Rudolf Walther Hess was born in Germany in 1900. He joined the German Army at the age of seventeen and in the First World War won the Iron Cross for bravery.

After the war he joined the Rossbach Freikorps where he fought with Martin Bormann. In 1922 Hess joined the National Socialist German Workers Party (NSDAP) but two years later he Bormann were both jailed for murdering a man in the French-occupied Ruhr.

Released in 1928, Hess joined the Schutzstaffel (SS) in 1934. Hess worked in the concentration camp in Dachau before being appointed as adjutant to the commander of Sachsenhausen in 1938. Two years later, in May 1940, he became commander of Auschwitz in occupied Poland.

In June, 1941, Heinrich Himmler ordered that Auschwitz be greatly increased in size and the following year it became an extermination camp. Bathhouses disguised as gas chambers were added. Hess introduced Zyklon-B gas, that enabled the Nazis to kill 2,000 people at a time.

Hess was promoted to Deputy Inspector General and took charge of the Schutzstaffel (SS) department that administered German concentration camps.

When Germany surrendered in April, 1945, Höss managed to avoid capture and worked on a farm. He was eventually captured and at his trial admitted that around 3,000,000 people were killed at Auschwitz. Rudolf Walther Hess was found guilty of war crimes and executed at Auschwitz on 15th April, 1947. His autobiography, Commandant of Auschwitz, was published in 1951.