The fact that he writes his name with two S’s and not with a sharp S like his grandfather is not an act of demarcation, but an oversight by the authorities in Bangkok. Once it was entered incorrectly in the documents, it stayed that way. For many years, Kai Höss lived all over the world as a hotel manager. Since 2000, he has been back in the Stuttgart region, where he grew up, and now lives as a pastor of the Bible Church in Renningen. In the documentary “The Shadow of the Commandant”, which is currently showing in cinemas, the 62-year-old visits the Auschwitz concentration camp for the first time with his father Hans-Jürgen (87). As commandant there, his grandfather Rudolf Höss was responsible for the deaths of 1.1 million people.
It was in sixth or seventh grade, we lived in Freudental at the time. The Holocaust was a topic in class. The name Höss was mentioned. I went home and asked, “Mom, is that us?” She said, “Yes, that’s us. Rudolf Höss is your grandfather.”
No. My father didn’t tell my mother anything when they met. She found out from an aunt who had kept a newspaper report about the Höss execution in 1947. She showed it to my mother and asked: “Look, is that yours?” My father was a true renegade, the family came from northern Germany. My father then admitted it, he was ashamed. After the war, other people spat on him at school. He was the son of the monster of Auschwitz.
He repressed his childhood because it was too painful. He was an avoider, navigating around problems. This put a lot of strain on my parents’ marriage. He didn’t sugarcoat the family history, but he didn’t talk about it either. Getting him to talk is like pulling someone’s tooth.
She first lived in Ludwigsburg, then with her youngest daughter Annegret in Fulda. We often went there to visit. She was very Prussian with an apron and her hair tied up. Discipline, order and cleanliness were important to her. That her fingernails were trimmed. She was tough, but also loving with her children. She was authoritarian towards my mother. She was the farm girl from Swabia and she was the superior lady.
I think she knew a lot about what happened in Auschwitz. She was ideologically very clear, profited from the system and showed no remorse to the outside world. “We rose with the National Socialists and fell with them” – that’s how she saw it. After the war, my grandmother went through a lot. The family was condemned and stigmatized.
I was born in 1962, and when I was young, Höss was no longer a major public issue. But when I was 16, I read my grandfather’s biographical notes, which he had written while in prison. The book was on my parents’ shelf. I was shocked. My grandfather was the greatest mass murderer of all time. At first, I just wanted to get away.
After school, I did an apprenticeship as a chef in Stuttgart. After that, I joined the German army and was stationed in England. My dream was to become a hotel manager in the 5-star segment. That came true. I lived in Macao, Singapore, Thailand, Bali, China, Egypt, Dubai. I was an arrogant, self-absorbed 28-year-old with a Rolex on my arm. Upscale nightclubs, double gin and tonics, parties, girls, bodybuilding, six-packs – that was my thing. But inside, I was broken. Faith saved me.
I had tonsillectomy in Singapore, during which I lost so much blood that I almost died. In the hospital room I found a Gideon Bible in the drawer. It wasn’t really for me, but I picked it up anyway. I recognized myself in the story of King David, who sacrificed a loyal soldier to cover up his own sins. I was an unscrupulous manager. Everything revolved around performance, success and profit. The end justified the means. Later, through an acquaintance, I got in touch with a Christian congregation in Singapore. Community and faith became more and more important, and at Easter 1989 I knew: I wanted to follow Jesus.
I am not looking for absolution. I am not a perpetrator. But I believe in inherited guilt. There is a curse on families when something bad has happened and it is not honestly discussed. Then the hearts are damaged, it changes the soul. Then the children and grandchildren may become Nazis again because they say “What Grandpa did wasn’t so bad after all.” That is also what the documentary “The Commander’s Shadow” is about. It is about the trauma in the families of the perpetrators and the victims.
My parents divorced in the 1980s. It was a dramatic, ugly separation. After that, I had no contact with my father for 30 years; he hid from us. About six years ago, he called me and said, “Here’s your dad.” But it was only the film that offered the opportunity to talk in depth about the past.
As Anita said: It was a historic moment. We brought cake, she had asked for it. And then we talked and talked. She has an uncanny presence, smokes constantly. She is a special character, a little brittle, but lovable. For her daughter Maya, however, the mother’s trauma had serious consequences. She could not give the child the love it needed, and was often absent. Maya still suffers greatly from this to this day.
It broke my heart to be there. My father’s heart too. He stood in front of the gallows on which Rudolf Höss was hanged in 1947. He said, “He deserved it, he paid. What he did was wrong.” People should see that. The film is a reminder of where something that starts as populism can lead. Hitler didn’t say at the beginning, “I’m going to murder six million people and spread war across the world.” He said, “I’m going to make you great again, I’m going to give you back your pride.”
That wasn’t my motive. Rainer messed up a lot and told lies. We’re no longer in contact. But I love him, he’s my brother. He also went through a lot during my parents’ difficult marriage. We are all products of our past. I hope and I pray that we can meet again.
I hate what he did, and to a certain extent I hate him. His heartlessness, the meticulous, clinical way he carried out his task. In his notes he describes how a woman desperately tried to protect her children from being gassed. Höss ordered a guard to snatch the children from her and carry them into the chamber. He was an ideologue and social Darwinist, deeply convinced that the Jews must be killed because otherwise they will destroy Germany.
He stuck it out until the end. He never said, “I can’t do this, find someone else to do it.” He was a careerist. After the war, he hid like a coward. It was only in prison, when he was awaiting his verdict, when there was nothing left to deny, that he wrote about these doubts. To me, it looks more like he wanted to put sugar icing on his actions.
If he really repented, God forgave him. Then we will see each other in eternity. But I don’t know what really happened in his heart at the end when he was standing on the gallows in Auschwitz.
The grandson Kai Höss – born in 1962 – grew up in the district of Ludwigsburg. After an apprenticeship as a chef and his time in the German army, he worked for many years as a manager in the luxury hotel industry around the world. Since 2000 he has lived with his family in Germany in the district of Böblingen. Initially he worked as a language trainer for business English and as a management coach. Today he is pastor of the Bible Church of Stuttgart in Sindelfingen, an English-speaking free church in the evangelical area. Kai Höss is married and has four children between the ages of 8 and 29.
The film The documentary “The Shadow of the Commandant” is a British-American production. It was directed by Daniela Völker. It is currently showing in German cinemas and will be released in England next week. The film tells the stories of the Höß family and the Lasker-Wallfisch family and how they live with the trauma of the Holocaust. Rudolf Höß’ son Hans-Jürgen and his grandson Kai meet Auschwitz survivor Anita Lasker-Wallfisch and her daughter Maya. Together they visit the memorial site of the Polish concentration camp. After the Oscar-winning feature film “The Zone of Interest” from 2023, it is already the second film in a short period of time to deal with the life of the Höß family. (wel)
By Lisa Welzhofer
The original of this article “Grandson of Auschwitz commandant: “My grandfather was the greatest mass murderer of all time”” comes from STUTTGARTER ZEITUNG.
