Warning: Contains SPOILERS for The Zone of Interest
As seen in The Zone of Interest, Rudolf Höss was the notorious commandant of Auschwitz concentration camp, yet the real Höss’ story didn’t end with the events of the movie. Unlike many other movies about the holocaust, The Zone of Interest doesn’t focus on the physical horror of the Shoah itself. Instead, it follows Höss and his family as they try to live an ordinary life alongside unspeakable evil while simultaneously reaping the rewards of their complicity. However, while the film’s events are disturbingly true to life, The Zone of Interest‘s end doesn’t explicitly state what happened to Höss.
Written and directed by acclaimed English filmmaker Jonathan Glazer, The Zone of Interest stars Christian Friedel and Sandra Hüller as Höss and his wife Hedwig. The movie centers on the couple’s domestic life with their five children in a luxurious house on the edge of Auschwitz itself. The home’s proximity to the camp means that its inhabitants are continually exposed to the crimes being perpetrated inside, yet maintain a manufactured air of ignorance. Throughout the film, Höss is seen trying to separate his role as commandant from his idyllic family life. Yet the movie’s finale, in which he disappears down a darkened stairwell, doesn’t reveal what happened to him.
Rudolf Höss’ Role In The Zone Of Interest Explained
As in real life, Rudolf Höss is the commandant of Auschwitz concentration camp in The Zone of Interest. However, while his responsibilities in this position are an important part of his character, his real role in the movie is as a family man. Throughout the film, the domestic drama of his and Hedwig’s life – ranging from whether she and the children will be able to stay at the camp when Höss is relocated to Berlin, to the difficulties of having Hedwig’s mother come to stay – is sharply juxtaposed against the depravity of what Höss is responsible for at the camp.
As a result, Höss’ story in The Zone of Interest is much more complicated than that of a typical antagonist. The movie’s power comes from the contrast between Höss family life, in which he clearly loves his wife and children, versus the atrocities that he is able to order with banal indifference. As such, Höss is central in making the movie’s main argument: that evil isn’t always obvious and that human beings are more than capable of justifying indescribable wrongdoing in the right circumstances.
How Rudolf Höss’ Role In Auschwitz Led To Operation Höss
As explained in the movie, Höss’ proficiency in his role at Auschwitz led to his growing reputation amongst Nazi high command. However, while The Zone of Interest clearly explains Höss’ personal ambition, the full scale of his criminality is not explored. Before the movie’s opening in 1943, Höss had already been instrumental in the first gassings of Jewish prisoners at the camp. In 1941, he and a subordinate began experimenting with the use of Zyklon B on Russian prisoners of war. After the Wannsee Conference of January 1942, Höss was made aware of the Nazis’ plans for the Final Solution, and turned Auschwitz into the regime’s premier death factory.
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As seen in The Zone of Interest, Höss’ leadership of Auschwitz saw him and the camp identified as the perfect candidates for Operation Höss – the Nazis’ hideous plan to transport nearly half a million Hungarian Jews to Auschwitz for execution. This allowed Höss to return to the camp and to his family as around 430,000 Jews were murdered in just 56 days between May and June of 1944. Höss’ selection for this task was made on the basis of his personal commitment to the Final Solution and the logistical suitability of Auschwitz itself.
Rudolf Höss Was Captured By A Nazi Hunter After WW2 Ended
In The Zone of Interest‘s ending, Höss mysteriously vanishes down a darkened stairwell after attending a party. This ending, while symbolic of his descent into a moral abyss, does not explain what happened to the real Höss after World War 2 ended. In recognition of his role in perpetrating one of the greatest crimes against humanity ever committed, Adolf Himmler personally advised Höss to go into hiding after the war. Changing his name to Franz Lang, Höss and his family evaded detection for nearly a year, with Höss working as a gardener.
Höss was eventually uncovered in 1946 by Hanns Alexander – a German Jew-turned-Nazi-hunter working for the British government. Although Höss initially denied his identity, Alexander confirmed who he really was by inspecting his wedding ring, which bore his name. Alexander’s soldiers, who were also mostly Jewish, initially attacked Höss when it became clear who he was, but Alexander eventually pulled them off so that the former Nazi could stand trial.
Rudolf Höss’ War Crimes & Execution Explained
Along with many other prominent Nazis, Höss stood trial at Nuremberg in 1946. Unlike some others, he was relatively forthcoming about the shocking extent of his crimes. In an affidavit presented to the tribunal (via Fordham University), Höss declared:
I commanded Auschwitz until 1 December 1943, and estimate that at least 2,500,000 victims were executed and exterminated there by gassing and burning, and at least another half million succumbed to starvation and disease, making a total of about 3,000,000 dead. This figure represents about 70% or 80% of all persons sent to Auschwitz as prisoners, the remainder having been selected and used for slave labor in the concentration camp industries.
Included among the executed and burnt were approximately 20,000 Russian prisoners of war (previously screened out of Prisoner of War cages by the Gestapo) who were delivered at Auschwitz in Wehrmacht transports operated by regular Wehrmacht officers and men. The remainder of the total number of victims included about 100,000 German Jews, and great numbers of citizens (mostly Jewish) from The Netherlands, France, Belgium, Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Greece, or other countries. We executed about 400,000 Hungarian Jews alone at Auschwitz in the summer of 1944.
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Following this testimony, and a subsequent trial in Poland, Höss was charged with murder and sentenced to death by hanging. Though he subsequently revised his estimates for the total number of people killed at Auschwitz, he did eventually recognize the terrible scale of his crimes. In part of an extended statement made to Polish prosecutors, he acknowledged, “In the solitude of my prison cell, I have come to the bitter recognition that I have sinned gravely against humanity.” He was executed on April 16, 1947 at Auschwitz at the request of surviving former prisoners – a grim irony not included in The Zone of Interest.
The Zone of Interest
- Release Date
- December 15, 2023
- Director
- Jonathan Glazer
- Cast
- Christian Friedel , Sandra Hüller , Ralph Herforth , Luis Noah Witte , Johann Karthaus
- Runtime
- 105 Minutes
