THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER WINNER OF THE JQ WINGATE PRIZE 2015SHORTLISTED FOR THE COSTA BIOGRAPHY AWARD'A gripping thriller an unspeakable crime an essential history' JOHN LE CARREHanns Alexander was the son of a prosperous German family who fled Berlin for London in the 1930s Rudolf Hoess was a farmer & soldier who became the Kommandant of Auschwitz Concentration Camp & oversaw the deaths of over a million men women & children In the aftermath of the Second World War the first British War Crimes Investigation Team is assembled to hunt down the senior Nazi officials responsible for the greatest atrocities the world has ever seen Lieutenant Hanns Alexander is one of the lead investigators Rudolf Hoess his most elusive target In this book Thomas Harding reveals for the very first time the full account of Hoess' capture Moving from the Middle-Eastern campaigns of the First World War to bohemian Berlin in the 1920s to the horror of the concentration camps & the trials in Belsen & Nuremberg Hanns & Rudolf tells the story of two German men whose lives diverged & intersected in an astonishing way