The Commandant’s Shadow Out now | ★★★★★ Reviewed by Alma Green Daniela Völker’s feature-length documentary The Commandant’s Shadow follows the journey of Hans Jürgen Höss, the 87-year-old son of Rudolf Höss, the commandant of Auschwitz and history’s most prolific mass murderer. After a lifetime of avoiding the truth behind his upper middle-class German childhood in a house besides Auschwitz, he confronts it, and he does so with his son, Kai Höss, in tow. Comparisons between The Commandant’s Shadow and The Zone of Interest (loosely based on Martin Amis’s novel of the same name) are tempting to make, especially as both projects were produced by the BBC’s former director of television, Danny Cohen.
However, while The Zone of Interest explores the banality of evil, The Commandant’s Shadow is concerned with its legacy, in how guilt trickles down the generations. In this utterly fascinating film we are introduced to four generations of the Höss family, and each one grapples with the family’s terrible inheritance in its own way. Völker’s directing encourages us to warm to Hans early on: he comes across as a jovial grandfather with a childish sense of humour.
Yet, for most of the film he’s in deep denial about his father’s crimes. This is a cause of deep frustration for his more introspective son, Kai, who is a pastor. In one particularly poignant scene the pair are seen walking in Hans’s childhood garden, which shares a wall with the.
