According to my reliable book source SL, Hanns and Rudolf is an excellent read: the extraordinary true story of the German Jew who tracked down and caught the Kommandant of Auschwitz. Thomas Harding, the author and journalist who has written for the Financial Times, Sunday Times, Washington Post, The Guardian, among other publications will be speaking at the Wiener Library, which is devoted to Holocaust studies.
About the book :Hanns Alexander was the son of a prosperous German family who fled Berlin for London in the 1930s. Rudolf Höss was a farmer and soldier who became the Kommandant of Auschwitz Concentration Camp and oversaw the deaths of over a million men, women and children. 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 some of the greatest atrocities the world has ever seen. Lieutenant Hanns Alexander is one of the lead investigators; Rudolf Höss his most elusive target.
Moving from the Middle-Eastern campaigns of the First World War to bohemian Berlin in the 1920s; from the horror of the concentration camps to the trials of Belsen and Nuremberg, Hanns and Rudolf is both a gripping, moving and deeply felt work of history, and the story of a remarkable quest for justice. Thomas Harding reveals for the very first time the full, exhilarating account of Höss’ capture, and of two lives that diverged, and intersected, in an astonishing way.
The book will be available for purchase at the event.
Related articles
- Was my Jewish great-uncle a Nazi hunter? (theguardian.com)
- Brought to book: How my relative captured Auschwitz commandant (thejc.com)
- The Nazi Commander Who Got His Due (theatlanticwire.com)
