The Evening Star (March 20, 1946)
Gassing of 2 million confessed by Oswiecim camp commander
Victims executed on Himmler orders, he tells British
BERLIN (AP) – The gassing of 2,000,000 Jews and other persons at the Oswiecim horror camp has been admitted in a signed statement given to British authorities by Rudolf Hoess, 46-year-old commandant of the camp, who was arrested on March 8.
Hoess, who was found hiding out on a farm near Flensburg, signed the confession on March 16, British officials declared. They quoted Hoess’ statement as saying:
“I personally arranged, on orders received from Himmler in May 1941, the gassing of 2,000,000 persons between June and July 1941 and the end of 1943, during which I was commandant at Oswiecim.”
After he left Oswiecim, Hoess said, be relayed Himmler’s orders for the gassing of an additional 500,000 persons. British investigators said evidence showed that a more accurate estimate of the figure would be 2,000,000 – bringing to some 4,000,000 the number of persons for whose deaths Hoess might be held responsible.
Asked by British interrogators whether he believed in God, Hoess was quoted as saying: “Most emphatically, no.”
Hoess’ confession, which included a detailed description of the extermination methods used at Oswiecim, was described by the British as “one of the most remarkable” ever made.
Hoess’ statement, they said, declared that after the victims had been gassed and their bodies cremated, internees were ordered to crush any remaining bodies with wooden clubs. What was left was thrown into the Vistula River.
At first makeshift gas chambers were made out of converted peasants’ huts, but later a more permanent setup was arranged, with death chambers built underground and designed to simulate shower baths. These chambers, according to Hoess, were capable of handling 2,500 bodies a day.
The victims, mainly Jews from Warsaw, Budapest and other large cities in Eastern Europe were executed, Hoess asserted, under direct orders from Himmler on the grounds it was necessary to protect the German people if the Reich lost the war. Himmler also ordered the extermination of all Gypsies as “anti-social” and unusable in the German war effort, said Hoess.
Hoess, who joined the Nazi Party in 1922, is reported to have been associated with concentration camps from 1936 until the end of the war, including duty at Dachau. Josef Kramer, commandant of Belsen concentration camp, who was recently executed for his part in atrocities here, once served as Hoess’ adjutant.