National Socialists gain power over the Republic, Lang becomes an Unterscharführer with the SS riders, and in 1934 SS Reich leader Himmler offers him an administrative post at the Dachau concentration camp close to Munich. Even though he and his wife would prefer to carry on working in agriculture, Lang accepts the offer as a "commitment to the party and the homeland" which Himmler approves. Lang points out to his wife that the SS Reich Leader had chosen him particularly because of these organisational skills and his experience as a prisoner. After all, he himself had been imprisoned for five years. In the Dachau concentration camp Franz Lang is finally trained to be the future camp commander. He fulfils his duties without protest and, as years go by, he is promoted to the rank of SS-Sturmbannführer. During World War II Lang is once again summoned to Himmler who informs him, under strict confidentiality, about Hitler´s plan to annihilate the Jews in the holocaust and about the camps, which are planned in Poland. As a result, Lang takes over the Auschwitz extermination camp in Poland, which is now occupied by the Germans. Adolf Eichmann informs him about the "capacities" of the camp. Until then, according to the party leadership the killings were too ineffective. More or less incidentally, Lang develops the idea of using the poison cyclone B as a "hygienically clean" and "effective" solution to gas the Jews who are deported to Auschwitz. Because he implements this method successfully in the camp, he is promoted to the rank of SS-Obersturmbannführer after Himmler has visited him there. During a meal with the head of the Chelmno concentration camp Lang´s wife Else finds out what is going on in the camp and when she tackles him he defends himself by saying it is his duty. He does not contradict his wife when she assumes that he would also kill their children if he was told to. He even admits that he would do so. He argues that he is not responsible for what he does in the camp, as he is following orders given by his superiors. At the end of the war Lang hides out at a farm in the American occupation zone. He is found by American soldiers and subsequently imprisoned. During an interrogation, when Lang is asked by a US officer whether he thinks that the eradication of the Jews was right, he says: "It is not relevant what I believe, I only obeyed." Franz Lang is extradited to Poland where he is sentenced to death and subsequently hung in Auschwitz. External links References Category:1977 films Category:1970s biographical films Category:1970s war films Category:German biographical films Category:German war films Category:German films Category:Holocaust films Category:Films based on French novels Category:Films set in the 1920s Category:Films set in the 1930s Category:Films set in the 1940s