Rudolf Höß comes as commander to the Polish town Oswiecim (Auschwitz), to build up a new concentration camp, to imprison all those, who oppose the Nazis in Poland.
But the surrounding of Auschwitz with its ressources of coal, lime and water arouse the interest of the industry enterprise IG Farben. After SS-leader Heinrich Himmler gave his consent to the extension of the camp, it should be enlarged and forced labourers should fabricate composition rubber.
With the attack on Russia in 1941 the process of "Germanisierung" of the East starts and Jews are executed by SS- killer commands. As these forces should not do mass executions, the Nazis searches for alternatives and in 1941 the first experiments with cyclon B start. From then on it is applied as means of execution.
Rudolf Höß as commander of the camp often acts on his own initiative, though he will deny this later. Thus the camp is enlarged in October 1941. But the machinery of murder does not work efficient enough, as the crematorium is too small and one could still hear the screaming of the victims. Höß agrees on the alteration of the "small red house" in Birkenau near Auschwitz. Here the killing should be more discrete. But soon this house is also too small, as people from all over Europe are deported to Auschwitz.
1942 is the year of the "final solution". Jews from everywhere are brought to Auschwitz. At first from France, because the Vichy-regime turns the "foreign" Jews over to the Nazis. More than 4.000 Jewish children are seperated from their parents, deported and gased. In the East all the Jews of the "Generalgouvernement" should be killed in Treblinka. This camp is built up like station, with flowers and signs to create a feeling of security. Here more than 3.000 persons are gased per day. 99% of the persons arriving are dead within two hours. Höß wants to expand Auschwitz in a similar way. New crematoria are built, which are ready for use in march 1943.
Two months later SS-captain Dr. Josef Mengele becomes the new doctor of the camp, who got known as the "Angel of Death".
In 1943 Auschwitz has 40 additional camps, providing space for the forced workers, who are a good source of income for the Nazis. They also made money by selling the clothes and posessions of the gased Jews.
To fight corruption in the camp there is a observer set in , who detects various crimes, but Höß, instead of being disciplinised, is promoted and gets a job in the administration of the concentration camps in Berlin.
Finally Himmler agrees to the formation of a bagnio in the camp, to allow certain prisoners to go to the women, forced to be prostitutes there, to influence them and make them henchmen.
At that time Dr. Mengele is already making brutal experiments with the inmates. Especially children are his victims.
1944 was the cruelest year in the history of Auschwitz. The Allies think of negotiating about the liberation of th Jews or of bombing the camps. Hungary, though allied with Nazi-Germany, had not turned its Jews over, but when Adolf Eichmann comes to visit Budapest here also start the deportations. 437.000 Hungarian Jews are brought to Auschwitz and three quarters of them are killed right after their arrival. eichmann offers the Jewish community to save one million Jews if, as service in return, Germany woukd be provided with important goods. But this deal does not come into action, though the English and the Americans knew about Auschwitz.
In the camp there are disturbances. A rebellion of the persons working in the gas chambers is beaten down brutally.
When th Red Army is approaching in 1944/45 finally the end of Auschwitz seem to have come and the gas chambers are destroyed. The liberation took place on 27 January 1945. The situation of the survivors and the ruins of the gas chambers shock the soldiers.
In the following months more camps are freed, such as Bergen-Belsen, where inmates from Auschwitz were brought.
Many of the former inmates die in the days and weeks after the liberation, on the whole 28.000 people.
The new freedom also brought problems, many were treated with hostility and had nowhere to go back to.
Many of the Nazis could escape and hide. Höß is detected on a farm in Northern Germany. Eichmann and Mengele escape to Argentina. Höß is condemned to death and hanged in Auschwitz, Eichmann is detected in 1960 in Buenos Aires by the Isralis, condemned and executed one year later, but Mengele can evade an arrest until his death in 1979. Only few of the responsibles from Auschwitz are called to account.

Auschwitz is the site of the cruelest mass murder in history - more than one million people were killed in this camp.