← Back to the front page

40 Fascinating Facts About the Relatives of Nazis After WWII

Khalid Elhassan March 14, 2019 24 min

36. Rudolf Hoess, History Greatest Mass Murderer

Rudolf Hoess might be history’s greatest individual mass murderer, having created and organized the biggest industrial-scale killing factory ever created: Auschwitz concentration and extermination camp, where over a million people were killed. A mild-mannered and happily married Catholic, Hoess enjoyed normal family life with his five children, notwithstanding the view of the Auschwitz crematoria’s smoke stacks from his bedroom window. After the war, he was tried and convicted and hanged next to Auschwitz’s crematorium.

Also Read: Auschwitz Inmate’s Hidden Testimony Finally Revealed in Messages Left Behind.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.