man.
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