Who commanded Auschwitz concentration camp for most of its existence?

Rudolf Höss commanded Auschwitz concentration camp for most of its existence, serving as its first commandant from May 1940 until November 1943.

Under Höss’s administration, Auschwitz expanded from a concentration camp into a vast camp complex that included Auschwitz II-Birkenau and Auschwitz III-Monowitz. Birkenau became the principal killing center of the complex, where Jews deported from across German-occupied Europe were murdered in gas chambers.

Höss was later transferred to other duties and returned briefly to Auschwitz in 1944 to oversee the mass deportation and murder of Hungarian Jews. Captured after the war, he testified at the Nuremberg proceedings and was executed at Auschwitz in 1947. He should not be confused with Josef Mengele, the camp physician, or Josef Kramer, a later commandant of Bergen-Belsen.