Described as one of the greatest mass-murderers in history, Rudolf Hoss, was born in Baden-Baden, on the edge of Germany's Black Forest region, on 11 December 1901\. As a child, his aim was to join the priesthood, but in his early youth he became disillusioned with religion and turned instead to the Army. Hoss joined the 21st Regiment of Dragoons, his father's and grandfather's old regiment, at the age of just 14\. He served with the Ottoman Army in its fight against the British, serving in Palestine and being present at the Siege of Kut-el-Amara. During this period, he was promoted to the rank of Feldwebel, becoming, at that time, the youngest Non-commissioned officer in the German Army. He was also decorated, receiving among other awards the Iron Cross, First and Second class. In the midst of the political upheavals in post-war Germany, Hoss was drawn to the hard-line philosophies of Adolph Hitler, joining the Nazi Party in 1922\. His ruthless commitment to the Nazi cause saw him convicted of participating in at least one political assassination, for which he spent six years in prison. Predictably, Hoss joined the SS and in 1934 became a Blockfuhrer, or Block Leader, at Dachau concentration camp. His ruthless dedication led to him becoming the adjutant to the camp commandant at another concentration camp, Sachsenhausen. Then, in May 1940, Hoss was given command of his own camp near the town of Auschwitz. In June 1941, Hoss was told that Auschwitz had been selected as the site for the Final Solution of the Jewish question. Hoss set about his task with relish, and a determination to kill as many Jews as quickly and efficiently as possible. By his own estimation, he was responsible for the deaths of at least 3,000,000,000 individuals. Justice caught up with Hoss after the German surrender when he was arrested on 11 March 1946, after a year posing as a gardener under a false name. He was found guilty of war crimes and was hanged on 16 April 1947.

Born on 17 June 1900, Martin Ludwig Bormann became one of the most powerful and most feared men in the Third Reich. An obsessive bureaucrat, it was Bormann who helped steer Hitler's apparatus of terror so effectively that he became the clandestine ruler of Nazi Germany. After joining the Nazi Party in 1927 Bormann rose through its ranks. Indeed, by July 1933 Bormann had manoeuvered himself into the position where he became the Chief of Cabinet in the Office of the Deputy F hrer, Rudolf Hess. In this role Bormann gradually consolidated his power base, so that when Hess carried out his infamous flight to the United Kingdom in 1941, Bormann stepped into his shoes. As the head of the Party Chancellery, Bormann duly took control of the Nazi Party. By the end of 1942, he was in effect Hitler's deputy and his closest collaborator. With the F hrer increasingly preoccupied with military matters, Hitler came to rely more and more on Bormann to handle Germany's domestic affairs. On 12 April 1943, Bormann was appointed Personal Secretary to the F hrer. Feared by ministers, Gauleiters, civil servants, judges and generals alike, Bormann identified strongly with Hitler's ideas on racial politics, destruction of the Jews and forced labour and made himself indispensable as the F hrer's executioner. Cold as ice, he decided the fate of millions of people. In January 1945, with the Third Reich collapsing, Bormann returned to the F hrerbunker with Hitler. Following Hitler's suicide on 30 April, Bormann was named as Party Minister, thus officially confirming his rise to the top of the Party. Late the following day he fled from the bunker in an attempt to escape the encircling Red Army; his fate remaining a mystery for many years. In October 1946 he was found guilty in absentia by the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg and sentenced to death. Drawing heavily on recently declassified documents and files, the historian and journalist Volker Koop reveals the full story of the most faithful member of Hitler's inner circle, an individual who, whilst little known to the German people, became the second most powerful man in the Third Reich.