Editing Auschwitz concentration camp (section)

===SS garrison===
{{Main|SS command of Auschwitz concentration camp|SS-Totenkopfverbände}}
{{multiple image
| direction = vertical
| width = 220
| image1 = Richard Baer, Josef Mengele, Rudolf Hoess, Auschwitz. Album Höcker.jpg
| caption1 = From the [[Höcker Album]] (''left to right''): [[Richard Baer]] (Auschwitz commandant from May 1944), [[Josef Mengele]] (camp physician), and [[Rudolf Höss]] (first commandant) in [[Solahütte]], an SS resort near Auschwitz, summer 1944.<ref name=Wilkinson17March2008>{{cite news |last1=Wilkinson |first1=Alec |author-link1=Alec Wilkinson |title=Picturing Auschwitz |url=http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/03/17/080317fa_fact_wilkinson |magazine=The New Yorker |date=17 March 2008 |archive-url=https://archive.today/20121208140847/http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/03/17/080317fa_fact_wilkinson |archive-date=8 December 2012 |url-status=live |access-date=3 January 2020}}</ref>
| image2 = 784648 Oświęcim, obóz zagłady "Auschwitz" -dom komendanta obozu 05.JPG
| caption2 = The commandant's and administration building, Auschwitz I
}}
[[Rudolf Höss]], born in [[Baden-Baden]] in 1901,<ref>{{harvnb|Lasik|1998b|p=288}}; {{harvnb|Lasik|2000b|p=154}}.</ref> was named the first commandant of Auschwitz when [[Heinrich Himmler]] ordered on 27 April 1940 that the camp be established.{{sfn|Lasik|2000a|p=154}} Living with his wife and children in a two-story [[stucco]] house near the commandant's and administration building,{{sfn|Harding|2013|p=100}} he served as commandant until 11 November 1943,{{sfn|Lasik|2000a|p=154}} with [[Josef Kramer]] as his deputy.{{sfn|Gutman|1998|p=16}} Succeeded as commandant by [[Arthur Liebehenschel]],{{sfn|Lasik|2000a|p=154}} Höss joined the SS [[SS Main Economic and Administrative Office|Business and Administration Head Office]] in Oranienburg as director of Amt DI,{{sfn|Lasik|2000a|p=154}} a post that made him deputy of the camps inspectorate.{{sfn|Lasik|1998b|pp=294–295}}

[[Richard Baer]] became commandant of Auschwitz I on 11 May 1944 and [[Fritz Hartjenstein]] of Auschwitz II from 22 November 1943, followed by Josef Kramer from 15 May 1944 until the camp's liquidation in January 1945. [[Heinrich Schwarz]] was commandant of Auschwitz III from the point at which it became an autonomous camp in November 1943 until its liquidation.{{sfn|Lasik|2000a|pp=153–157}} Höss returned to Auschwitz between 8 May and 29 July 1944 as the local SS garrison commander (''Standortältester'') to oversee the arrival of Hungary's Jews, which made him the superior officer of all the commandants of the Auschwitz camps.{{sfn|Lasik|2000a|p=154}}

According to [[Aleksander Lasik]], about 6,335 people (6,161 of them men) worked for the SS at Auschwitz over the course of the camp's existence;{{sfn|Lasik|2000b|p=314}} 4.2 percent were officers, 26.1 percent non-commissioned officers, and 69.7 percent rank and file.{{sfn|Lasik|1998a|p=282}} In March 1941, there were 700 SS guards; in June 1942, 2,000; and in August 1944, 3,342. At its peak in January 1945, 4,480 SS men and 71 SS women worked in Auschwitz; the higher number is probably attributable to the logistics of evacuating the camp.{{sfn|Lasik|2000b|p=299}} Female guards were known as SS supervisors (''SS-Aufseherinnen'').{{sfn|Lasik|1998a|p=274}}

Most of the staff were from Germany or Austria, but as the war progressed, increasing numbers of ''[[Volksdeutsche]]'' from other countries, including Czechoslovakia, Poland, Yugoslavia, and the Baltic states, joined the SS at Auschwitz. Not all were ethnically German. Guards were also recruited from Hungary, Romania, and Slovakia.{{sfn|Lasik|2000b|pp=323–324}} Camp guards, around three quarters of the SS personnel, were members of the ''[[SS-Totenkopfverbände]]'' ([[Totenkopf|death's head]] units).{{sfn|Lasik|1998a|p=273}} Other SS staff worked in the medical or political departments, or in the economic administration, which was responsible for clothing and other supplies, including the property of dead prisoners.{{sfn|Lasik|1998a|pp=272–273}} The SS viewed Auschwitz as a comfortable posting; being there meant they had avoided the front and had access to the victims' property.{{sfn|Lasik|1998a|p=285}}