The Commandant

February 1, 2012
In this monolog, Swiss playwright and poet Amann distills the 400-plus-page memoir of Auschwitz commandant Rudolf Hoess--not to be confused with Hitler's deputy, Rudolf Hess--published in the United States as "Death Dealer", which Hoess wrote after his capture and as he awaited execution in Poland in 1947. Its brevity makes it no less stomach churning. The monolog describes Hoess's rise in the SS directly under Heinrich Himmler's tutelage and shows Himmler as the most brutally efficient of functionaries, so vile and so lacking human sensibilities as to be in danger of being rendered as a cartoon character--for all that, though, he also appears as a midlevel manager. VERDICT In his afterword, journalist Ian Buruma notes that Amman has provided "the right tone of utter bleakness" in this monolog, which was originally conceived as a radio play (no translator is credited). Radio is probably the best way to present this script; it's difficult to imagine a paying audience sitting through a performance. It would be a useful source for acting exercises or as a supplementary text for Holocaust classes.--Larry Schwartz, Minnesota State Univ. Lib., Moorhead

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