Hanns and Rudolf: The German Jew and the Hunt for the Kommandant of Auschwitz (Paperback)
Thomas Harding (author)
£9.99
Paperback
384 Pages /
Published: 01/05/2014
- In stock online
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 CARRE
Hanns Alexander was the son of a prosperous German family who fled Berlin for London in the 1930s.
Rudolf Hoess 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.
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 Hoess his most elusive target.
In this book Thomas Harding reveals for the very first time the full account of Hoess' 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.
Publisher: Cornerstone
ISBN: 9780099559054
Number of pages: 384
Weight: 366 g
Dimensions: 198 x 129 x 27 mm
MEDIA 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 *
"Fascinating and moving...This is a remarkable book, which deserves a wide readership." -- Max Hastings * The Sunday Times *
"A gripping thriller, an unspeakable crime, an essential history." -- John Le Carre
"This is a stunning book...both chilling and deeply disturbing. It is also an utterly compelling and exhilarating account of one man's extraordinary hunt for the Kommandant of the most notorious death camp of all, Auschwitz-Birkenau." -- James Holland
"Only at his great uncle's funeral in 2006 did Thomas Harding discover that Hanns Alexander, whose Jewish family fled to Britain from Nazi Germany in the 1930s, hunted down and captured Rudolf Hoess, the ruthless commandant of Auschwitz, at the end of World War Two. By tracing the lives of these two men in parallel until their dramatic convergence in 1946, Harding puts the monstrous evil of the Final Solution in two specific but very different human contexts. The result is a compelling book full of unexpected revelations and insights, an authentic addition to our knowledge and understanding of this dark chapter in European history. No-one who starts reading it can fail to go on to the end." -- David Lodge
"Fascinating and moving...This is a remarkable book, which deserves a wide readership." -- Max Hastings * The Sunday Times *
"A gripping thriller, an unspeakable crime, an essential history." -- John Le Carre
"This is a stunning book...both chilling and deeply disturbing. It is also an utterly compelling and exhilarating account of one man's extraordinary hunt for the Kommandant of the most notorious death camp of all, Auschwitz-Birkenau." -- James Holland
"Only at his great uncle's funeral in 2006 did Thomas Harding discover that Hanns Alexander, whose Jewish family fled to Britain from Nazi Germany in the 1930s, hunted down and captured Rudolf Hoess, the ruthless commandant of Auschwitz, at the end of World War Two. By tracing the lives of these two men in parallel until their dramatic convergence in 1946, Harding puts the monstrous evil of the Final Solution in two specific but very different human contexts. The result is a compelling book full of unexpected revelations and insights, an authentic addition to our knowledge and understanding of this dark chapter in European history. No-one who starts reading it can fail to go on to the end." -- David Lodge
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“An Educational Read”
Thomas Harding has written about the life of his great uncle Hanns. Hanns and his family were German Jews who fled Germany to live in England. The family have to rebuild their lives in England and with the outbreak of... More
“Hanns and Rudolf”
I won this book in a Waterstones competition and it is an absolutely fascinating read! I'd highly recommend it.
“Thoughtprovoking”
This is a true story but it reads like a fictional thriller, which is a very rare quality. We follow the lives of Hanns Alexander, a German Jew & the author's great-uncle, alongside that of Rudolf Hoss,a... More
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