He was captured in 1945, was a witness at the Nuremberg trials, and was tried and hung in Poland in 1947. While in prison, he wrote a memoir that is much more chilling than "the banality of evil" of the dumb fuck Eichmann variety.

The history of the Nazi Germany has become so Disneyfied. No one reads or really knows much about it anymore. Everyone vaguely knows (if that!) that the Nazis did camps and that was bad, but that's all. But when you read that text, I think it becomes clear that not only such atrocities can be repeated very easily today, they will be repeated precisely in the name of all that is "good."

Anyway. Höss was the only SS officer at the Nuremberg trials who testified to everything that he'd done. During his own trial he confessed, admitted his guilt, and refused the opportunity to appeal. You will see from the memoir he was a smart, and not even particularly callous man. AND FUCKING YET. That's the point. It is chilling to the bones, and is all the more chilling because of how lucid that memoir is. The only reason he admitted his wrongs was because the Nazis were defeated. It will make you think about those yet undefeated and the atrocities they commit in the name of what they may genuinely consider to be "good."

Links, huge trigger warning obviously :

The memoir (skip to page 118, that's where his tenure at Auschwitz starts)

A kind of condensed article about Höss , with some quotes from the memoir + the trial in Poland

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudolf_H%C3%B6ss
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Rudolf_H%C3%B6ss

People are forgetting this shit. It is not enough to know that Nazis = bad. We'll fucking repeat it without learning what actually happened. Look at Ukraine where an SS division has recently been celebrated in the capital because some people there hate the USSR legacy more than they hate fascism, treating these death squads as "liberators."

  • JuneFall [none/use name]
    ·
    4 years ago

    This post is really fucking problematic (it currently is the second post you see on this website). If there is one thing we don't need it is pushing information about Nazi thought and their own Point of View (after the war).

    You might think there are nice passages, but are they any more good to read than the accounts of survivors and reconstruction of the processes by historians?

    We also got so much theory already we could read, and you suggest a Nazi (who is revered by Nazbols, too). Makes me kinda sick honestly.

    • aerides [comrade/them]
      ·
      4 years ago

      I don't think anybody here is in danger of being Nazified. I do, however, think people here are painfully ignorant of how power works in the real world.

      Gonna say this post is :halal:

    • HumanBehaviorByBjork [any, undecided]
      ·
      4 years ago

      hm ya know somehow reading OPs post i don't think their point was it's a nice book with nice passages and the nazi was actually a good and fine dude.

      • JuneFall [none/use name]
        ·
        4 years ago

        He literally quotes a passage which gives Nazi point of view and the content of it got reproduced by OP and others in this thread. If you don't see how people who were previously uninformed and now are missinformed and spread how "Nazi guards had to use violence to keep the violent Slavs, communist etc. in check so they wouldn't hurt each other" are bad antifa practice then you aren't a materialist.

        As leftist site there isn't a reason to have history-channel advertisement of Nazis as your top post. It isn't fair to say "oh we need to know our enemy" and recommend a fucking genocidal Nazis biography for it. However I see how little antifa support is on this website by the currently awake - mostly European population - which yesterday and this night had clashes with police after first of May demonstrations.

        Name me two survivors of camps and the autobiographies of them. This would be better antifa practice than OP's posts.

      • JuneFall [none/use name]
        ·
        4 years ago

        'Yeah, go read "The Art of the Deal", what Parenti? No, he isn't an enemy, what the Capital, no that isn't of our enemies either, what the speeches of OR Tambo, no they aren't of our enemy either, what the collection of experiences of communist fighters who survived concentration camps, no they aren't of our enemy either, "The Art of the Deal" I tell you! You might add in some "Mein Kampf" if you are at it, surely this will be essential in your communist education - as you have to read your enemies propaganda and tell your communist friends to read their books'

        This website's community seems to have large gaps with basic antifa education and practice.

          • JuneFall [none/use name]
            ·
            4 years ago

            I genuinely think some in the West would have taken the threat of Nazism more seriously.

            Yeah, about that...

            the book in the OP are a unique opportunity

            Is just uninformed :reddit-logo: culture. If you think that, then you think we don't know about the genocide of the Ovaherero and Nama neither, cause the general's diary had a few missing pages.

            Oh wait! We do know and we actually did historical research for decades and decades and the PoV of the oppressed was actually articulated and where external sources where needed they were taken into account and also compared with other things to see if they are valid and which motivation was behind them.

            You are literally arguing like the uninformed i-am-very-smart person when you tell only Nazi PoV's are real PoV's and unique. They aren't. You are just doing something which for more than 50 years we already know, unmotivated reproducing Nazi propaganda by pushing their PoV's, you aren't new or special with that.

            • disco [any]
              ·
              4 years ago

              You are literally arguing like the uninformed i-am-very-smart person when you tell only Nazi PoV’s are real PoV’s and unique

              They are unique, though (although I didn’t say and would not say) that only Nazi POVs were unique. You’re not going to get a first person account of the administration and inner workings of the fascist death machine by reading victim testimonies. They weren’t there when the decisions were being made. You have to examine both if you want a complete picture. Maybe the “general’s diary” from your analogy would have some valuable insight into the tactics used when conducting a war of extermination, insight that might be useful when opposing those tactics in the future.

              If you see no value in that, I don’t know what to tell you.

              • JuneFall [none/use name]
                ·
                4 years ago

                Maybe the “general’s diary” from your analogy would have some valuable insight into the tactics used when conducting a war of extermination

                Just threw up a little, thanks. This is completely fictional for you, how about you actually talk to those affected by the genocide today? I don't get how much energy you spend in defending "one has the free speech to talk about unique nazis", when you do know NOTHING about the genocid vs Ovaherero and Nama and could've used the time to read about it

        • GalaxyBrain [they/them]
          ·
          4 years ago

          Yeah, read art of the deal, if you're already a leftist fucking do read mein Kampf. I'd suggest reading Parenti first, but do you really think he never read any reactionary material himself? Reading isn't fucking mind control. This weird fear of consuming things by people you disagree with will just make you ignorant.

    • Yanqui_UXO [any]
      ·
      4 years ago

      Nice passages? The whole thing is horrifying. If after reading that you come out thinking "well, that's nice" I don't know what to tell you.

    • CommunistShoplifter [none/use name]
      ·
      4 years ago

      The Day The Nazi Died

      We're told that after the war
      The Nazis vanished without a trace
      But battalions of fascists
      Still dream of a master race
      The history books they tell
      of their defeat in ‘45
      But they all came out of the woodwork
      On the day the Nazi died

      They say the prisoner at Spandau
      Was a symbol of defeat
      Whilst Hess remained imprisoned
      And the fascists; they were beat
      So the promise of an Aryan world
      Would never materialize
      So why did they all come out of the woodwork
      On the day the Nazi died?

      The world is riddled with maggots
      The maggots are getting fat
      They're making a tasty meal of all
      The bosses and bureaucrats
      They're taking over the boardrooms
      And they're fat and full of pride
      And they all came out of the woodwork
      On the day the Nazi died

      So if you meet with these historians
      I'll tell you what to say
      Tell them that the Nazis
      Never really went away
      They're out there burning houses down
      And peddling racist lies
      And we'll never rest again...
      Until every Nazi dies...

    • TrumanShow_IRL [none/use name]
      ·
      4 years ago

      If there is one thing we don’t need it is pushing information about Nazi thought

      Did you know the nazis modeled their racial colonialism after America? Read some history you might learn something 😉

    • Mrtryfe [none/use name]
      ·
      4 years ago

      This sounds like peak twitter radlib nonsense. If this post is being presented with positivity towards Nazi ideals or war crimes, you seem to be the only one seeing it that way.