Hanns and Rudolf

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Hanns
and Rudolf
The German Jew and the Hunt for the Kommandant of Auschwitz

Welcome to hannsandrudolf.com, a digital collection of artefacts recounting the extraordinary true story of Hanns Alexander, the German Jewish investigator who pursued and captured Rudolf Höss, one of Nazi Germany’s most notorious war criminals. Featuring a wide range of exclusive material, including maps, audio and video files, and many previously unseen images, the website expands and augments the physical text in a unique and compelling way.

To use this site, simply click anywhere on the screen and drag. To view an image, click on it and when the ‘i’ appears, click on this to read more.
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Characters
  • All
  • Alfred Alexander
  • Anita Lasker
  • Ann
  • Bella
  • Cacilie
  • Elsie
  • Hanns
  • Hedwig
  • Henny
  • Kramer
  • Paul
  • Richard Glucks
  • Rudolf
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– submitted by {submitted_by}
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Hanns
and Rudolf
The German Jew and the Hunt for the Kommandant of Auschwitz

A memo requesting Rudolf’s return to Auschwitz for ‘Aktion Hoss’

6 May 1944

A telegram from Heinz Karl Fanslau, the chief of the Concentration Camp Inspectorate’s personnel division. The order stated that while he would retain his appointment as head of Amtsgruppe D1, he was to travel immediately to Auschwitz to ‘proceed with the expected new arrivals’ - hundreds of thousands of soon to be deported Hungarian Jews.

College Park, US National Archive

A memo requesting Rudolf’s return to Auschwitz for ‘Aktion Hoss’
6 May 1944
View high resolution image
On 6 May 1944, Rudolf received a telegram from Heinz Karl Fanslau, the chief of the Concentration Camp Inspectorate’s personnel division. The order stated that while he would retain his appointment as head of Amtsgruppe D1, he was to travel immediately to Auschwitz to ‘proceed with the expected new arrivals’, which was a euphemistic code for ‘oversee the mass extermination of the Hungarian Jews’. Rudolf arrived back in Auschwitz on 8 May 1944. His first stop was to visit Hedwig and the children, who were still living at the villa. He had last seen Annagret six months earlier, when she was only two months old. Hedwig was not happy that Rudolf had been absent for so long. She often said, ‘Don’t think of your duty all the time, think of your family too.’ But this visit was no different; Rudolf did not have time to play with his children – there would be no rowing on the Sola River or petting the animals in the garden – for the trains would soon start rumbling out of Budapest towards Poland.
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