On
this date, May 23, 1945, the Reichsführer-SS, Heinrich Himmler committed suicide by a cyanide
pill. I will post the information about him from Wikipedia and other links.
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Heinrich Himmler
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In
office
6 January 1929 – 29 April 1945 |
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Leader
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Adolf Hitler
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Preceded by
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Erhard Heiden
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Succeeded by
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Karl Hanke
|
Chief
of German Police in the Reich Ministry of the Interior
|
|
In
office
17 June 1936 – 29 April 1945 |
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Leader
|
Adolf Hitler
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Preceded by
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Office established
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Succeeded by
|
Karl Hanke
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Reich
Commissioner for the Strengthening of German Nationhood
|
|
In
office
7 October 1939 – 29 April 1945 |
|
Leader
|
Adolf Hitler
|
Preceded by
|
Office established
|
Succeeded by
|
None
|
Director
of the Reich Main Security Office (acting)
|
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In
office
4 June 1942 – 30 January 1943 |
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Preceded by
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Reinhard Heydrich
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Succeeded by
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Ernst Kaltenbrunner
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Reich
Minister of the Interior
|
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In
office
24 August 1943 – 29 April 1945 |
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Chancellor
|
Adolf Hitler
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Preceded by
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Wilhelm Frick
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Succeeded by
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Wilhelm Stuckart
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Personal
details
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Born
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Heinrich Luitpold Himmler
7 October 1900 Munich, Bavaria, Germany |
Died
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23 May 1945 (aged 44)
Lüneburg, Lower Saxony, Germany |
Political party
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National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP)
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Spouse(s)
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Margarete Boden (m. 1928)
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Children
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Alma mater
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Technische Universität München
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Profession
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Agronomist
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Cabinet
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Hitler Cabinet
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Religion
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Neo Pagan
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Military
service
|
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Allegiance
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German Empire
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Service/branch
|
Heer
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Years of service
|
1917–1918
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Rank
|
Fahnenjunker
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Unit
|
11th Bavarian Infantry Regiment
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Battles/wars
|
World War I
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Heinrich Luitpold Himmler (7 October 1900 – 23 May 1945)
was Reichsführer of the Schutzstaffel (SS), a military commander,
and a leading member of the Nazi Party (NSDAP) of Nazi Germany. Nazi leader Adolf
Hitler later appointed him Commander of the Replacement (Home) Army and General
Plenipotentiary for the administration of the entire Third Reich (Generalbevollmächtigter
für die Verwaltung). Himmler was one of the most powerful men in Nazi
Germany and one of the persons most directly responsible for the Holocaust.
As
a member of a reserve battalion during World War I, Himmler did not see active
service. He studied agronomy in college, and joined the Nazi Party in 1923 and
the SS in 1925. In 1929, he was appointed Reichsführer-SS by Hitler.
Over the next 16 years, he developed the SS from a mere 290-man battalion into
a powerful group with its own military, and, following Hitler's orders, set up
and controlled the Nazi concentration camps. He was known to have good
organisational skills and for selecting highly competent subordinates, such as Reinhard
Heydrich in 1931. From 1943 forward, he was both Chief of German Police and
Minister of the Interior, overseeing all internal and external police and
security forces, including the Gestapo (Secret State Police).
On
Hitler's behalf, Himmler formed the Einsatzgruppen and built extermination
camps. As facilitator and overseer of the concentration camps, Himmler directed
the killing of some six million Jews, between 200,000 and 500,000 Romani people,
and other victims; the total number of civilians killed by the regime is
estimated at eleven to fourteen million people. Most of them were Polish and Soviet
citizens.
Late
in World War II, Hitler charged Himmler with the command of the Army Group
Upper Rhine and the Army Group Vistula; he failed to achieve his assigned
objectives and Hitler replaced him in these posts. Shortly before the end of
the war, realising that the war was lost, he attempted to open peace talks with
the western Allies without Hitler's knowledge. Hearing of this, Hitler
dismissed him from all his posts in April 1945 and ordered his arrest. Himmler
attempted to go into hiding, but was detained and then arrested by British
forces once his identity became known. While in British custody, he committed
suicide on 23 May 1945.
Early
life
Heinrich
Luitpold Himmler was born in Munich on 7 October 1900 into a conservative
middle-class Roman Catholic family. His father was Gebhard Himmler (17 May 1865
– 29 October 1936), a teacher, and his mother was Anna Maria Himmler (née
Heyder) (16 January 1866 – 10 September 1941), a devout Roman Catholic.
Heinrich had two brothers, Gebhard Ludwig (29 July 1898 – 1982) and Ernst Hermann (23 December 1905 – 2 May
1945).
Himmler's
first name, Heinrich, was that of his godfather, Prince Heinrich of Bavaria, a member of
the royal family of
Bavaria, who had been tutored by Gebhard Himmler.
He attended a grammar school in Landshut, where his father was deputy principal. While he
did well in his schoolwork, he struggled in athletics. He had poor health,
suffering from lifelong stomach complaints and other ailments. In his youth he
trained daily with weights and exercised to become stronger. Other boys at the
school later remembered him as studious and awkward in social situations.
Himmler's
diary, which he kept intermittently from the age of ten, shows that he took a
keen interest in current events, dueling, and "the serious discussion of
religion and sex". In 1915, he began training with the Landshut Cadet Corps.
His father used his connections with the royal family to get Himmler accepted
as an officer candidate, and he enlisted with the reserve battalion of the 11th
Bavarian Regiment in December 1917. His brother, Gebhard, served on the western
front and saw combat, receiving the Iron Cross
and eventually being promoted to lieutenant. In November 1918, while Himmler
was still in training, the war ended with Germany's defeat, denying him the
opportunity to become an officer or see combat. After his discharge on 18
December, he returned to Landshut.
After
the war, Himmler completed his grammar-school education. From 1919 to 1922, he
studied agronomy
at the Munich Technische Hochschule (now Technical University Munich) following
a brief apprenticeship on a farm and a subsequent illness.
Although
many regulations that discriminated against non-Christians—including Jews and
other minority groups—had been eliminated during the unification of Germany in 1871, antisemitism
continued to exist and thrive in Germany and other parts of Europe. Himmler was
antisemitic by the time he went to university, but not exceptionally so;
students at his school would avoid their Jewish classmates. He remained a
devoted Catholic while a student, and spent most of his leisure time with
members of his fencing fraternity, the "League of Apollo", the
president of which was Jewish. Himmler maintained a polite demeanor with him
and with other Jewish members of the fraternity, in spite of his growing
antisemitism. During his second year at university, Himmler redoubled his
attempts to pursue a military career. Although he was not successful, he was
able to extend his involvement in the paramilitary scene in Munich. It was at
this time that he first met Ernst Röhm, an
early member of the Nazi Party and co-founder of the Sturmabteilung
("Storm Battalion"; SA). Himmler admired Röhm because he was a
decorated combat soldier, and at his suggestion Himmler joined his antisemitic
nationalist group, the Bund Reichskriegsflagge (Imperial War
Flag Society).
In
1922, Himmler became more interested in the 'Jewish
question', with his diary entries containing an increasing number of
antisemitic remarks and recording a number of discussions about Jews with his
classmates. His reading lists, as recorded in his diary, were dominated by
antisemitic pamphlets, German myths, and occult tracts. After the murder of
Foreign Minister Walther Rathenau on 24 June, Himmler's political
views veered towards the radical right, and he took part in demonstrations
against the Treaty of Versailles. Hyperinflation was raging
that summer, and his parents could no longer afford to educate all three sons.
Disappointed by his failure to make a career in the military and his parents'
inability to finance his doctoral studies, he was forced to take a low-paying
office job after obtaining his agricultural diploma. He remained in this
position until September 1923.
Nazi
activist
Himmler
joined the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in August 1923; his Party number was 14,303. As a
member of Röhm's paramilitary unit, Himmler was involved in the Beer Hall Putsch — an unsuccessful attempt by Hitler
and the NSDAP to seize power in Munich. This event would set Himmler on a life
of politics. He was questioned by the police about his role in the putsch, but
was not charged because of insufficient evidence. But he lost his job, was
unable to find employment as an agronomist, and had to move in with his parents
in Munich. Frustrated by these failures, he became ever more irritable,
aggressive, and opinionated, alienating both friends and family members.
In
1923–24, Himmler, while searching for a world view, came to abandon Catholicism
and focused on the occult and in antisemitism. Germanic mythology, reinforced
by occult ideas, became a religion for him. Himmler found the NSDAP appealing
because its political positions agreed with his own views. Initially, he was
not swept up by Hitler's charisma or the cult of Führer worship. As he learned
more about Hitler through his reading, he began to regard him as a useful face
of the party, and he later admired and even worshipped him. To consolidate and
advance his own position in the NSDAP, Himmler took advantage of the disarray
in the party following Hitler's arrest in the wake of the Beer Hall Putsch.
From mid-1924 he worked under Gregor
Strasser as a party secretary and propaganda assistant. Travelling all over
Bavaria agitating for the party, he gave speeches and distributed literature.
Placed in charge of the party office in Lower Bavaria by Strasser from late
1924, he was responsible for integrating the area's membership with the NSDAP
under Hitler when the party was re-founded in February 1925.
That
same year, he joined the Schutzstaffel (SS) as an SS-Führer (SS-Leader); his SS number
was 168. The SS, initially part of the much larger SA, was formed in 1923 for
Hitler's personal protection, and was re-formed in 1925 as an elite unit of the
SA. Himmler's first leadership position in the SS was that of SS-Gauführer
(district leader) in Lower Bavaria from 1926. Strasser appointed Himmler deputy
propaganda chief in January 1927. As was typical in the NSDAP, he had
considerable freedom of action in his post, which increased over time. He began
to collect statistics on the number of Jews, Freemasons,
and enemies of the party, and following his strong need for control, he
developed an elaborate bureaucracy. In September 1927, Himmler told Hitler of
his vision to transform the SS into a loyal, powerful, racially-pure elite
unit. Convinced that Himmler was the man for the job, Hitler appointed him
Deputy Reichsführer-SS, with the rank of SS-Oberführer.
Around
this time, Himmler joined the Artaman
League, a Völkisch youth group. There he met Rudolf Höss, who was later commandant of Auschwitz concentration camp, and Walther
Darré, whose book, The Peasantry as the Life Source of the Nordic Race,
caught Hitler's attention, leading to his later appointment as Reich Minister
of Food and Agriculture. Darré was a firm believer in the superiority of the Nordic race,
and his philosophy was a major influence on Himmler.
Rise
in the SS
Main
article: Machtergreifung
Upon
the resignation of SS commander Erhard
Heiden in 1929, Himmler assumed the position of Reichsführer-SS with
Hitler's approval; he still carried out his duties at propaganda headquarters.
One of his first responsibilities was to organise SS participants at the Nuremberg
Rally that September. Over the next year, Himmler grew the SS from a force
of about 290 men to about 3,000. By 1930 Himmler had persuaded Hitler to run
the SS as a separate organisation, although it was still subordinate to the SA.
To
gain political power, the NSDAP took advantage of the economic downturn during
the Great Depression. The coalition government of the Weimar
Republic was unable to improve the economy, so many voters turned to the
political extreme, which included the NSDAP. Hitler used populist
rhetoric, including blaming scapegoats—particularly the Jews—for the economic
hardships. In the 1932 election, the Nazis won 37.3 percent of the vote and 230
seats in the Reichstag. Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany by President Paul von Hindenburg on 30 January 1933, heading a
short-lived coalition of his Nazis and the German National People's Party. The
new cabinet initially included only three members of the NSDAP: Hitler, Hermann Göring as minister without portfolio and Minister
of the Interior for Prussia, and Wilhelm Frick
as Reich Interior Minister.
Less than a month later, the Reichstag
building was set on fire. Hitler took advantage of this event, forcing von
Hindenburg to sign the Reichstag Fire Decree, which suspended basic
rights and allowed detention without trial.
The Enabling Act, passed by the Reichstag in 1933,
gave the Cabinet—in practice, Hitler—full legislative powers, and the country
became a de facto dictatorship. On 1 August 1934, Hitler's cabinet passed a law
which stipulated that upon von Hindenburg's death, the office of president
would be abolished and its powers merged with those of the chancellor. Von
Hindenburg died the next morning, and Hitler became both head of state and head
of government under the title Führer und Reichskanzler (leader and
chancellor).
The
Nazi Party's rise to power provided Himmler and the SS an unfettered
opportunity to thrive. By 1933, the SS numbered 52,000 members. Strict
membership requirements ensured that all members were of Hitler's Aryan Herrenvolk
("Aryan master race"). Applicants were vetted for Nordic qualities—in
Himmler's words, "like a nursery gardener trying to reproduce a good old
strain which has been adulterated and debased; we started from the principles
of plant selection and then proceeded quite unashamedly to weed out the men
whom we did not think we could use for the build-up of the SS." Few dared
mention that by his own standards, Himmler did not meet his own ideals.
Himmler's
organised, bookish intellect served him well as he began setting up different
SS departments. In 1931 he appointed Reinhard
Heydrich chief of the new 'Ic Service' (intelligence service), which was
renamed the Sicherheitsdienst (SD: Security Service) in
1932. He later officially appointed Heydrich his deputy. The two men had a good
working relationship and a mutual respect. In 1933, they began to remove the SS
from SA control. Along with Interior Minister Frick, they hoped to create a
unified German police force. In March 1933, Reich Governor of Bavaria Franz Ritter von Epp appointed Himmler chief
of the Munich Police. Himmler appointed Heydrich commander of Department IV,
the political police. That same year, Hitler promoted Himmler to the rank of
SS-Obergruppenführer, equal in rank to the senior
SA commanders. Thereafter, Himmler and Heydrich took over the political police
of state after state; soon only Prussia was controlled by Göring.
Himmler
further established the SS Race and Settlement Main Office
(Rasse- und Siedlungshauptamt or RuSHA), a racist and antisemitic
organisation. He appointed Darré as its first chief, with the rank of SS-Gruppenführer.
The department implemented racial policies and monitored the "racial
integrity" of the SS membership. SS men were carefully vetted for their
racial background. On 31 December 1931, Himmler introduced the "marriage
order", which required SS men wishing to marry to produce family trees proving
that both families were of Aryan descent to 1800. If any non-Aryan forebears
were found in either family tree during the racial investigation, the person
concerned was excluded from the SS. Each man was issued a Sippenbuch,
a genealogical record detailing his genetic history. Himmler expected that each
SS marriage should produce at least four children, thus creating a pool of
genetically superior prospective SS members. The programme had disappointing
results; less than 40 per cent of SS men married and each produced only about
one child.
In
March 1933, less than three months after the Nazis seized power, Himmler set up
the first official concentration camp at Dachau. Hitler had stated that he did not want it
to be just another prison or detention camp. Himmler appointed Theodor Eicke, a convicted felon and ardent Nazi,
to run the camp in June 1933. Eicke devised a system that was used as a model
for future camps throughout Germany. Its features included isolation of victims
from the outside world, elaborate roll calls and work details, the use of force
and executions to extract obedience, and a strict disciplinary code for the
guards. Uniforms were issued for prisoners and guards alike; the guards'
uniforms had a special Totenkopf (death's head) insignia on their collars. By
the end of 1934, Himmler took control of the camps under the aegis of the SS,
creating a separate division, the SS-Totenkopfverbände.
Initially
the camps housed political opponents; over time, undesirable members of German
society—criminals, vagrants, deviants—were placed in the camps as well. A
Hitler decree issued in December 1937 allowed for the incarceration of anyone
deemed by the regime to be an undesirable member of society. This included
Jews, Gypsies, communists, and those persons of any other cultural, racial,
political, or religious affiliation deemed by the Nazis to be Untermensch
(sub-human). Thus, the camps became a mechanism for social and racial
engineering. By the outbreak of World War II in autumn 1939, there were six
camps housing some 27,000 inmates. Death tolls were high.
Main
article: Night of the Long Knives
In
early 1934, Hitler and other Nazi leaders became concerned that Röhm was
planning a coup d'état. Röhm had socialist and populist views, and believed
that the real revolution had not yet begun. He felt that the SA—now numbering
some three million men, far dwarfing the army—should become the sole
arms-bearing corps of the state, and that the army should be absorbed into the
SA under his leadership. Röhm lobbied Hitler to appoint him Minister
of Defence, a position held by conservative General Werner von Blomberg.
Göring
had created a Prussian secret police force, the Geheime Staatspolizei
or Gestapo in November 1933, and appointed Rudolf
Diels as its head. Göring, concerned that Diels was not ruthless enough to
use the Gestapo effectively to counteract the power of the SA, handed over its
control to Himmler on 20 April 1934. Also on that date, Hitler appointed
Himmler chief of all German police outside Prussia. This was a radical
departure from long-standing German practice that law enforcement was a state
and local matter. Heydrich, named chief of the Gestapo by Himmler on 22 April
1934, also continued as head of the SD.
Hitler
decided on 21 June that Röhm and the SA leadership had to be eliminated. He
sent Göring to Berlin on 29 June, to meet with Himmler and Heydrich to plan the
action. Hitler took charge in Munich, where Röhm was arrested; he gave Röhm the
choice to commit suicide or be shot. When Röhm refused to kill himself, he was
shot dead by two SS officers. Between 85 to 200 members of the SA leadership
and other political adversaries, including Gregor Strasser, were killed between
30 June and 2 July 1934 in these actions, known as the Night of the Long Knives. With the SA thus
neutralised, the SS became an independent organisation answerable only to
Hitler on 20 July 1934. Himmler's title of Reichsführer-SS became the
highest formal SS rank, equivalent to a field
marshal in the army. The SA was converted into a sports and training
organisation.
On
15 September 1935, Hitler presented two laws—known as the Nuremberg
Laws—to the Reichstag. The laws banned marriage between non-Jewish and
Jewish Germans and forbade the employment of non-Jewish women under the age of
45 in Jewish households. The laws also deprived so-called "non-Aryans"
of the benefits of German citizenship. These laws were among the first
race-based measures instituted by the Third Reich.
Himmler
and Heydrich wanted to extend the power of the SS; thus, they urged Hitler to
form a national police force overseen by the SS, to guard Nazi Germany against
its many enemies at the time—real and imagined. Interior Minister Frick also
wanted a national police force, but one controlled by him, with Kurt Daluege as his police chief. Hitler left it
to Himmler and Heydrich to work out the arrangements with Frick. Himmler and
Heydrich had greater bargaining power, as they were allied with Frick's old
enemy, Göring. Heydrich drew up a set of proposals and Himmler sent him to meet
with Frick. An angry Frick then consulted with Hitler, who told him to agree to
the proposals. Frick acquiesced, and on 17 June 1936 Hitler decreed the
unification of all police forces in the Reich, and named Himmler Chief of
German Police. In this role, Himmler was still nominally subordinate to Frick.
In practice, however, the police was now effectively a division of the SS, and
hence independent of Frick's control. This move gave Himmler operational
control over Germany's entire detective force. He also gained authority over
all of Germany's uniformed law enforcement agencies, which were amalgamated
into the new Ordnungspolizei (Orpo: "order police"), which became a
branch of the SS under Daluege.
Shortly
thereafter, Himmler created the Kriminalpolizei
(Kripo: criminal police) as the umbrella organisation for all criminal
investigation agencies in Germany. The Kripo was merged with the Gestapo into
the Sicherheitspolizei (SiPo: security police),
under Heydrich's command. In September 1939, following the outbreak of World
War II, Himmler formed the SS-Reichssicherheitshauptamt (RSHA:
Reich Main Security Office) to bring the SiPo (which included the Gestapo and
Kripo) and the SD together under one umbrella. He again placed Heydrich in
command.
Under
Himmler's leadership, the SS developed its own military branch, the SS-Verfügungstruppe (SS-VT), which later
evolved into the Waffen-SS. Nominally under the authority of Himmler,
the Waffen-SS developed a fully militarised structure of command and
operations. It grew from three regiments to over 38 divisions during World War
II, serving alongside the Heer (army), but never being formally
part of it.
In
addition to his military ambitions, Himmler established the beginnings of a
parallel economy under the umbrella of the SS. To this end, administrator Oswald Pohl
set up the Deutsche Wirtschaftsbetriebe
(German Economic Enterprise) in 1940. Under the auspices of the SS Economy and
Administration Head Office, this holding company owned housing corporations,
factories, and publishing houses. Pohl was unscrupulous and quickly exploited
the companies for personal gain. In contrast, Himmler was honest in matters of
money and business.
In
1938, as part of his preparations for war, Hitler ended the German alliance with China, and
entered into an agreement with the more modern Japan. That same year, Austria
was unified with Nazi Germany in the Anschluss,
and the Munich Agreement gave Nazi Germany control over
the Sudetenland,
part of Czechoslovakia. Hitler's primary motivations for war
included obtaining additional Lebensraum
("living space") for the Germanic peoples, who were considered
racially superior according to Nazi ideology. A second goal was the elimination of those
considered racially inferior, particularly the Jews and Slavs, from territories
controlled by the Reich. From 1933 to 1938, hundreds of thousands of Jews
emigrated to the United States, Palestine, Great Britain, and other countries.
Some converted to Christianity.
Anti-church
struggle
Main
articles: kirchenkampf and Nazi persecution of the
Catholic Church
Himmler
saw a main task of the SS to be that of "acting as the vanguard in
overcoming Christianity and restoring a 'Germanic' way of living" as part
of perparations for the coming conflict between "humans and
subhumans". Himmler biographer Peter
Longerich wrote that, while the Nazi movement as a whole launched itself
against Jews and Communists, "by linking de-Christianisation with
re-Germanization, Himmler had provided the SS with a goal and purpose all of
its own." Himmler was vehemently opposed to Christian sexual morality and
the "principle of Christian mercy", both of which he saw as a
dangerous obstacle to his plans battle with "subhumans".
We live in an era of the ultimate conflict with Christianity. It is
part of the mission of the SS to give the German people in the next half
century the non-Christian ideological foundations on which to lead and shape
their lives. This task does not consist solely in overcoming an ideological
opponent but must be accompanied at every step by a positive impetus: in this
case that means the reconstruction of the German heritage in the widest and
most comprehensive sense.
— Heinrich Himmler, 1937
World
War II
When
Hitler and his army chiefs asked for a pretext
for the invasion of Poland in 1939, Himmler, Heydrich,
and Heinrich Müller masterminded and carried
out a false
flag project code-named Operation
Himmler. German soldiers dressed in Polish uniforms undertook border
skirmishes that deceptively suggested Polish aggression against Germany. The
incidents were then used in Nazi
propaganda to justify the invasion of Poland, the opening event of World
War II. At the beginning of the war against Poland, Hitler authorised the
killing of Polish civilians, including Jews and ethnic Poles. The Einsatzgruppen (SS task forces) had been
originally formed by Heydrich to secure government papers and offices in areas
taken over by Germany before World War II. Authorised by Hitler and under the
direction of Himmler and Heydrich, the Einsatzgruppen units—now
repurposed as death squads—followed the Heer (army) into Poland, and by
the end of 1939 they had murdered some 65,000 intellectuals and other
civilians. Militias and Heer units also took part in these killings.
Under Himmler's orders via the RSHA, these squads were also tasked with
rounding up Jews and others for placement in ghettos and
concentration camps.
Germany
subsequently invaded France, Denmark and Norway, and the Netherlands, and began bombing
Great Britain in preparation for an invasion. On 21 June 1941, the day
before invasion of the Soviet Union, Himmler commissioned
the preparation of the Generalplan Ost (General Plan for the East);
the plan was finalised in July 1942. It called for the Baltic States, Poland,
western Ukraine, and Byelorussia to be conquered and resettled by ten million
German citizens. The current residents—some 31 million people—would be expelled
further east, starved, or used for forced labour. The plan would have extended
the border of Germany a thousand kilometres to the east (620 miles). Himmler
expected that it would take twenty to thirty years to complete the plan, at a
cost of 67 billion Reichsmarks. Himmler stated openly: "It
is a question of existence, thus it will be a racial struggle of pitiless severity,
in the course of which 20 to 30 million Slavs and Jews will perish through
military actions and crises of food supply."
Himmler,
declaring that the war in the east was a pan-European crusade to defend the
traditional values of old Europe from the "godless Bolshevik
hordes", attracted volunteers from all over Europe for the Waffen-SS. He
initially selected recruits from northern and western Europe—from Scandinavia,
Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Flanders, the Netherlands, and Switzerland—that he
thought to be racially closest to Germans. Spain and Italy also provided men
for Waffen-SS units. Among western countries, the number of volunteers varied
from a high of 25,000 from the Netherlands to 300 each from Sweden and
Switzerland. From the east, the highest number of men came from Lithuania
(50,000) and the lowest from Bulgaria (600). After 1943 most men from the east
were conscripts.
The performance of the eastern Waffen-SS units was, as a whole,
sub-standard.
In
the fall of 1941, Hitler named Heydrich as Deputy Reich Protector of the newly
established Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia.
Heydrich began to racially classify the Czechs, deporting many to concentration
camps. Members of a swelling resistance were shot, earning Heydrich the
nickname "the Butcher of Prague". This appointment strengthened the
collaboration between Himmler and Heydrich, and Himmler was proud to have SS
control over a state. Despite having direct access to Hitler, Heydrich's
loyalty to Himmler remained firm.
With
Hitler's approval, Himmler re-established the Einsatzgruppen in the
lead-up to the planned invasion of the Soviet Union. In March 1941, Hitler
addressed his army leaders, detailing his intention to smash the Soviet Empire
and destroy the Bolshevik intelligentsia and leadership. His special directive,
the "Guidelines in Special Spheres re Directive No. 21 (Operation
Barbarossa)", read: "In the operations area of the army, the Reichsführer-SS
has been given special tasks on the orders of the Führer, in order to prepare
the political administration. These tasks arise from the forthcoming final
struggle of two opposing political systems. Within the framework of these
tasks, the Reichsführer-SS acts independently and on his own
responsibility." Hitler thus intended to prevent internal friction like
that occurring earlier in Poland in 1939, when several German Army generals had
attempted to bring Einsatzgruppen leaders to trial for the murders they
had committed.
Following
the army into the Soviet Union, the Einsatzgruppen rounded up and killed
Jews and others deemed undesirable by the Nazi state. Hitler was sent frequent
reports. In addition, 2.8 million Soviet prisoners of war died of
starvation, mistreatment, or executions in just eight months of 1941–42. As
many as 500,000 Soviet prisoners of war died or were executed in Nazi
concentration camps over the course of the war; most of them were shot or gassed.
By spring 1941, following Himmler's orders, ten concentration camps had been
constructed in which inmates were subjected to forced labour. Jews from all
over Germany and the occupied territories were deported to the camps or
confined to ghettos. As the Germans were pushed back from Moscow in December
1941, signalling that the invasion of the Soviet Union had failed, Hitler and
other Nazi officials realised that mass deportations to the east would no
longer be possible. As a result, instead of deportation, many Jews in Europe
were destined for death.
The
Holocaust
Main
article: The Holocaust
Nazi
racial policies, including the notion that people who were racially inferior
had no right to live, date back to the earliest days of the party; Hitler
discusses this in Mein Kampf. Somewhere around the time of the German
declaration of war on the United States in December 1941, Hitler finally
resolved that the Jews of Europe were to be "exterminated". Heydrich
arranged a meeting, held on 20 January 1942 at Wannsee,
a suburb of Berlin. Attended by top Nazi officials, it was used to outline the
plans for the "final solution to the Jewish
question". Heydrich detailed how those Jews able to work would be worked to death; those unable to work
would be killed outright. Heydrich calculated the number of Jews to be killed
at 11 million, and told the attendees that Hitler had placed Himmler in charge
of the plan.
In
June 1942, Heydrich was assassinated in Prague in an
operation led by Jozef Gabčík and Jan Kubiš,
members of Czechoslovakia's army-in-exile who had been trained by the British Special Operations Executive. During
the two funeral services, Himmler—the chief mourner—took charge of Heydrich's
two young sons, and he gave the eulogy in Berlin. On 9 June, after discussions
with Himmler and Karl Hermann Frank, Hitler
ordered brutal reprisals for Heydrich's death. Over 13,000 people were
arrested, and the village of Lidice was razed to the ground; its male inhabitants and all
adults in the village of Ležáky were murdered. At least 1,300 people were executed by
firing squads. Himmler took over leadership of the RSHA and stepped up the pace
of the killing of Jews in Aktion Reinhard (Operation
Reinhard), named in Heydrich's honour. He ordered the Aktion Reinhard
camps—the first extermination camps—to be constructed at Bełżec, Sobibór, and Treblinka.
Initially
the victims were killed with gas vans or by firing squad, but these methods proved
impracticable for an operation of this scale. In August 1941, Himmler attended
the shooting of 100 Jews at Minsk. Nauseated and shaken by the experience, he was concerned
about the impact such actions would have on the mental health of his SS men. He
decided that alternate methods of killing should be found. On his orders, by
spring 1942 the camp at Auschwitz had been greatly expanded, including the
addition of gas chambers, where victims were killed using the
pesticide Zyklon
B. By the end of the war, at least 5.5 million Jews had been killed by the
Nazi regime; most estimates range closer to six million. Himmler visited the
camp at Sobibór in early 1943, by which time 250,000 people had been killed at
that location alone. After witnessing a gassing, he gave 28 people promotions,
and ordered the operation of the camp to be wound down. In a revolt that
October, prisoners killed most of the guards and SS personnel, and 300
prisoners escaped. Two hundred managed to get away; some joined partisan units
operating in the area. The remainder were killed. The camp was dismantled by
December 1943.
Himmler
was a main architect of the Holocaust, using his deep belief in the racist Nazi
ideology to justify the murder of millions of victims. The Nazis planned to kill
Polish intellectuals and restrict non-Germans in the General Government and
conquered territories to a fourth-grade education. The Nazis wanted to breed a master race
of racially pure Nordic Aryans in Germany. As an agronomist and farmer
Himmler was acquainted with the principles of selective breeding, which he proposed to apply
to humans. He believed that he could engineer the German populace, for example,
through eugenics, to be Nordic in appearance within several
decades of the end of the war.
Posen
speech
Main
article: Posen speeches
On
4 October 1943, during a secret meeting with top SS officials in the city of Poznań
(Posen), and on 6 October 1943, in a speech to the party elite—the Gau and Reich leaders—Himmler referred
explicitly to the "extermination" (German: Ausrottung) of the
Jewish people. A translated excerpt from the speech of 4 October reads:
I also want to refer here very frankly to a very difficult matter.
We can now very openly talk about this among ourselves, and yet we will never
discuss this publicly. Just as we did not hesitate on 30 June 1934,
to perform our duty as ordered and put comrades who had failed up against the
wall and execute them, we also never spoke about it, nor will we ever speak
about it. Let us thank God that we had within us enough self-evident fortitude
never to discuss it among us, and we never talked about it. Every one of us was
horrified, and yet every one clearly understood that we would do it next time,
when the order is given and when it becomes necessary.
I am now referring to the evacuation of the Jews, to the
extermination of the Jewish People. This is something that is easily said: 'The
Jewish People will be exterminated', says every party member, 'this is very
obvious, it is in our program — elimination of the Jews, extermination, a
small matter.' And then they turn up, the upstanding 80 million Germans, and
each one has his decent Jew. They say the others are all swines, but this
particular one is a splendid Jew. But none has observed it, endured it. Most of
you here know what it means when 100 corpses lie next to each other, when there
are 500 or when there are 1,000. To have endured this and at the same time to
have remained a decent person — with exceptions due to human weaknesses —
has made us tough, and is a glorious chapter that has not and will not be
spoken of. Because we know how difficult it would be for us if we still had
Jews as secret saboteurs, agitators and rabble-rousers in every city, what with
the bombings, with the burden and with the hardships of the war. If the Jews
were still part of the German nation, we would most likely arrive now at the
state we were at in 1916 and '17 ...
Hitler's
motivation for authorising Himmler's speeches was to ensure that all party
leaders were made aware of these plans and actions. Thus, it would be
impossible for them to later deny knowledge of the killings. Because the Allies
had indicated that they were going to pursue criminal charges for German war
crimes, Hitler tried to gain the loyalty and silence of his subordinates by
making them all parties to the planned genocide.
Germanization
Main
article: Germanization
As
Reich Commissioner for the Consolidation of German Nationhood (RKFDV) with the
incorporated VoMi Himmler was deeply
involved in the Germanization program for the East, particularly
Poland. As laid out in the General Plan for the East, the aim was to enslave,
expel or exterminate the native population and to make Lebensraum
("living space") for Volksdeutsche (ethnic Germans). He
continued his plans to colonise the east, even when many Germans were reluctant
to relocate there, and despite negative effects on the war effort.
Himmler's
racial groupings began with the Volksliste,
the classification of people deemed of German blood. These included Germans who
had collaborated with Germany before the war, but also those who considered
themselves German but had been neutral; those who were partially
"Polonized" but "Germanizable"; and Germans who were of
Polish nationality. Himmler ordered that those who refused to be classified as
ethnic Germans should be deported to concentration camps, have their children
taken away, or be assigned to forced labour. Himmler's belief that "it is
in the nature of German blood to resist" led to his conclusion that Balts
or Slavs who resisted Germanization were racially superior to more compliant
ones. He declared that no drop of German blood would be lost or left behind to
mingle with an "alien race".
The
plan also included the kidnapping of
Eastern European children by Nazi Germany.
Himmler
urged:
Obviously in such a mixture of peoples, there will always be some
racially good types. Therefore, I think that it is our duty to take their
children with us, to remove them from their environment, if necessary by
robbing, or stealing them. Either we win over any good blood that we can use
for ourselves and give it a place in our people, ... or we destroy that
blood.
The
"racially valuable" children were to be removed from all contact with
Poles, and raised as Germans, with German names. Himmler declared, "We
have faith above all in this our own blood, which has flowed into a foreign
nationality through the vicissitudes of German history. We are convinced that
our own philosophy and ideals will reverberate in the spirit of these children
who racially belong to us." The children were to be adopted by German
families. Children who passed muster at first but were later rejected were
taken to a ghetto in Łódź, where most of them eventually died.
By
January 1943, Himmler reported that 629,000 ethnic Germans had been resettled;
however, most resettled Germans did not live in the envisioned small farms, but
in temporary camps or quarters in towns. Half a million residents of the
annexed Polish territories, as well as from Slovenia, Alsace, Lorraine, and
Luxembourg were deported to the General Government or sent to Germany as slave
labour. Himmler instructed that the German nation should view all foreign
workers brought to Germany as a danger to their German blood. In accordance
with German racial laws, sexual relations between Germans and foreigners were
forbidden as Rassenschande (race defilement).
20
July plot
Main
article: July
20 plot
On
20 July 1944, a group of German army officers led by Claus von
Stauffenberg and including some of the highest-ranked members of the
German armed forces attempted to assassinate Hitler, but failed to do so. The
next day, Himmler formed a special commission that arrested over 5,000
suspected and known opponents of the regime. Hitler ordered brutal reprisals
that resulted in the execution of more than 4,900 people. Though Himmler was
embarrassed by his failure to uncover the plot, it led to an increase in his
powers and authority.
General
Friedrich Fromm, commander-in-chief of the
Reserve (or Replacement) Army (Ersatzheer)
and Stauffenberg's immediate superior, was one of those implicated in the
conspiracy. Hitler removed Fromm from his post and named Himmler as his
successor. Since the Reserve Army consisted of two million men, Himmler hoped
to draw on these reserves to fill posts within the Waffen-SS. He appointed Hans
Jüttner, director of the SS Leadership Main Office, as his deputy, and
began to fill top Reserve Army posts with SS men. By November 1944 Himmler had
merged the army officer recruitment department with that of the Waffen-SS and
had successfully lobbied for an increase in the quotas for recruits to the SS.
By
this time, Hitler had appointed Himmler as Minister of the Interior and
Plenipotentiary General for Administration (Generalbevollmächtigter für die
Verwaltung). In August 1944 Hitler authorised him to restructure the
organisation and administration of the Waffen-SS, the army, and the police
services. As head of the Reserve Army, Himmler was now responsible for
prisoners of war. He was also in charge of the Wehrmacht penal system, and controlled
the development of Wehrmacht armaments until January 1945.
Military
commander
On
6 June 1944 the Western Allied armies landed in northern France during Operation Overlord. In response, Army Group Upper Rhine (Heeresgruppe
Oberrhein) group was formed to engage the advancing US 7th Army (under command of General Alexander
Patch) and French 1st Army (led by General Jean de Lattre de Tassigny) in the Alsace region along
the west bank of the Rhine.
In late 1944, Hitler appointed Himmler commander-in-chief of Army Group Upper
Rhine.
On
26 September 1944 Hitler ordered Himmler to create special army units, the Volkssturm
("People's Storm" or "People's Army"). All males aged
sixteen to sixty were eligible for conscription into this militia, over the
protests of Armaments Minister Albert
Speer, who noted that irreplaceable skilled workers were being removed from
armaments production. In October 1944, children as young as fourteen were being
enlisted. Because of severe shortages in weapons and equipment and lack of
training, members of the Volkssturm were poorly prepared for combat, and
about 175,000 of them lost their lives in the final months of the war.
On
1 January 1945 Hitler and his generals launched Operation North Wind (Unternehmen Nordwind).
The goal was to break through the lines of the US 7th Army and French 1st Army
to support the southern thrust in the Ardennes offensive, the final major German
offensive of the war. After limited initial gains by the Germans, the Americans
halted the offensive. By 25 January, Operation North Wind had officially ended.
On
25 January 1945, in spite of Himmler's lack of military experience, Hitler
appointed him as commander of the hastily-formed Army Group Vistula (Heeresgruppe Weichsel)
to halt the Soviet Red Army's Vistula–Oder Offensive into Pomerania.
Himmler established his command centre at Schneidemühl, using his special
train, Sonderzug Steiermark, as his headquarters. The train had only one
telephone line, inadequate maps, and no signal detachment or radios with which
to establish communication and relay military orders. Himmler seldom left the
train, only worked about four hours per day, and insisted on a daily massage
before commencing work and a lengthy nap after lunch.
He was unable to devise any viable plans for completion of the military
objectives. Under pressure from Hitler over the worsening military situation,
Himmler became anxious and unable to give him coherent reports. Hitler was
unwilling to admit that his choice of commander had been inadequate. After an
intense argument with General Heinz
Guderian, who insisted on a change of command of the Army Group Vistula,
Hitler assigned General Walther Wenck to Himmler's headquarters to take over
command of a limited counter-offensive; Hitler then observed that it was not
possible for him to move the troops needed for Guderian's planned double pincer
attack from neighbouring regions. When the counter-attack failed to stop the
Soviet advance, Hitler held Himmler personally liable and accused him of not
following orders. Himmler's tenure as a military commander ended on 20 March,
when Hitler replaced him with General Gotthard
Heinrici as Commander-in-Chief of Army Group Vistula. By this time Himmler,
who had been under the care of his doctor since 18 February, had fled to a sanatorium
at Hohenlychen. Hitler sent Guderian on a forced medical leave of absence, and
he resigned his post as chief of staff to Hans Krebs on 29 March. Himmler's
failure and Hitler's response marked a serious deterioration in the
relationship between the two men. By that time, the inner circle of people
which Hitler trusted was rapidly shrinking.
Peace
negotiations
In
the spring of 1945, the German war effort was on the verge of collapse and
Himmler's relationship with Hitler had deteriorated. Himmler considered
independently negotiating a peace settlement. His masseur, Felix Kersten, who
had moved to Sweden, acted as an intermediary in negotiations with Count Folke
Bernadotte, head of the Swedish Red Cross. Letters were exchanged between the
two men, and direct meetings were arranged by Walter Schellenberg of the RSHA.
Himmler
and Hitler met for the last time on 20 April 1945—Hitler's birthday—in Berlin,
and Himmler swore total loyalty to Hitler. At a military briefing on that day,
Hitler stated that he would not be leaving Berlin, in spite of Soviet advances.
Along with Göring, Himmler quickly left the city after the briefing. On 21
April, Himmler met with Norbert Masur, a Swedish representative of the World Jewish Congress, to discuss the release
of Jewish concentration camp inmates. As a result of these negotiations, about
20,000 people were released in the White Buses
operation. During the negotiations, Himmler falsely claimed that the crematoria
had been built to deal with the dead from a typhus epidemic. He also claimed
very high survival rates for the camps at Auschwitz
and Bergen-Belsen, even as these sites were
liberated and it became obvious that his figures were false.
Two
days later, Himmler met directly with Bernadotte at the Swedish consulate in Lübeck.
Representing himself as the provisional leader of Germany, he claimed that
Hitler would be dead within the next few days. Hoping that the British and
Americans would fight the Soviets alongside the remains of the Wehrmacht,
Himmler asked Bernadotte to inform General Dwight
Eisenhower that Germany wished to surrender to the West. Bernadotte asked
Himmler to put his proposal in writing, and Himmler obliged.
However,
Göring sent a telegram a few hours earlier, asking
permission to take over the leadership of the Reich—an act that Hitler,
under the prodding of Martin Bormann,
interpreted as a demand to step down or face a coup. On 27 April Himmler's SS
representative at Hitler's HQ in Berlin, Hermann
Fegelein, was caught in civilian clothes preparing to desert; he was
arrested and brought back to the Führerbunker.
On the evening of 28 April, the BBC broadcast a Reuters news report about Himmler's attempted negotiations
with the western Allies. Hitler, who had long believed Himmler was second only
to Joseph Goebbels in loyalty—calling
Himmler "der treue Heinrich" (the loyal Heinrich)—flew into a
rage about this apparent betrayal. Hitler told those who were still with him in
the bunker complex that Himmler's act was the worst treachery he had ever known
and ordered his arrest. Fegelein was court-martialed and shot.
By
this time, the Soviets had advanced to the Potsdamerplatz,
only 300 m (330 yd) from the Reich
Chancellery, and were preparing to storm the Chancellery. This report,
combined with Himmler's treachery, prompted Hitler to write his last will and testament. In the testament,
completed on 29 April—one day prior to his suicide—Hitler
declared both Himmler and Göring to be traitors. He stripped Himmler of all of
his party and state offices and expelled him from the Nazi Party.
Hitler
named Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz as his successor. Himmler met Dönitz in
Flensburg and offered himself as second-in-command. He maintained that he was
entitled to a position in Dönitz' interim government as Reichsführer-SS,
believing the SS would be in a good position to restore and maintain order
after the war. Dönitz repeatedly rejected Himmler's overtures, and initiated
peace negotiations with the Allies. He wrote a letter on 6 May—two days before
the German Instrument of Surrender—formally
dismissing Himmler from all his posts.
Capture
and suicide
Unwanted
by his former colleagues and hunted by the Allies, Himmler attempted to go into
hiding. He had not made extensive preparations for this, but he had equipped
himself with a forged paybook under the name of Sergeant Heinrich Hitzinger.
With a small band of companions, he headed south on 11 May to Friedrichskoog,
without a final destination in mind. They continued on to Neuhaus, where the
group split up. Himmler and two aides were stopped at a checkpoint, which had
been set up by former Soviet POWs, on 21 May and detained. Over the following
two days he was moved around to several camps, and was brought to the British
31st Civilian Interrogation Camp near Lüneburg
on 23 May.
The
duty officer, Captain Thomas Selvester, began a routine interrogation. Himmler
admitted who he was, and Selvester had the prisoner searched. He was taken to
the headquarters of the Second British Army in Lüneburg, where Doctor Wells
conducted a medical exam on Himmler. The doctor attempted to examine the inside
of Himmler's mouth, but the prisoner was reluctant to open it and jerked his
head away. Himmler then bit into a hidden cyanide pill and collapsed onto the
floor. He was dead within 15 minutes. Shortly afterward, Himmler's body was
buried in an unmarked grave near Lüneburg. The grave's location remains
unknown.
Mysticism
and symbolism
Main
article: Ideology of the SS
Himmler
was interested in mysticism and the occult from an early age. He tied this
interest into his racist philosophy, looking for proof of Aryan and Nordic
racial superiority from ancient times. He promoted a cult of ancestor worship,
particularly among members of the SS, as a way to keep the race pure and
provide immortality to the nation.
Viewing
the SS as an "order" along the lines of the Teutonic
Knights, he had them take over the Church of the Teutonic Order in
Vienna in 1939. He began the process of replacing Christianity with a new
moral code that rejected humanitarianism and challenged the Christian concept
of marriage. The Ahnenerbe, a research society founded by Himmler in 1935,
conducted research all over the globe to look for proof of the superiority and
ancient origins of the Germanic race.
All
regalia and uniforms of Nazi Germany, particularly those of the SS, used
symbolism in their design. The SS adopted runic symbols,
chosen by Himmler, as insignia. The stylised lightning bolt "SS"
runes were derived from the Armanen runes of Guido
von List, which he had loosely based on the indigenous runic alphabets of
the Germanic peoples. Himmler modified a variety of
existing customs to emphasise the elitism and central role of the SS; an SS
naming ceremony was to replace baptism, marriage ceremonies were to be altered,
a separate SS funeral ceremony was to be held in addition to Christian
ceremonies, and SS-centric celebrations of the summer and winter solstice were
instituted. The Totenkopf (death's head) symbol, used by German military
units for hundreds of years, had been chosen for the SS by Schreck. Himmler
placed particular importance on the death's-head
rings; they were never to be sold, and were to be returned to him upon the
death of the owner. He interpreted the deaths-head symbol to mean solidarity to
the cause and a commitment unto death.
Relationship
with Hitler
As
second in command of the SS and then Reichsführer-SS, Himmler was in regular
contact with Hitler to arrange for SS men as bodyguards; Himmler was not
involved with Nazi Party policy-making decisions in the years leading up to the
seizure of power. From the late 1930s, the SS was independent of the control of
other state agencies or government departments, and he reported only to Hitler.
Hitler's
leadership style was to give contradictory orders to subordinates and to place
them into positions where their duties and responsibilities overlapped with
those of others. In this way, Hitler fostered distrust, competition, and
infighting among his subordinates to consolidate and maximise his own power.
His cabinet never met after 1938, and he discouraged his ministers from meeting
independently. Hitler typically did not issue written orders, but gave them orally
at meetings or in phone conversations; he also had Bormann convey orders.
Bormann used his position to control the flow of information and access to
Hitler, earning him enemies, including Himmler.
Hitler
promoted and practised the Führerprinzip.
The principle required absolute obedience of all subordinates to their
superiors; thus Hitler viewed the government structure as a pyramid, with
himself—the infallible leader—at the apex. Accordingly, Himmler placed himself
in a position of subservience to Hitler, and was unconditionally obedient to
him. However, he—like other top Nazi officials—had aspirations to one day
succeed Hitler as leader of the Reich. Himmler considered Speer to be an
especially dangerous rival, both in the Reich administration and as a potential
successor to Hitler. Speer refused to accept Himmler's offer of the high rank
of SS-Oberst-Gruppenführer, as he felt to do so
would put him in Himmler's debt and obligate him to allow Himmler a say in
armaments production.
Hitler
called Himmler's mystical and pseudoreligious interests "nonsense".
Himmler was not a member of Hitler's inner circle; the two men were not very
close, and rarely saw each other socially. Himmler socialised almost
exclusively with other members of the SS. His unconditional loyalty and efforts
to please Hitler earned him the nickname of der treue Heinrich
("the faithful Heinrich"). In the last days of the war, when it
became clear that Hitler planned to die in Berlin, Himmler left his long-time
superior to try to save himself.
Marriage
and family
Himmler
met his future wife, Margarete Boden, in 1927. Seven years his senior,
she was a nurse who shared his interest in herbal medicine and homoeopathy,
and was part owner of a small private clinic. They were married in July 1928,
and their only child, Gudrun, was born on 8 August 1929. The couple were
also foster parents to a boy named Gerhard von Ahe, son of an SS officer who
had died before the war. Margarete sold her share of the clinic and used the
proceeds to buy a plot of land in Waldtrudering, near Munich, where they put up
a prefabricated house. Himmler was constantly away on party business, so his
wife took charge of their efforts—mostly unsuccessful—to raise livestock for
sale. They also owned a dog, Töhle. After the Nazis seized power the family
moved first to Möhlstrasse in Munich, and in 1934 to Lake Tegern, where they
bought a house. Himmler also later obtained a large house in the Berlin suburb
of Dahlem free of charge as an official residence. The couple saw little of
each other as Himmler became totally absorbed by work. The relationship was strained.
The couple did unite for social functions; they were frequent guests at the
Heydrich home. Margarete saw it as her duty to invite the wives of the senior
SS leaders over for afternoon coffee and tea on Wednesday afternoons.
Hedwig
Potthast, Himmler's young secretary starting in 1936, became his mistress
by 1939. She left her job in 1941. He arranged accommodations for her, first in
Mecklenburg,
and later at Berchtesgaden. He fathered two children with her: a
son, Helge (born 15 February 1942) and a daughter, Nanette Dorothea (born 20
July 1944 at Berchtesgaden). Margarete, by then living in Gmund with her daughter, learned of the
relationship sometime in 1941; she and Himmler were already separated, and she
decided to tolerate the relationship for the sake of her daughter. Working as a
nurse for the Red Cross during the war, Margarete was appointed
supervisor in Military District III
(Berlin-Brandenburg). Himmler was close to his first daughter, Gudrun, whom he
nicknamed Püppi ("dolly"); he phoned her every few days and
visited as often as he could.
Margarete's
diaries reveal that Gerhard had to leave the National Political
Educational Institute in Berlin because of poor results. At the age of 16
he joined the SS in Brno
and shortly afterwards went "into battle". He was captured by the
Russians but later returned to Germany and lived in North Germany.
Hedwig
and Margarete both remained loyal to Himmler. Writing to Gebhard in February
1945, Margarete said, "How wonderful that he has been called to great
tasks and is equal to them. The whole of Germany is looking to him."
Hedwig expressed similar sentiments in a letter to Himmler in January.
Margarete and Gudrun left Gmund as Allied troops advanced into the area. They
were arrested by American troops in Bolzano, Italy,
and held in various internment camps in Italy, France, and Germany. They were
brought to Nuremberg to testify at the trials, and were released in November
1946. Gudrun emerged from the experience embittered by her alleged mistreatment
and has remained devoted to her father's memory.
Historical
views
Albert Speer
said that though Himmler seemed pedantic and insignificant on the surface, he
was a good decision maker, had a talent for selecting highly competent staff,
and successfully inserted the SS into every aspect of daily life. Historian Peter
Longerich observes that Himmler's ability to consolidate his
ever-increasing powers and responsibilities into a coherent system under the
auspices of the SS led him to become one of the most powerful men in the Third
Reich.
Historian
Wolfgang Sauer says that "although he was pedantic, dogmatic, and dull,
Himmler emerged under Hitler as second in actual power. His strength lay in a
combination of unusual shrewdness, burning ambition, and servile loyalty to
Hitler." Historian Peter Padfield opined that "Himmler ...
appeared the most powerful man under Hitler. It is impossible to say whether he
was in practice, and meaningless to ask, since he was never prepared to use his
power directly to change the course of events ..."
Historian
John Toland relates a story by Günter Syrup, a
subordinate of Heydrich. Heydrich showed him a picture of Himmler and said,
"The top half is the teacher but the lower half is the sadist."
Historian Adrian Weale comments that Himmler and the SS followed
Hitler's policies, without question or ethical considerations. Himmler accepted
Hitler and Nazi ideology, and saw the SS as a chivalric Teutonic order of new
Germans. Himmler adopted the doctrine of Auftragstaktik
("mission command"), whereby orders were given as broad directives,
with authority delegated downward to the appropriate level to carry them out in
a timely and efficient manner. Weale states that the SS ideology gave the men a
doctrinal framework, and the mission command tactics allowed the junior
officers leeway to act on their own initiative to obtain the desired results.
According
to British war cabinet minutes released in 2006, Winston
Churchill advocated Himmler's assassination. In response to Himmler's
attempts to open peace overtures with the Allies in 1945 through Count
Bernadotte, Churchill enquired if they should negotiate with Himmler and bump
him off later. 'Quite entitled to do so', said Churchill. This suggestion met
with some support from the British Home Office.
In
2008 the German news magazine Der Spiegel
described Himmler as one of the most brutal mass murderers in history, and the
architect of the Holocaust.
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