Death Is My Trade

The film rests on the life of Rudolf Höss, the commandant of Auschwitz. In the film his name is changed; he is called Franz Lang. The account is divided into fourteen parts and shows pieces of that man’s life. Childhood, the army, his rise within the party and finally the running of the camp come in turn. The film does not draw him as a monster; it shows a functionary carrying out instructions and thinking about his career. That is what is most disturbing about it. The work is adapted from a 1952 novel by Robert Merle, which itself rests on the records of Höss’s trial and on his own notes. Höss was responsible for a camp in which millions of people were murdered. Götz George takes the lead in Theodor Kotulla’s hundred and forty five minute German film, completed in 1977.