Hanns and Rudolf: The True Story of the German Jew Who Tracked Down and Caught the Kommandant of Auschwitz - Softcover

Harding, Thomas

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1476711852 ISBN 13: 9781476711850

Publisher: Simon & Schuster, 2014

Synopsis

WINNER OF THE WINGATE PRIZE

The "compelling," untold story of the man who brought one of Nazi Germany's most notorious war criminals to justice--"fascinates and shocks" (The Washington Post).

May 1945. In the aftermath of the Second World War, the first British War Crimes Investigation Team is assembled to hunt down the senior Nazi officials responsible for the greatest atrocities the world has ever seen. One of the lead investigators is Lieutenant Hanns Alexander, a German Jew who is now serving in the British Army. Rudolf Höss is his most elusive target. As Kommandant of Auschwitz, Höss not only oversaw the murder of more than one million men, women, and children; he was the man who perfected Hitler's program of mass extermination. Höss is on the run across a continent in ruins, the one man whose testimony can ensure justice at Nuremberg.

Hanns and Rudolf reveals for the very first time the full, exhilarating account of Höss's capture, an encounter with repercussions that echo to this day. Moving from the Middle Eastern campaigns of World War I to bohemian Berlin in the 1920s to the horror of the concentration camps and the trials in Belsen and Nuremberg, it tells the story of two German men--one Jewish, one Catholic--whose lives diverged, and intersected, in an astonishing way. This is "one of those true stories that illuminates a small justice in the aftermath of the Holocaust, an event so huge and heinous that there can be no ultimate justice" (New York Daily News).

About this title

Review:

"A fascinating, well-crafted book, entwining two biographies for an unusual and illuminating approach to the history of the Third Reich, its most heinous crime and its aftermath."--Roger Moorhouse, author of Killing Hitler and Berlin at War

"Thomas Harding has shed intriguing new light on the strange poison of Nazism, and one of its most lethal practitioners... Meticulously researched and deeply felt."--Ben Macintyre "The Times, Book of the Week "

"Fascinating and moving...This is a remarkable book, which deserves a wide readership."--Max Hastings "The Sunday Times "

"Written with admirable restraint... [Hanns and Rudolf] fascinates and shocks."--Evan Thomas "Washington Post "

"A remarkable book: thoughtful, compelling and quite devastating in its humanity. Thomas Harding's account of these two extraordinary men goes straight to the dark heart of Nazi Germany."--Keith Lowe, author of Savage Continent: Europe in the Aftermath of World War II

"Its climax as thrilling as any wartime adventure story, Hanns and Rudolf is also a moral inquiry into an eternal question: what makes a man turn to evil? Closely researched and tautly written, this book sheds light on a remarkable and previously unknown aspect of the Holocaust - the moment when a Jew and one of the highest-ranking Nazis came face to face and history held its breath."--Jonathan Freedland

"Written with the verve of a writer and the sure touch of an historian, Thomas Harding's Hanns and Rudolf is a fascinating, fresh, and compelling work of history."--Jay Winik, author of April 1865 and The Great Upheaval

"Thomas Harding's Hanns and Rudolf not only declines to forget, but challenges and defies the empty sententiousness characteristic of those who privately admit to being "tired of hearing about the Holocaust." In this electrifying account of how a morally driven British Jewish soldier pursues and captures and brings to trial the turntail Kommandant of Auschwitz, Thomas Harding commemorates (and, for the tired, revivifies) a ringing Biblical injunction: Justice, justice, shalt thou pursue."--Cynthia Ozick

"Hanns & Rudolf packs an extraordinary punch about the nature of evil, told in a cool, dispassionate voice. As these two lives wrap around each other, the quality of evil becomes ever clearer, and more shocking."--Rabbi Julia Neuberger, Baroness Neuberger, West London Synagogue of British Jew

"Thomas Harding has written a book of two intersecting lives: His uncle, a German Jew and potential Nazi victim, and Rudolf Höss, Kommandant of Auschwitz. In a neat historical irony, his uncle became a British officer who tracked down war criminals, including one of the worst mass murderers. A fascinating account, with chunks of new information, about one of history's darkest chapters."--Richard Breitman, Author of The Architect of Genocide: Himmler and The Final Solution and Editor-in-chief of the U.S. Holocaust Museum's Holocaust and Genocide Studies.

Book Description:

THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER

The extraordinary true story of the Jewish investigator who pursued and captured one of Nazi Germany’s most notorious war criminals.

About this edition

• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Publication date: 2014
• ISBN 10: 1476711852
• ISBN 13: 9781476711850
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 368