Operation Hoss - The Deportation of Hungarian Jews to Auschwitz, May–July 1944

Operation Hoss - The Deportation of Hungarian Jews to Auschwitz,

May–July 1944 written by Ian Baxter and published by Pen & Sword

Books - £14.99 - Softcover - Pages 144

Operation Höss or Aktion Höss was the codename for the mass deportation of Hungarian Jews and their murder in the gas chambers of Birkenau extermination camp. Between 14 May and 9 July 1944, 420,000 Jews were sent to Auschwitz from Hungary, or about 12,000 per day. On arrival some twenty-five percent were selected for forced labour while the remainder were immediately gassed. The name of this atrocity came from Rudolf Höss, who returned as the commandant of Auschwitz to increase the killing capacity and ensure the smooth running of the operation. The specially built railway line into Birkenau from Auschwitz made transports to the camp more efficient enabling the SS to increase the daily killing capacity. After the war, SS Adolf Eichmann, who had organised the deportations from Hungary, boasted that Operation Höss was an achievement never matched before or since.

This shocking book tells the story of this inhuman venture from its conception and planning, and though to the bitter, tragic end.

This book is insane as it shows the utter depravity of Nazi Germany attempting to destroy a huge number of Hungarian Jews at the german concentration camps of Auschwitz & Birkenau in a two-month period (420.000). What makes it even worse is the Germans wanted to concentrate on how to make the whole process quicker and more efficient. The pictures throughout the book not only show the people being lined up to be gassed but being separated into groups where those ‘lucky’ enough could be sectioned off to perform slave labour whilst the rest were killed. Whilst the book is well written, in quite a few cases there is no need for words, a picture tells the story, which I guess is the point of the book. Another great book for the series.

A Judge in Auschwitz

A Judge in Auschwitz written by Kevin Prenger and published by Pen & Sword Books - £20 - Hardback - Pages 176

In autumn 1943, SS judge Konrad Morgen visited Auschwitz concentration camp to investigate an intercepted parcel containing gold sent from the camp. While there Morgen found the SS camp guards engaged in widespread theft and corruption.

Worse, Morgen also discovered that inmates were being killed without authority from the SS leadership. While millions of Jews were being exterminated under the Final Solution programme , Konrad Morgen set about gathering evidence of these ‘illegal murders’.

Morgen also visited other camps such as Buchenwald where he had the notorious camp commandant Karl Koch and Ilse, his sadistic spouse, arrested and charged. Found guilty by an SS court, Koch was sentenced to death.

Remarkably, the apparently fearless SS judge also tried to prosecute other Nazi criminals including Waffen-SS commanders Oskar Dirlewanger and Hermann Fegelein and Auschwitz Commandant Rudolf Höss. He even claimed to have tried to indict Adolf Eichmann, who was responsible for organising the mass deportation of the Jews to the extermination camps.

This intriguing work reveals how the lines between justice and injustice became blurred in the Third Reich. As well as describing the actions of this often contradictory character the author questions Morgen’s motives.

I quite like reading books like this that look at leading officers in the Third Reich, while I find what they got up to horrible and abhorrent, I find it fascinating that these seemingly intelligent men can stoop to such low depravities that they just went along with instruction seemingly without a care in the world. Afterall in society today we still have to deal with serial killers, but the chances of actually meeting a serial killer is very remote, and yet so many can be found in the WW2 German military. This book was a really good read, fascinating in detail and very comprehensive, I commend the author. Although this book is a bit disturbing in some places, I still find that we should still read books like this to always learn about how the mind works.