Video: 'The Rough Arrest Of The Commandant Of Auschwitz'

(Monday, March 11, 1946, approximately 11:00 p.m. Central European Time) — A ten-month manhunt for one of the world’s most wanted war criminals ended tonight when a British Field Security team burst into a farmhouse in the small village of Gottrupel, near the German town of Flensburg, close to the Danish border and dragged Rudolf Höss from his bed.

The arrest of the 45-year-old SS officer was the result of a tireless pursuit by British intelligence, fueled by information extracted from his wife, Hedwig.

British officials reported that Höss at first stubbornly maintained his false identity as a laborer. However, he broke his silence after being confronted with a wedding ring taken from his finger, which bore the inscribed names “Rudolf” and “Hedwig.”

Video: 'Butcher Of Auschwitz: The Twisted Story Of Rudolf Höss'

Military investigators describe Höss as the primary architect of the mass killings at the Auschwitz concentration camp, a complex of over 40 concentration and extermination camps operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland during World War II and The Holocaust.

Early reports from the scene indicate that Höss has already begun to confess his role in the deaths of millions of prisoners, the vast majority of whom were Jewish.

Höss is expected to be moved under heavy guard to a high-security military prison. Allied authorities indicate he will eventually be brought before a war crimes tribunal to answer for the atrocities committed under his command.