Gustave Gilbert. “And it never occurred to you,” Gilbert asked Höss, “to refuse the orders that Himmler gave to you regarding the so-called ‘Final Solution’?”1 “No,” replied Höss, “from our entire training the thought of refusing an order just didn’t enter one’s head, regardless of what kind of order it was ... I guess you cannot understand our world. I naturally had to obey orders.” Höss thus placed himself squarely in the phalanx of German soldiers who, after the war was lost, wanted the world to think that they had been robots, blindly following whatever commands were given to them regardless of their own personal feelings. But the truth is that Höss was far from an automaton. During the last six months of 1941 and the first six months of 1942 Höss was at his most innovative, not just following orders but using his own initiative to help increase the killing capacity of Auschwitz. And it was not just Höss who was thinking and acting in this way during this crucial period—many other Nazis also played their parts.
