[Note: As this article is reconstructed from a copy some content/layout may vary from the original posting.]
Rudolf Hoess's varying death toll estimates for Auschwitz
Rudolph Hoess, Auschwitz commandant: May 4, 1940 until December 1, 1943.
First Confession: He gassed 2,500,000
During his torture/interrogation sessions by British Jews, Hoess signed a confession at 2.30 am on March (14 or 15), 1945, stating that about 3,000,000 people were killed, 2,500,000 of them gassed, during his commandantship of Auschwitz. This document was submitted as evidence to the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg as document NO-1210.
Second Confession: He gassed 2,000,000
On March 16, 1946, Hoess's Jewish interrogators had him sign another confession, just two sentences long, this time confessing to the gassing of 2,000,000 persons at Auschwitz, just up-until the end of his commandantship at the end of 1943.1
Third Confession: He gassed 2,500,000
On April 2, 1946, Hoess was interrogated in Nuremberg by Swedish Jew Sender Jaari (Jankelow), pictured above,2 but aged 40 when he interrogated Hoess.
Hoess, again confirms 2,500,000 were gassed at Auschwitz, and a further 500,000 died of diseases. Hoess states he was repeatedly informed that Auschwitz was to exterminate 4 - 5,000,000 people, but that was not so. Hoess also states Himmler ordered all materials on numbers destroyed, and not to preserve records of the exterminations.3
Fourth Confession: He gassed 2,500,000
On April 5, 1945 Hoess signed another confession, in English (whether he even spoke English is contested)4, stating 2,500,000 victims had been gassed at Auschwitz, and another 500,000 died of starvation and disease whilst he was commandant of Auschwitz. This document was submitted as evidence to the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg as document 3868-PS.
Fifth Confession: He gassed 2,500,000
Gustave Gilbert (1911 – 1977) was a Jewish American psychologist, who spoke fluent German.He had total access to the Germans prisoners being tried at the main Nuremberg Trial.
In 1947 he published The Nuremberg Diary, regarding his time on the prison staff at Nuremberg.
Gilbert claims that on April 9, 1945, Hoess admitted to him that approximately 2,500,000 Jews had been exterminated under his direction at Auschwitz.5 He also states Hoess testified that he exterminated 2,500,000 Jews at Auschwitz.6 Gilbert refers several times to Hoess admittance to gassing 2,500,000 Jews.7
Sixth Confession: He gassed 2,500,000
Rudolph Hoess appeared as a witness at the trial on April 15, 1945, American assistant prosecutor, Col. Harlan Amen, read a modified version of Hoess's fourth confession, at the trial:8
COL. AMEN: ... I commanded Auschwitz until 1 December 1943, and estimate that at least 2,500,000 victims were executed and exterminated there by gassing and burning, and at least another half million succumbed to starvation and disease making a total dead of about 3,000,000... That is all true, Witness?
HOESS: Yes, it is.
Seventh Confession: Now he gassed 1,500,000
Gustave Gilbert appeared as a witness at the 1961 trial of Adolf Eichmann. He stated that on April 24, 1946, Rudolp Hoess, as requested, had provided him with written details of how he'd managed to kill such a huge amount of people at Auschwitz. But in this document Hoess claimed the 2,500,000 figure was something he was told in April 1945 by Adolf Eichmann. By his own computations the total number of people gassed at Auschwitz was 1,500,000, between the beginning of 1941 until the end of 1944.9
Gustave Gilbert stated under oath at the Eichmann trial, that he had not published hardly any of details of written statements he had asked the defendants at Nuremberg to write down for him. And no mention of Hoess claiming 1,500,000 and not 2,500,000 people were gassed at Auschwitz appears in his 1947 book.
Eighth Confession: Now he gassed 2,500,000 again
On May 20, 1945 Hoess signed another confession, admitting to gassing 2,500,000, with another 500,000 deaths from hunger and sickness whilst he was commandant of Auschwitz. This confession is recorded as Nuremberg document NI-034
Charged with killing 4,300,000
Hoess was himself tried in Krakow, Poland, in March 1947, sentenced to death on April 2, and executed at Auschwitz on April 16. In the indictment for his trial it states: "... he deliberately: (i) deprived of life (a) about 300,000 camp registered inmates, (b) about 4,000,000 people mainly Jews brought to the camp from different European countries to be killed upon their arrival, ... 12,000 Soviet prisoners of war ..."10
Nineth Confession: He gassed 1,500,000, all Jews
A report in the British press on Hoess's trial, written by the Times's correspondent who attended the trial, and even interviewed Hoess, states that Hoess denied 4,000,000 people were killed at Auschwitz, arguing that the crematorium capacity could not have dealt with such a number in the time frame. He maintained 1,500,000 Jews had been gassed at Auschwitz in in total.11
Tenth Confession: He killed 1,135,000
William L. Shirer's supposedly authoritative The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich claims that Hoess reduced the number killed during
his commandantship of Auschwitz from 3,000,000 to 1,135,000. 12
Convicted with killing at least 2,500,000 mainly Jews
The judgement at Hoess's trial states in regard to the number of people who were killed or died at Auschwitz: "an undetermined number of people, at least 2,500,000, mainly Jews."13
Eleventh Confession: He can't remember how many gassed, around 1,200,000
The Americans had handed Hoess over to Polish Army officers on May 25, 1946, who had immediately flew him to Warsaw. After over 7 months of interrogation, in January & February 1947, he wrote his memoirs at the suggestion of his hosts, the Soviet installed Polish government.
In his memoirs, referring to the Auschwitz death toll, Hoess wrote: "I myself never knew the total and I have nothing to help me make an estimate of it." He continues: "I regard a total of two and a half million as far too high. Even Auschwitz had limits to its destructive possibilities."14
His memoirs disagree, it was far more
These memoirs weren't published until 1956 in Polish, and sadistically that edition included the final letters Hoess wrote to his wife and five children before he was executed. Editions in English and German, were published in 1959. In the forward to English edition, written by Lord Russell of Liverpool, he states that no less than 3,000,000 were killed at Auschwitz.15
Twelth Confession: He gassed 5,000,000
On the night of March 31, 1946, the British drove Hoess in a truck, the approximate 220 miles from Minden in Northern Germany, to Nuremberg in the American Zone of Germany. Hoess mentions in his memoirs that another German prisoner was also on the same journey,16 that prisoner was Moritz von Schirmeister, a journalist who had worked under Goebbels in the Reich Ministry for Public Enlightenment & Propaganda. Like Hoess, von Schirmeister was to appear as a witness at the Nuremberg trials.
On this journey, Rudolph Hoess stated to von Schirmeister:
"Certainly, I signed a statement that I killed two and a half million Jews. But I could just as well have said that it was five million Jews. There are certain methods by which any confession can be obtained, whether it is true or not."
- Rudolp Hoess, March 31 - April 1, 1946 17
Some wrongly say he admitted to 1,300,000
In a text book example of inter-historian incest as it's has been described. In 1964 British historian Edward Crankshaw mis-quotes Gustave Gilbert, and state Hoess lowered the death toll to 1,300,000.18 Crankshaw's wrong figure is then cited in other books by highly reputable Holocaust historians.19
Expert states he claimed to gas 1,130,000
British historian Richard Evans in his expert report for the 2000 Irving vs. Penguin & Lipstadt trial, claims Hoess gave an estimate of 1,130,000 is his autobiography.20 What Evans fails to mention, is that Hoess stated he could "only remember the figures involved in the larger actions" and that he could "no longer remember the figures for the smaller actions, but they were insignificant in comparison with the numbers", which he listed for the larger actions, which total 1,130,000.21
Sources: click any image to enlarge
Nuremberg Trial Document NO-1210 in German and filing information
Nuremberg Trial Document PS-3868 (left) and the original of it signed by Hoess, despite it being in English, a language he didn't understand. Both documents dated April 5, 1946
Commandant of Auschwitz: The Autobiography of Rudolph Hoess (1959) full book
1. Commandant of Auschwitz: The Autobiography of Rudolph Hoess (1959) page 15/16/17
2. Jewish Finnish genealogy site: http://www.amitys.com/phpGedView/individual.php?pid=I725&ged=Gedcom.ged
3. Interrogations: The Nazi Elite in Allied Hands, 1945 by Richard Overy (2001) page 384
4. In his memoirs (Commandant of Auschwitz: The Autobiography of Rudolph Hoess (1959) page 61/2), which were written in a January & February 1947, but not published until 1956. Hoess states that he taught himself English "in about a year", just by reading English books whilst he was imprisoned in Brandenburg. Sentenced in 1923 to 10 years for a political murder, of which he served 5. It has also been claimed that Hoess learnt English during WW1 when he was stationed in Palestine, although the source of this claim is considered an expert, he fails to provide a source for his claim: David Irving, Hitler and Holocaust Denial. Chapter 3, Part D, no. 43) by Richard J. Evans here - Whilst answering questions in English from American prosecutor John Amen, at the main Nuremberg trial, Hoess wore headphones, through which he could hear the translator, and he answered all the questions in German, even his many (30+) single word answers were "jawohl," German for "yes." Please see source number 8 for film footage of Hoess answering Amen's questions, and the trial transcript in English.
5. The Nuremberg Diary (originally 1947) Gustave Gilbert page 249 (1995 edition)
6. The Nuremberg Diary (originally 1947) Gustave Gilbert page 280 (1995 edition)
7. The Nuremberg Diary (originally 1947) Gustave Gilbert page 251 (1995 edition), see also pages 249, 280.
8. IMT Nuremberg April 15, 1945: Blue Series Volume 11. Page 415 - http://avalon.law.yale.edu/imt/04-15-46.asp
9. Adolf Eichmann Trial: 29 May 1961. Session 55: transcript and also The Case for Auschwitz: Evidence from the Irving Trial (2002) Robert Jan van Pelt, page 253
10. Trial 0f Öbersturmbannführer Rudolf Franz Ferdinand Hoess Commandant Of The Auschwitz Camp. Supreme National Tribunal Of Poland, 11th-29th March, 1947, Indictment here
11. The (London Times): April 25, 1947 article
12. The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. William L. Shirer. Page 973
13. Trial 0f Öbersturmbannführer Rudolf Franz Ferdinand Hoess Commandant Of The Auschwitz Camp. Supreme National Tribunal Of Poland, 11th-29th March, 1947, Judgement here
14. Commandant of Auschwitz: The Autobiography of Rudolph Hoess (1959) page 217 (scanned above)
15. Commandant of Auschwitz: The Autobiography of Rudolph Hoess (1959) page 15 (scanned above)
16. Commandant of Auschwitz: The Autobiography of Rudolph Hoess (1959) page 193
17. Leading Revisionist Robert Faurisson, obtained a document, from another leading Revisionist Mark Weber in 1983 with this information. In 1986, when Faurrison published How The British Obtained The Confessions of Rudolph Hoess, which is considered The Standard Work, on the Hoess Confession Question, he was not at liberty to divulge the source. But Mark Weber has been quoted in 2002, as stating the source is a letter that Moritz von Schirmeister had written to Rudolf Hoess wife Hedwig. In March 1946, Hedwig Hoess, and her children, had six men, British intelligence officers "practiced in the more sophisticated techniques of sustained and merciless investigation," enter their home. Amongst them was British Jew Bernard Clarke who years later boasted of torturing Hoess and threatening Hedwig Hoess with deportation to Russia with her children, where her son would be shot. He admitted to "suitable intimidation" of her son and daughter, until they provided details of where their father was working under an assumed name. All details on Faurrison's monumental paper: http://www.ihr.org/jhr/v07/v07p389_Faurisson.html
18. Die Gestapo (1964 edition), Edward Crankshaw, page 194
19. Gestapo: Instrument of Tyranny (2002), Edward Crankshaw, page 196. Holocaust: The "Final Solution" (2004), page 367, edited by David Cesarani. Anatomy of the Auschwitz Death Camp (1998), page 73, by Yisrael Gutman, Michael Berenbaum
20. Commandant of Auschwitz: The Autobiography of Rudolph Hoess (1959) page 217
21. David Irving, Hitler and Holocaust Denial. Chapter 3, Part D, no. 43) by Richard J. Evans here
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