Hanns and Rudolf

Hanns and Rudolf

The German Jew and the Hunt for the Kommandant of Auschwitz

Summary

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THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER
WINNER OF THE JQ WINGATE PRIZE 2015
SHORTLISTED FOR THE COSTA BIOGRAPHY AWARD

'A gripping thriller, an unspeakable crime, an essential history.' JOHN LE CARRÉ
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Hanns Alexander was the son of a prosperous German family who fled Berlin for London in the 1930s, becoming an investigator of war crimes.

Rudolf Höss was a farmer and soldier who became the Kommandant of Auschwitz Concentration Camp and oversaw the deaths of over a million men, women and children.

The hunt was on.

In the aftermath of the Second World War, the first British War Crimes Investigation Team is assembled to hunt down the senior Nazi officials responsible for the greatest atrocities the world has ever seen. Lieutenant Hanns Alexander is one of the lead investigators, Rudolf Höss his most elusive target.

In this book Thomas Harding reveals for the very first time the full account of Höss’ capture. Moving from the Middle-Eastern campaigns of the First World War to bohemian Berlin in the 1920s, to the horror of the concentration camps and the trials in Belsen and Nuremberg, Hanns and Rudolf tells the story of two German men whose lives diverged, and intersected, in an astonishing way.

Reviews

  • Thomas Harding has shed intriguing new light on the strange poison of Nazism, and one of its most lethal practitioners... Meticulously researched and deeply felt.
    Ben Macintyre, The Times, Book of the Week

About the author

Thomas Harding

Thomas Harding is a bestselling author whose books have been translated into more than 16 languages. He has written for the Sunday Times, the Washington Post and the Guardian, among other publications. He is the bestselling author of HANNS AND RUDOLF, which won the JQ-Wingate Prize for Non-Fiction; THE HOUSE BY THE LAKE, which was shortlisted for the Costa Biography Award; BLOOD ON THE PAGE, which won the Crime Writers' Association "Golden Dagger Award for Non-Fiction" and FUTURE HISTORY, which was shortlisted for the German Children's Literature Award 2021. His next book, WHITE DEBT, was published in January 2022. You can follow Thomas on twitter @thomasharding
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