Heinrich Himmler

format_list_bulleted Contenido keyboard_arrow_down

ImprimirCitar

Heinrich Luitpold Himmler(pronounced/хha filan/δç шlu felt markt feltp/lt πh //( listen)(Munich, October 7, 1900-Monunbourg, May 23, 1945) was a high-ranking German war officer and criminal, Reichsführer of Schutzstaffel (SS) and one of the leading leaders of the German National Socialist Workers Party (NSDAP) during the Nazi regime. Adolf Hitler appointed him, for a brief period, military commander of the Army of replacements and general plenipotentiary of the administration of the entire Third Reich. Himmler was one of the most powerful people in Nazi Germany.

A member of a reserve battalion during World War I, Himmler did not see combat.^{[citation needed]} He studied agriculture at university, joining to the Nazi party in 1923. On November 9, 1923, he participated in the Beer Hall Putsch against the German government. He joined the SS in 1925. On January 6, 1929, he was appointed Reichsführer-SS by Hitler, that is, leader of the SS of the Reich. Over the next sixteen years he developed the SS from a small battalion of 290 to a large paramilitary group of around a million men; under Hitler's orders, he established and controlled Nazi concentration camps. He was known for his good organizational skills and for selecting highly-trained subordinates, such as Reinhard Heydrich in 1931.^{[citation needed]} 1933-1934 "Himmler gets command of all departments of the state political police in Germany and centralizes them in the Secret State Police (the Gestapo)." Also from 1933 to 1934, Himmler ensured that the SS had control over a centralized system of concentration.^{[<citation needed]} "While various civil authorities and police agencies had established self-contained concentration camps during 1933 to imprison [the] political enemies of the Nazi government, Hitler — who was impressed with the Dachau concentration camp created by the SS in March 1933—authorized Himmler to create a centralized system of concentration camps."

On June 17, 1936, he became chief of the German Police. From 1943 onwards, he was Reich Minister of the Interior. He supervised all internal and external police forces and security agencies, including the Gestapo (Secret State Police).

In Hitler's name, Himmler formed the so-called Einsatzgruppen and built the death camps. As overseer of the concentration camps, Himmler directed the massacre of some six million Jews, between 200,000 and 500,000 Roma, as well as several million Soviet, Polish, and Yugoslav civilians, among other nationalities; the total number of civilians murdered by the Nazi regime ranges from eleven to fourteen million.

Toward the end of World War II, Hitler appointed Himmler commander of Army Group Upper Rhine and, later, Army Group Vistula; Despite what was expected by Hitler, Himmler failed miserably in the direction of military operations and the Führer had to replace him. Realizing that the war was lost, shortly before the end of the war, in March 1945, he attempted to start peace talks with the Western Allies without Hitler's knowledge. When he found out, he removed him from all his posts in April 1945 and ordered him arrested and executed. Himmler tried to go into hiding, but was detained and later placed under arrest by British forces once his identity was discovered.^{[citation needed]} While in British custody, he committed suicide on May 23, 1945.

Youth and early years

Heinrich Himmler at the age of seven.

Heinrich Luitpold Himmler was born in Munich on October 7, 1900 into a conservative-Catholic middle-class family. His parents were Professor Gebhard Himmler (May 17, 1865 - October 29, 1936) and Anna Maria Heyder (January 16, 1866 - September 10, 1941), a devout Catholic. Heinrich had two brothers, Gebhard Ludwig (1898-1982) and Ernst Hermann (1905-1945).

Himmler's given name, Heinrich, was given in honor of his godfather, Prince Henry of Bavaria, a member of the Bavarian royal family, who had been tutored by Gebhard Himmler. Heinrich Himmler attended a Gymnasium in Landshut, where his father was vice-principal. He had no problems with his studies, so he began to strive in athletics.Throughout his life he had health problems, suffering frequent stomach aches and other ailments, apparently including tuberculosis. Because of this, he could not develop his body for the skills required by a predominantly Prussian environment, so his father opted to have him enter a Catholic school where physical activity was the main objective of humanistic education.. Despite his efforts, he could not enjoy a virile and athletic physique and had to endure feeling mocked by his companions; then he turned his efforts to Germanic historical issues, also coming to study Philology and Philosophy. In his youth he trained almost daily with weights and physical exercises to get stronger. Later, other schoolmates would remember him as a studious person, although without many social skills, and he was always the second in his class, he was never the first in grades. Always being second to a leader would be a constant in his life.

Himmler's diary, which he kept on and off from the age of ten, notes that around this time he began to show great interest in current affairs, dueling, and "serious discussions of religion and sex". According to his notes, Himmler was a young man in his pre-adolescence with Christian moral principles and had no anti-Semitic feelings. Himmler deeply dreamed of being an officer in the Army or the Navy, but because of the class selection that existed in admission to the Army officers academy, failed to achieve its first objective. In 1915 he began training him with the Landshut cadet corps. His father used his connections with the Bavarian royal family to get Himmler accepted as a student to officer school, and he was posted to the reserve battalion of the 11th Bavarian Regiment in December 1917. His brother, Gebhard He served on the Western Front and saw combat, receiving the Iron Cross and being promoted to the rank of lieutenant. In November 1918, while Himmler was still in training, the war ended in defeat for Germany, denying him the chance to become an officer or actually fight. Although it is known that he tried to enter the Navy, but also due to his physical deficiencies (myopia and lack of muscular development), he could not make it either. After being discharged on December 18, he returned to Landshut.

After the end of the war, Himmler completed his studies at the Gymnasium. Between 1919 and 1922, he studied Agronomy at the Technische Hochschule in Munich (now the Technical University of Munich) after a brief apprenticeship on a chicken farm and a subsequent illness contracted during his internship at the farm.

Although numerous regulations discriminating against non-Christians had already been removed during the unification of Germany in 1871, anti-Semitism continued to exist and thrive both in Germany and in other parts of Europe. Himmler was already a convinced anti-Semite at the time. in which he attended the university, although it was not an exceptional case; students at his school tended to avoid association with Jewish classmates. While a student, Himmler remained a devout Catholic and spent most of his leisure time with members of his fencing fraternity, the "League of Apollo', whose president was Jewish. Despite his growing anti-Semitism, Himmler maintained a friendly demeanor both with the president and with other Jewish members of the fraternity.During his sophomore year of college, Himmler redoubled his attempts to start a military career. Although he was unsuccessful, he was able to increase his involvement in the Munich paramilitary environment. It was around this time that he met Ernst Röhm, an early member of the Nazi Party and co-founder of the Sturmabteilung (SA) or "Assault Battalion". Himmler admired Röhm as he was a decorated soldier, and after being invited, Himmler joined a far-right nationalist and anti-Semitic group, the Bund Reichskriegsflagge (Imperial War Flag Society).

In 1922, Himmler already began to show interest in the "Jewish question." In his diary there are already entries containing an increasing number of anti-Semitic observations and entries, as well as a series of discussions he had with his classmates about the Jews. His reading lists, as noted in his diary, were dominated by antisemitic pamphlets, German myths, and hidden plots. After the assassination of Foreign Minister Walther Rathenau on June 24, Himmler's political views shifted. towards the extreme right, and began to participate in demonstrations against the Treaty of Versailles. During that summer, hyperinflation continued to rise, and his parents could no longer afford the education of his children, including Himmler. Disappointed by his failure to make a career in the Army and his parents' inability to finance his doctoral studies, he was forced to take a low-paying job after earning his degree in Agricultural Engineering. He held this job until September 1923.

Nazi Activist

Himmler joined the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in August 1923; his membership number was 14,303. As a member of Ernst Röhm's paramilitary unit, Himmler was involved in the Beer Hall Putsch, an attempted coup by Hitler and the NSDAP to seize power in Munich, despite the fact that he did not yet know Hitler in person at that time. This event meant for Himmler an important change of course in his life. Later he would be questioned by the police about his participation in the Putsch , but no charges were brought against him due to lack of evidence. However, he ended up losing his job, unable to find a new job as an agronomist, and had to move to the family home in Munich. Frustrated by these failures, he became increasingly irritable, aggressive, and stubborn, withdrawing from both his friends and his family.

In 1923–24, Himmler, while searching for a new world view, eventually abandoned Catholicism and focused increasingly on the occult and anti-Semitism. Germanic mythology, reinforced by occult ideas, ended up becoming a religion for him. Himmler found the Nazi Party attractive because its political positions were close to his own views. Initially, he was not attracted to Hitler's charisma or the cult of Fuehrer worship. However, as he learned more and more about Hitler from his writings, he came to regard him as a useful symbol of the party, and later admired him to the point of idolizing him. To consolidate and improve his own position in the NSDAP, Himmler took advantage of the disorder in the party after Hitler's arrest in the Putsch. From mid-1924 he worked under Gregor Strasser as party secretary and propaganda assistant. He traveled throughout Bavaria campaigning for the party, giving speeches and distributing literature on National Socialism. Strasser put him in charge of the party office in Lower Bavaria at the end of 1924; he was also responsible for integrating new militants from the area into the NSDAP when the party was re-founded in February 1925.

That same year he joined the Schutzstaffel (SS) as SS-Führer (SS leader); its membership number was 168. Initially part of the much larger SA, the SS was created in 1923 for Hitler's personal protection, and was reformed in 1925 as an elite SA unit. Himmler's leading position in the SS was that of SS-Gauführer (district leader) in Lower Bavaria, a position he held from 1926. In January 1927, Strasser appointed Himmler deputy to the chief of propaganda Nazi. As was typical in the NSDAP, in this position he had considerable freedom of action, which also increased with the passage of time. He began compiling statistics on the number of Jews, Freemasons, and enemies of the party, and because of his strong need for control, he developed an elaborate bureaucracy. In September 1927, Himmler unveiled to Hitler his idea to transform the SS into a powerful, loyal and racially pure elite unit. Convinced that Himmler was the right man for the job, Hitler appointed him deputy to the Reichsführer-SS, with the rank of SS-Oberführer.

Around this time Himmler joined the Artaman League, a völkisch type youth group. There he met Rudolf Höss, who would later be the commandant of the Auschwitz extermination camp, and Walther Darré, whose book The peasantry as the source of life for the Nordic race, caught the attention of Hitler and it would later lead to his appointment as Reich Minister for Food and Agriculture. Darré was a firm believer in the superiority of the Nordic race, and his philosophy had a great influence on Himmler.

Promotion in the SS

Main article: Machtergreifung

Heinrich Himmler in 1929, photographed by Heinrich Hoffmann.

In January 1929, after the resignation of SS chief Erhard Heiden, Himmler assumed the post of Reichsführer-SS with Hitler's approval. Despite the new post he took over, Himmler still continued to carry out the propaganda functions at the Nazi Party headquarters. In that sense, one of his first responsibilities was to organize the members of the SS who would participate in the Nuremberg Congress, which was to be held in September of that year. The following year, Himmler had already increased the SS from a small strength from 290 men to about 3,000. By 1930, Himmler had persuaded Hitler to authorize the SS to form a separate organization, even though it was still officially subordinate to the SA.

The NSDAP began to grow rapidly during the Great Depression. The Weimar Republic coalition government was unable to achieve economic improvements, so many voters began voting for extreme options, including the NSDAP. Hitler used populist rhetoric, including scapegoating, particularly the Jews, who are to blame for the economic difficulties. In the June 1932 elections the Nazis won 37.3% of the vote and 230 seats in the Reichstag. Finally, on January 30, 1933, Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany by President Paul von Hindenburg, going on to lead a short coalition government between the Nazis and the German National People's Party. The new cabinet initially had only three members of the Nazi Party: Hitler, Hermann Göring as Minister without Portfolio and Minister of the Interior of Prussia, and Wilhelm Frick as Reichsminister of the Interior. Less than a month later, the Reichstag went up in flames. Hitler took advantage of this event, forcing von Hindenburg to sign the so-called Reichstag Fire Decree, which suspended basic rights and allowed detention without trial or judicial process.

The enabling law, passed by the Reichstag in 1933, gave the cabinet—and in particular, Hitler—full legislative powers, so that from that moment the country became a de facto dictatorship. On August 1 In 1934, Hitler's cabinet passed a law stating that upon von Hindenburg's death, the post of president would be abolished and his powers merged with those of chancellor. Von Hindenburg died the following day, and Hitler became both head of state and head of government under the title of Führer und Reichskanzler (Leader and Chancellor of the Reich).

The rise to power of the Nazi Party gave Himmler and the SS an invaluable opportunity to grow. By 1933, the SS already had 52,000 members. Strict membership requirements meant that all applicants were of the so-called Aryan race. Candidates were scrutinized for their Nordic qualities Few dared to point out that, by the SS's own standards, Himmler was the first not to meet his own ideals.

Himmler's organization and intellect served him well as he began to set up different departments of the SS. In 1931 he appointed Reinhard Heydrich head of the new Ic Service (intelligence service), which in 1932 was renamed the Sicherheitsdienst (SD) or "Security Service". Himmler later officially appointed Heydrich as his deputy.Both Himmler and Heydrich maintained a good working relationship and mutual respect.In 1933 they began to remove the control that the SA had over the SS. With the collaboration of the Minister of the Interior, Wilhelm Frick, they hoped to create a unified police force for all of Germany. In March 1933, the Reich Governor for Bavaria, Franz Ritter von Epp, appointed Himmler Chief of the Munich Police. Himmler, in turn, made Heydrich commander of Department IV, the political police. That same year, Hitler promoted Himmler to the rank of SS-Obergruppenführer, which was equivalent in rank to the top commanders of the SA. From that moment on, Himmler and Heydrich took control of the political police forces of the other states, one after the other; the only one they did not control was Prussia, where Göring had control of the security agencies.

Himmler would later establish the SS-Rasse- und Siedlungshauptamt, a racist and anti-Semitic organization. He appointed Walther Darré as his first boss, with the rank of SS-Gruppenführer . The department implemented various racial policies and oversaw "racial integrity" of SS members. SS members were carefully screened for their racial origin. On December 31, 1931, Himmler introduced the so-called "Marriage Order," which required SS men wishing to marry to draw up family trees showing that both families were of Aryan origin dating back to 1800. (Ariernachweis). If during the racial investigation any non-Aryan ancestors were found, either inside or outside the family tree, the person in question was automatically excluded from the SS. Each man had to write a Sippenbuch, a genealogical record detailing their genetic history. Himmler expected that each SS marriage would have produced at least four children, thus creating a community of supposedly genetically superior future SS members. However, the program had disappointing results; less than 40% of SS members had married and had at least one child.

Himmler (in the center, next to a prisoner) visiting the concentration camp of Dachau in 1936.

In March 1933, less than three months after the Nazis seized power, Himmler created the first official concentration camp, at Dachau. Hitler had already declared that he did not want this to be just another prison, or another detention camp. In June of that year Himmler appointed Theodor Eicke, a convicted felon and ardent Nazi, to run the camp. Eicke devised a system that would be used as a model for future camps throughout Germany. the outside world to which the victims were subjected, drawing up lists of prisoners and events, the use of force and executions to compel obedience, and a strict code of discipline for guards. The camp guards wore uniforms, and had a special badge, the Totenkopf or "skull". At the end of 1934, Himmler gained control of all the camps under SS administration and created a separate division to run them, the SS-Totenkopfverbände.

Initially the camps welcomed political opponents; in time, all those who were considered by the Nazis to be undesirable members of German society—criminals, vagabonds, homosexuals—were also sent to the camps. A Hitler decree of December 1937 allowed for the imprisonment of anyone deemed by the regime to be an undesirable member of society. This included communists, Jews, Gypsies, and those people of cultural, racial, political, or religious affiliation who were considered by the Nazis to be Untermensch (sub-humans). Thus, the camps became a mechanism for social and racial engineering. At the start of World War II, in the fall of 1939, there were six concentration camps holding 27,000 inmates. Mortality rates were very high.

Consolidation of power

Main article: Night of the Long Knives

In early 1934, Hitler and other Nazi leaders began to worry that Röhm was planning a coup. Röhm held populist views and others with socialist overtones, and believed that the actual revolution had not yet occurred. started. He came to realize that the SA—whose members now numbered over three million strong, a far cry from the then small German army—could become the new Army, the SA absorbing the old armed forces, under his leadership. Röhm lobbied Hitler to appoint him Defense Minister, a position held by the conservative General Werner von Blomberg.

Meanwhile, Himmler continued to increase his power. Hermann Göring had created a secret police force in Prussia, the Geheime Staatspolizei or Gestapo, and had appointed Rudolf Diels as its director. However, Göring, concerned that Diels was not being effective enough to use the full effectiveness of the Gestapo and thus reduce the power of the SA, ended up ceding control of the SA to Himmler on 20 April 1934. On this day Hitler appointed Himmler head of all police forces in Germany, with the sole exception of Prussia, which he remained uncontrolled. This was a radical departure from the long existing tradition that the police in Germany was a local matter and/or of the federated states. Heydrich, who was appointed by Himmler as the new head of the Gestapo on April 22, 1934, continued as head of the Sicherheitsdienst (SD).

Hitler decided on June 21 that Röhm and the other SA leaders should be eliminated. On June 29 he sent Göring to Berlin to meet with Himmler and Heydrich, and plan the action. Hitler took charge of the situation in Munich, where Röhm was arrested; he gave Röhm the option of committing suicide or being executed. Since Röhm refused to commit suicide, he was killed by two SS officers. From 85 to 200 members of the SA leadership and other political adversaries of the Nazis, such as Gregor Strasser, were assassinated between June 30 and July 2, 1934 during these events, later known in historiography as the Night of the Long Knives. With the SA now neutralized, the SS became an independent organization that from 20 July 1934 answered only to Hitler. Himmler's title, Reichsführer-SS, formally became the highest SS rank, equivalent to Army Field Marshal. The SA continued to exist, but in contrast to the past, now they were no more than a mere sports and training organization.

Himmler and Rudolf Hess in Dachau in 1936, watching a scale model of the concentration camp.

On September 15, 1935, Hitler presented two new laws—known as the Nuremberg Laws—to the Reichstag. The laws prohibited marriage between non-Jews and Jews, and also prohibited the employment of non-Jewish women under the age of 45 in Jewish households. In addition, the laws deprived the so-called "non-Aryans" of the benefits of German citizenship.

Himmler and Heydrich wanted to further extend the power of the SS; therefore, they urged Hitler to create a national police force, supervised by the SS, to protect Nazi Germany from its many real and/or imagined enemies. Interior Minister Wilhelm Frick also wanted a force National Police, but one controlled by him, with Kurt Daluege as Police Chief. Hitler left the matter to Himmler and Heydrich to work out the details with Frick. Himmler and Heydrich had greater bargaining power, since they were in league with Frick's old enemy, Göring. Heydrich drew up a series of proposals and Himmler sent him to meet with Frick. An angry Frick then consulted with Hitler, who agreed with the proposals. Finally, Frick had to compromise, and on June 17, 1936, Hitler decreed the unification of all police forces in the Reich, and appointed Himmler Chief of the German Police (under the official title of Reichsführer SS und Chef der Deutschen Polizei). In this position, Himmler was still nominally subordinate to Frick and the Reich Ministry of the Interior. In practice, however, the Police had fallen into the area of SS influence, and was not under Frick's control. This move gave Himmler operational control over the entire force of police commissars and investigators in Germany. This also allowed him authority over the uniformed police forces, which in June 1936 were grouped into the new Ordnungspolizei (OrPo), under the direction of Daluege.

In addition to these changes, Himmler created the Kriminalpolizei (KriPo) as an umbrella police organization for all existing criminal investigation agencies in Germany. Later, the Kripo would be unified with the Gestapo in the Sicherheitspolizei (SiPo), under the command of Heydrich. In September 1939, shortly after the start of World War II, Himmler formed the Reichssicherheitshauptamt (RSHA, or "Reich Security Main Office"). The new body was in charge of coordinating all the police and security forces of the German Reich, so the SiPo (which by then included the Gestapo and the Kripo) and the SD were integrated into the RSHA. As he had done on previous occasions, Himmler put Heydrich in charge of the new body.

Himmler, Ernst Kaltenbrunner, and other SS officers visiting the Mauthausen concentration camp in 1941.

Under Himmler's leadership, the SS developed its own military branch, the SS-Verfügungstruppe (SS-VT), which would later evolve into the Waffen-SS. Nominally under Himmler's sole authority, the Waffen-SS developed a fully militarized command and operations structure. Initially created on the basis of three regiments, during World War II it grew to some 38 divisions, serving alongside the Heer (Army), but never being part of it.

In addition to his military ambitions, Himmler established the beginnings of a parallel economy under the umbrella of the SS structure. To this end, administrator Oswald Pohl established the Deutsche Wirtschaftsbetriebe (Economic Enterprises German) in 1940. Under the auspices of the SS Central Office for Economics and Administration, this holding company owned housing cooperatives, factories, and publishing houses. Pohl proved unscrupulous and quickly exploited the companies for personal gain. By contrast, Himmler was more honest in matters of money and business.

In 1938, as part of the preparations for the war, Hitler ended the German alliance with China, and entered into an alliance with the more modern and aggressive Japan. That same year, Austria was annexed by Nazi Germany during the so-called Anschluss, and a few months later, the Munich Agreement gave Germany control over the Sudetenland, which was part of Czechoslovakia. Hitler's main goals for going to war included obtaining more Lebensraum ("living space") for the Germanic peoples, who were considered racially superior by Nazi ideology. A second objective it was the removal of those who were considered racially inferior, particularly Jews and Slavs, from the Reich's territories. Between 1933 and 1938, hundreds of thousands of Jews immigrated to the United States, Palestine, Great Britain, etc. Some converted to Christianity.

On August 31, Himmler signed an agreement with the Minister of Public Order of Francoist Spain, Severiano Martínez Anido, establishing the mutual extradition of "political criminals" they were detained in both countries. The agreement also allowed the installation of a network of Sicherheitsdienst agents under the supervision of the head of the Gestapo in Spain, Paul Winzer.

Anti-Church Campaign

Himmler saw as one of the main objectives of the SS to act as a vanguard in overcoming Christianity and restoring the "Germanic" as part of the preparations for the coming conflict between "humans and subhumans.", "by linking de-Christianization with re-Germanization, he gave the SS an aim and purpose for all of their own." Himmler was vehemently opposed to Christian sexual morality and " principle of Christian piety', two principles which he saw as a dangerous obstacle to his plans to combat 'subhumans'. In 1937, Himmler stated:

We live at the time of the last conflict with Christianity. It is part of the duties of the SS to give the German people during the next half century the non-Christian ideological bases on which to direct and shape their lives. This task is not only the overcoming of an ideological opponent, but a process that must be accompanied in every step by a positive impulse: in this case it means the reconstruction of the German heritage in the broadest and most complete sense.

Since he viewed Christianity as an unsuitable religion for strengthening soldiers in combat, he outlawed it from the SS and prohibited the presence of Protestant or Catholic chaplains in Waffen-SS units. On the contrary, it did authorize in 1943 the spiritual help of non-Christian counselors in new units such as the Handschar and Skanderbeg divisions, made up of Bosnian and Albanian Muslim volunteers and which had imams trained by the mufti and collaborator of the Third Reich Amin al-Husayni. Himmler himself considered that Islam, unlike Christianity, "encourages men to fight and allows them to die happy".

World War II

Himmler with Hitler in Poland, September 1939.

When Hitler and his generals sought a pretext to carry out the invasion of Poland in 1939, Himmler, Heydrich, and Heinrich Müller developed and carried out a false flag operation that was named Operation Himmler. German soldiers dressed in Polish uniforms carried out various border skirmishes that misleadingly suggested Polish aggression against Germany. The incidents were used by Nazi propaganda to justify the invasion of Poland, which marked the start of World War II. At the start of the war with Poland, Hitler authorized the murder of Polish civilians, which included both Jews and ethnic Poles. The Einsatzgruppen (special SS units) had originally been formed by Heydrich to secure documentation and government offices in territories Germany conquered before World War II. With Hitler's authorization, and under the leadership of Himmler and Heydrich, the Einsatzgruppen—now reoriented as death squads—followed the Heer (Army) in its advance through Poland, and by the end of By 1939 they had already murdered some 65,000 Polish Jews, intellectuals, and other civil groups. Militias and Heer units also took part in these killings. Under Himmler's orders, through the RSHA, these squads were also tasked with rounding up Jews and other victims for shipment. to ghettos or concentration camps.

Himmler inspects a prisoner camp in the Soviet Union in the summer of 1941.

Subsequently, Germany invaded Denmark and Norway, the Netherlands, and France, and began bombing Britain in preparation for a future invasion. On June 21, 1941, one day before the invasion of the Soviet Union, Himmler commissioned his collaborators to prepare the so-called Generalplan Ost (General Plan for the East); The plan was finalized in July 1942, and provided that the Baltic States, Poland, Western Ukraine, and Byelorussia would be conquered and repopulated in turn by ten million German citizens. The native inhabitants of these areas—some 31 million people—would be expelled to the East, killed by famine, or used as forced labor. The plan would have extended Germany's border a thousand kilometers to the east, deep into Soviet territory. Himmler estimated that it would take twenty to thirty years to complete this plan, at a cost of 67 billion Reichsmarks. In this regard, Himmler openly stated: "It is a question of existence, so it will be a racial struggle of an unrelenting severity, in the course of which between 20 and 30 million Slavs and Jews will perish through military action and the consequent crisis in the food supply".

Himmler would later declare the war against the Soviet Union a pan-European crusade intended to defend the traditional values of old Europe against the "godless Bolshevik hordes"; this declaration attracted many volunteers from all over Europe who joined the Waffen-SS. They initially selected recruits from Northern and Western Europe—Scandinavia, Luxembourg, Flanders, the Netherlands, and Switzerland—whom Himmler regarded as inhabitants of &# 34;nations with a related existence". Francoist Spain and Fascist Italy, both states close to Nazi Germany, also provided men for Waffen-SS units. Among Western countries the number of volunteers could vary widely, from as low as 25,000 from the Netherlands to the 300 from Sweden and Switzerland. In Eastern Europe the largest number of volunteers came from Lithuania (50,000) while Bulgaria contributed the fewest volunteers (600). After 1943 many of the Waffen-SS troops from Eastern Europe were actually conscripts. The performance of the eastern Waffen-SS units was, as a whole, below standard.

In late 1941, Hitler appointed Heydrich Deputy Reich Protector for the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. Heydrich began to racially classify the Czechs, deporting many of them to concentration camps; many members of the growing Czechoslovak Resistance were killed by the Germans. All of this led to Heydrich earning the nickname 'the Butcher of Prague'. This appointment strengthened the partnership between Himmler and Heydrich, and Himmler was proud that the SS had authority over the entire German state. Despite having direct access to Hitler, Heydrich's loyalty to Himmler remained steadfast. With Hitler's approval, Himmler re-established the Einsatzgruppen in the run-up to the planned invasion of the Soviet Union. In March 1941, Hitler addressed his Army leaders, detailing his intention to break up the Soviet empire and in turn destroy the Bolshevik intelligentsia and leadership. His special directive No. 21, better known as Operation Barbarossa, stated thus: "In the area of operations of the Army, the Reichsführer of the SS has been given special tasks on the orders of the Führer, in order to prepare the political administration. Within the framework of these tasks, the Reichsführer-SS acts independently and under his own responsibility". Unlike previous occasions, this time Hitler did this to avoid internal frictions such as those that had already occurred in Poland in 1939, when some German Army generals protested and tried to try the leaders of the Einsatzgruppen for the mass murders they carried out.

Himmler in Mauthausen along with his SS officers, Franz Ziereis and August Eigrüber on the right and left, Georg Bachmayer (1941).

Following the Army in its advance through the Soviet Union, the Einsatzgruppen rounded up and murdered thousands of communists, Jews and all those who were considered undesirables by the Nazi state. Hitler received numerous reports of these actions. Some 2.8 million Soviet POWs died of starvation, mistreatment, or murder during the eight months after the German invasion, until early 1942. About 500,000 Soviet POWs died in concentration camps during the rest of the contest; most of them were shot or executed in gas chambers. By the spring of 1941, following Himmler's orders, ten concentration camps were built in which the inmates were destined for forced labor. Jews from Germany and the occupied territories were deported to the ghettos, or locked up in the concentration camps. In December 1941 the Germans were pushed back in Moscow, which meant that the invasion of the Soviet Union had failed; Hitler and other Nazi officials realized that the planned mass deportations to the east would no longer be possible. As a result, rather than be deported, many European Jews were destined to be killed.

Repression and extermination

Himmler completing a visit to the Mauthausen concentration camp in April 1941.

Nazi racial policies, including the concept that supposedly racially inferior populations had no right to live, dated back to the early days of the party; Hitler already theorized this in his "My Struggle". In December 1941, shortly after Germany's declaration of war on the United States, Hitler resolved that the Jews of Europe were going to be &# 34;exterminated'. Heydrich organized a meeting, held on January 20, 1942 in Wannsee, a suburb of Berlin. Aided by high-ranking Nazi officials, they all organized the plans to carry out the "final solution to the Jewish question." Heydrich detailed how these Jews would have to work themselves to death and how those unable to work would be ipso facto killed. Heydrich estimated the number of Jews who would have to be killed at around eleven million, telling the conference attendees that Hitler had put Himmler himself in charge of this plan.

In June 1942, Heydrich was assassinated in Prague in an operation carried out by Jozef Gabčík and Jan Kubiš, members of the Czechoslovak Army-in-exile who had been trained by the British Directorate of Special Operations. During the two At the funerals that took place, Himmler - the main affected - took care of Heydrich's two young children, and in Berlin gave Heydrich a eulogy. On June 9, after discussing it with Himmler and Karl Hermann Frank, Hitler ordered the execution of reprisals in response to Heydrich's death. Around 13,000 people were arrested, and the town of Lidice was razed to the ground; all the inhabitants of Lídice, as well as the entire adult population of Ležáky, were killed. At least 1,300 people were killed by firing squads. Himmler took over the leadership of the RSHA and accelerated the pace of killing Jews in Aktion Reinhard (Operation Reinhard), named after Heydrich. He also ordered the Aktion Reinhard camps — which were the first extermination camps — to be set up in Bełżec, Sobibór, and Treblinka.

Initially victims were killed by gassing trucks or firing squads, but these methods proved impracticable for a large-scale operation. In August 1941, Himmler attended the execution of 100 Jews in Minsk. Nauseated and shaken by the experience, he began to worry about the impact these actions might have on the mental health of his SS men. He decided that alternative methods of murder must be found. Under his orders, in the spring of 1942 the Auschwitz camp had been greatly expanded, including the addition of gas chambers, where victims were killed by exposure to the pesticide Zyklon. B. By the end of the war, around 5.5 million Jews had been murdered by the Nazi regime. Himmler visited the Sobibor camp in early 1943; by then some 250,000 people had been killed there alone. After witnessing a gassing of prisoners, he promoted twenty-eight people and ordered camp operations to wind down. A few months later, in October, there was a revolt by the inmates of the camp: the rebels killed numerous guards and SS personnel, and some two hundred prisoners managed to escape; some joined partisan units operating in the area, while the rest were killed by German patrols. The camp ended up being closed and dismantled in December 1943.

Himmler was the main architect of the Holocaust, using his Nazi and racist beliefs to justify the murder of millions of people. The Nazis planned the murder of Polish intellectuals and the restriction of the non-German population in the General Government and other occupied territories, allowing only those population that had not passed basic education to remain. The Nazis wanted to reproduce in Germany a superior race of racially pure Nordic Aryans. As an agronomist and farmer, Himmler was familiar with the principles of selective breeding, which he intended to apply to humans. He came to believe that he could transform German society, for example through eugenics, so that several decades after the end of the war it was already an ostensible Nordic population.

Germanization

Main article: Germanisation

As Reich Commissioner for the Consolidation of German Nationality (RKFDV) and with the collaboration of VoMi, Himmler was heavily involved in the Germanization program of the East, particularly Poland. As established in the General Plan for the East, the objective was to enslave, expel or exterminate the native population and create Lebensraum ("living space") for the Volksdeutsche (ethnic Germans). He went ahead with his plans to colonize the east, even as many Germans were reluctant to resettle there, and despite the negative effects this plan had on the war effort.

Himmler's racial groupings began with the Volksliste, the classification of people considered to be of German blood. This included Germans who had collaborated with the German state before the war, but also those Germans who had remained neutral, those who were partly Polish but "Germanizable", and those who were Germans of Polish nationality. Himmler ordered that those who are rejected for classification as ethnic Germans should be deported to concentration camps and withdrawn from custody of their children, or assigned to forced labor. Himmler's belief that "it is in nature of German blood resisting" led him to conclude that Balts or Slavs who resisted Germanization were racially superior to other, more submissive groups. strange breed".

The plan also included the kidnapping of Eastern European children by Nazi Germany. In this regard, Himmler commented:

Obviously, in the search for a mixture of peoples, there will always be some racially good types. Therefore, I think it is our duty to take your children out of their surroundings, stealing them if necessary. Whatever the result, we would win, as we would draw that blood into our space and find a place among our people... or destroy that blood.

The "racially valuable" they were to be kept away from all contact with Poles, and in turn to be raised as Germans and with German names. Himmler went so far as to state: "We have a special faith in our own blood, which has flowed into a foreign nationality through of the vicissitudes of German history. We are convinced that our own philosophy and ideals will be felt in the spirit of these children who belong to us racially. The children would be adopted by German families. Those children who passed the tests but ended up being rejected were he was sent to a ghetto in Łódź, where most of them died.

By January 1943, Himmler reported that 629,000 ethnic Germans had been resettled; however, the majority of resettled Germans did not live on the planned small-family rural farms, but in temporary transit camps and city neighborhoods. Half a million residents from the annexed Polish territories, as well as from Slovenia, Alsace, Lorraine and Luxembourg, were displaced to the General Government or sent to Germany as slave labor. Himmler instructed that all foreign workers brought to Germany were considered a danger to German blood. According to German racial laws, sexual relations between Germans and foreigners were considered Rassenschande ("racial deviance") and they were prohibited.

Visit to Spain

Main article: Heinrich Himmler Visit to Spain in 1940

From right to left: Himmler, Serrano Suñer and José Moscardó during their visit to Berlin.

Shortly before the Hendaye interview took place, in October 1940, Himmler paid a visit to Franco's Spain with the objective in part of supervising the security measures prior to the meeting between Franco and Hitler. The visit took place between October 19 and 24. He entered Irún through the Franco-Spanish border, where he was received by the General Director of Security, José Finat, and by General López-Pinto. During these days he passed through the cities of San Sebastián, Burgos, Madrid, Toledo and Barcelona. On October 20, he arrived at the Estación del Norte in Madrid, being received by a military delegation, the German ambassador in Madrid and Serrano Suñer.

Himmler, received with honours after his arrival in Madrid (1940).

In the capital he was received by numerous Falangists and streets decorated with Nazi and Falangist flags. Shortly after, the dictator Francisco Franco received him at the El Pardo Palace. Himmler came to attend a bullfight that was offered in his honor in the Las Ventas bullring. During his stay in the capital, Himmler He agreed with the General Director of Security to strengthen police cooperation between the two States, as well as sending a Gestapo adviser to Madrid. After Madrid, he also visited the old Visigothic capital, Toledo, where he toured the ruins of the destroyed fortress. Some authors relate this visit to his search for the Holy Grail, as Toledo was an important Templar, alchemist and necromancer headquarters. In his last stage in Spain he was visiting the monastery of Montserrat, for the tradition of the Holy Grail. During his stay, Himmler was surprised by the magnitude and harshness of Franco's repression. Given the depressed atmosphere he found in Madrid, he recommended to the Francoist authorities that they turn the page "to prevent all of national life from continuing to revolve around the national tragedy".

The last few months

July 20 attack

Main article: Attended on 20 July 1944

On July 20, 1944, a group of Army officers led by Claus von Stauffenberg—and which included some of the highest-ranking officers in the German armed forces—attempted to assassinate Hitler, but Hitler survived the assassination attempt. they had arranged. The next day, Himmler formed a special commission that arrested more than 5,000 suspects and known opponents of the regime. Hitler ordered brutal reprisals that ended up leading to the execution of more than 4,900 people. Although Himmler was embarrassed by his resounding failure—in failing to uncover the conspiracy against Hitler—the attack meant that his powers and authority were compromised. increased considerably.

General Friedrich Fromm, Commander-in-Chief of the Reserve Army (Ersatzheer) and Stauffenberg's immediate superior officer, was among those implicated in the conspiracy. Hitler removed Fromm from his post and named Himmler his successor. Since the Reserve Army was made up of two million men, Himmler hoped to be able to take advantage of these reserves to be able to allocate them to the Waffen-SS. He appointed Hans Jüttner, director of the SS Führungshauptamt , as his deputy and began posting SS members to Reserve Army posts. By November 1944 Himmler had managed to unify the Army Reserve recruiting office with the Waffen-SS recruiting office and had successfully pushed for increased recruit quotas for the SS. In addition to this military post By this time Himmler was already Minister of the Interior and General Plenipotentiary for Administration (Generalbevollmächtigter für die Verwaltung). In August 1944, Hitler authorized him to restructure the organization and administration of the Waffen- SS, Army, and Police services. As head of the Reserve Army, Himmler was now responsible for prisoners of war. He was also left in charge of the Wehrmacht's penal system, and until January 1945 he also controlled the development of the Wehrmacht's armaments.

Military Commanders

On June 6, 1944, Western Allied armies landed in northern France during Operation Overlord. The Anglo-Americans began advancing towards the German border. In response, Army Group Upper Rhine (Heeresgruppe Oberrhein) was created a few months later to try to stop the advance of the US 7th Army (under the command of General Alexander Patch) and the 1st Army. French.1st Army (led by General Jean de Lattre de Tassigny) in the Alsace region, along the western valley of the Rhine River. In late 1944, Hitler appointed Himmler commander of Army Group Upper Rhine.

On September 26, 1944, Hitler gave Himmler the order to create special military units, which would later end up forming the so-called Volkssturm. All men between the ages of sixteen and sixty were conscripted to serve in this militia, despite protests from Arms Minister Albert Speer, who pointed out that irreplaceable skilled workers were being withdrawn from arms production. He was confident and believed that up to six million men could be enlisted, and that the new units would "initiate a people's war against the invader." These hopes turned out to be too optimistic. Young people as young as fourteen were enlisted. Due to the severe shortage of weapons and equipment and little training received, the members of the Volkssturm were poorly prepared for combat, and around 175,000 of them lost their lives during the last months of the contest.

On January 1, 1945, Hitler and his generals launched Operation North Wind (Unternehmen Nordwind). The goal was to break the link lines between the US 7th Army and the US 1st.er French Army, in an operation that sought to support the Ardennes offensive on the southern flank, which was taking place at that time. However, after some initial small successes by the Germans, the Americans managed to stop the offensive. By January 25, Operation Nordwind was officially over, constituting a failure for the Germans. During military operations, Himmler hardly stood out.

On January 25, 1945, despite Himmler's lack of military experience, Hitler appointed him commander of the newly created Army Group Vistula (Heeresgruppe Weichsel) with the mission of stopping the new Soviet offensive, which threatened to push into Pomerania. General Heinz Guderian considered Himmler's appointment "idiocy" and criticized that the officers chosen by Himmler to organize the German defense were "uniformly incapable of performing their assigned tasks." Knowing that Himmler would need all the help he could get, Guderian appointed General Walther Wenck, an experienced officer, like his chief of staff. Himmler established his command center at Schneidemühl, using his special train, the Sonderzug Steiermark, as his headquarters. The train had only a telephone line, inadequate maps, and no signal detachments or radio equipment with which to communicate and relay military orders. Himmler rarely left the train, only working about four hours a day, and insisted on getting a daily massage before starting work and taking a long nap after lunch. On 16 February the Germans launched Operation Solstice, a attack that from Pomerania planned to advance on the northern flank of the I Belorussian Front, commanded by Marshal Gueorgui Zhúkov; despite the German striking force, they could do little against Pavel Belov's 61st Army and Semyon Bogdanov's 2nd Guards Tank Army. Zhukov responded by redirecting two Soviet armored armies against the German forces. In just five days, Soviet tanks had reached the Baltic Sea, trapping the German forces. While Operation Solstice took place, Himmler was unable to develop viable plans to complete his military objectives. In addition, due to the worsening military situation, Himmler came under increasing pressure from Hitler, which made him extremely anxious and unable to send coherent reports to Hitler.

Hitler was unwilling to admit that Himmler's choice had been inappropriate. After a heated argument with Heinz Guderian, who insisted on a change in the leadership of Army Group Vistula, Hitler assigned Walther Wenck to Himmler's headquarters to take over the leadership of a small counteroffensive. that it was going to take place; Hitler then found that he could not dispose of the troops Guderian needed to carry out a double pincer attack from the neighboring regions. When the counterattack failed and failed to contain the Soviet advance, Hitler held Himmler responsible and accused him of not following through. the orders. Himmler's term of command ended on March 20, when Hitler replaced him with General Gotthard Heinrici as Commander-in-Chief of Army Group Vistula. Himmler had been away from military activities for a long time: since February 18 he had been under the care of his doctor and had fled to a sanatorium in Hohenlychen. Hitler also got rid of Heinz Guderian and on March 29 he handed over his post. General Hans Krebs was appointed Chief of Staff to General Hans Krebs. Himmler's failure and Hitler's response marked the deterioration of the relationship between the two. By then, the inner circle of people Hitler trusted was rapidly shrinking.

Peace negotiations

In the spring of 1945 the German war effort was close to collapse and Himmler's relationship with Hitler had seriously deteriorated despite Hitler considering him as a possible successor. Himmler was already considering the possibility of starting negotiations to reach a separate peace. His masseuse, Felix Kersten, who had moved to Sweden, acted as go-between in negotiations with Count Folke Bernadotte, president of the Swedish Red Cross. There was an exchange of letters between Himmler and Bernadotte, and there were several meetings organized by one of the heads of the RSHA, Walter Schellenberg.

Himmler and Hitler last met on April 20, 1945—Hitler's birthday—in Berlin, and Himmler showed his total loyalty to Hitler. During a military meeting held that same day, Hitler declared that he would not abandon the capital, despite Soviet advances. Like Göring, Himmler quickly left the city after the encounter. On April 21, Himmler met Norbert Masur, a Swedish representative of the World Jewish Congress, to discuss the release of Jews from concentration camps. As As a result of these negotiations, around 20,000 people were released in the so-called "Operation White Buses". During the negotiations, Himmler claimed that the concentration camps' crematorium ovens had been built to deal with deaths caused by epidemics of typhus. He also claimed that there had been high survival rates in the Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen concentration camps, even though these camps had already been liberated by Allied troops and it was clear that Himmler's claims were not true.

Two days later, Himmler met Bernadotte directly at the Swedish consulate in Lübeck. Representing himself as the provisional leader of Germany, he claimed that Hitler would be dead in the next few days. Hoping that the British and Americans would fight the Soviets alongside the remnants of the Wehrmacht, Himmler asked Bernadotte if he could inform General Dwight D. Eisenhower that Germany wished to surrender to the West. Bernadotte asked Himmler if he could submit this proposal in writing, which Himmler promptly did.

A few hours earlier, however, Göring had sent a telegram to Hitler asking for his permission to take over the leadership of the Reich—an act that Hitler, subject to the intrigues of Martin Bormann,, he interpreted as a demand for him to resign or face a coup. On April 27, Himmler's liaison at Himmler's Berlin headquarters, Hermann Fegelein, was arrested in civilian clothes as he prepared to defect; he was immediately arrested and taken to the Führerbunker , Hitler had ordered the arrest of Fegelein in knowledge of Himmler's efforts through the Reuters news agency in order to arrest Himmler. On the afternoon of April 28, a BBC bulletin, citing a Reuters report, reported that Himmler was attempting to establish peace negotiations with the Western allies. Hitler, who had long believed that Himmler was the second most loyal man to the person of him only after Joseph Goebbels — going so far as to call Himmler & # 34; der treue Heinrich & # 34; (the loyal Heinrich) -, was enraged after learning of the apparent betrayal of Himmler, who allegedly tried to establish peace with the allies in the greatest secrecy, through the International Red Cross under the command of Bernadotte in Lübeck, going so far as to propose Eisenhower as Police Minister for the US occupation. Eisenhower repudiated the proposal and declared Himmler Nazi Germany's greatest war criminal. The powerful reason for this attitude would be based on the influence of Bernadotte, who had told Himmler that the allies would never agree to a peace with Hitler, and that only he had the possibility of acting in favor of Germany. Hitler told those still in the bunker complex that Himmler's act was the worst betrayal he had ever seen, and ordered him arrested. Fegelein was tried by court martial and shot as an example despite being married to Eva Braun's sister, Gretl, who was expecting a daughter by Fegelein and Eva had interceded in vain to save the life of her brother-in-law.

By then, the Soviet advances had reached Potsdamer Platz, just three hundred meters from the Reich Chancellery, and were preparing to storm the Chancellery. This situation and Himmler's betrayal prompted Hitler to write his last will and testament. In the will, drawn up on April 29—the day before his suicide—Hitler declared both Himmler and Göring to be traitors. Himmler was stripped of all his posts in the Nazi party and state administration, and eventually Hitler expelled him from the party as well as sentenced him to death in absentia.

Hitler appointed Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz as his successor. Himmler met Dönitz in Flensburg and offered himself second in command. He maintained that he was entitled to a position in the Flensburg Government as Reichsführer-SS , believing that the SS would be in a good position to restore and maintain public order after the end of the war. Dönitz repeatedly rejected Himmler's offers and began peace negotiations with the Allies. On May 6—two days before the German surrender—he wrote a letter in which he removed Himmler from all his posts.

Capture and suicide

Himmler's body after he committed suicide by poisoning, May 1945.

Occupied Berlin by the Russians, Himmler was the first on the list of the most wanted Nazi fugitives, he was intensely sought by the allies to render an account before Justice. Himmler moved in early May with a small entourage of loyalists, his secretary Rudolf Brandt, Karl Gebhardt, Werner Grothmann and Heinz Macher to Flensburg. After Dönitz's rejection of his proposal, Himmler saw his cause lost and decided to disappear from the scene. Danish intelligence informed the allies that Himmler was in Flensburg. Shunned by his former comrades and wanted by allies, Himmler attempted to go into hiding. He had not made great preparations for this eventuality, but he had obtained documentation that credited him with the name of Sergeant Heinrich Hitzinger of the Geheime Feldpolizei (executed long ago for defeatism), he also changed his appearance by shaving his characteristic mustache, shaved his head, he put a black patch on one eye and temporarily escaped to Bavaria. He managed to cross Germany with his men in a vehicle to Bremervörde. With a small group of companions, on May 11 he headed south to Friedrichskoog, though with no final destination in mind. They continued to Neuhaus, where the group split up. On May 21, Himmler and two aides were rounded up and placed under arrest at a checkpoint set up by former Soviet POWs. Feldpolizei members were highly sought after at the time, and identifying himself as a member of this organization was a mistake on Himmler's part. Until then Himmler had not been recognized as such. He aroused more suspicion because of the very orderlyness of his identity papers, and his presence, which was not common when capturing fugitive soldiers. Over the next two days he was moved through numerous prison camps, and on May 23 he was taken to 31. er Civilian Interrogation Camp, near Lüneburg.

The commanding officer, Capt. Thomas Selvester, began routine debriefing. Himmler finally removed his left eyepatch and donned his trademark round glasses, admitting to who he really was and requesting to speak to General Eisenhower or Montgomery. Sylvester telephoned British headquarters in Lüneburg and was instructed to be checked immediately in case he somehow committed suicide; in fact in the same place, two days before the colonel SS Hans-Adolf Prützmann had committed suicide by poisoning with cyanide capsules. Faced with this fact, British soldiers rushed him to a confiscated house in Lüneburg that served as the headquarters of the British 2nd Army in Lüneburg, where the soldiers physically and verbally abused him during the transfer and ordered him to undress to search it. Doctor Wells carried out a medical examination of Himmler. The doctor tried to examine Himmler's mouth, but the prisoner refused to open it and turned his head away from him, Dr. Wells saw something strange between his molars and put his hand into Himmler's mouth trying to extract the object. Given this fact, shocking for Himmler, since he did not feel that it was the appropriate way to treat a former minister and Reichsführer of the SS. Himmler then bit the doctor's hand and with it a cyanide capsule and collapsed to the ground. Bill Cariotte, a British Custodial soldier, recalls: "There was a sound of glass breaking between his teeth ." They tried to induce vomiting with lime water, doing a gastric lavage but it was all useless, Himmler had died almost instantly, fifteen minutes later. The soldiers proceeded to photograph the body and made a death mask, to record his death and finally Himmler's body was buried in an unknown location, near Lüneburg. To this day it is unknown where he is buried.

Himmler mortuary mask.

Private life

Mysticism and symbolism

Relationship with Hitler

First as deputy SS commander, and later as Reichsführer-SS, Himmler was in regular contact with Hitler, controlling the SS who acted as Hitler's bodyguards; Prior to the Nazi Party's seizure of power, Himmler was unrelated to the party's decision-making bosses and strategists. Since the late 1930s, the SS was independent of the control of other state or government agencies., and only answered to Hitler.

Himmler attending Hitler's 50th anniversary in Berlin on April 20, 1939.

Hitler's leadership style was to give contradictory orders to his subordinates and place them in positions where their roles and responsibilities overlapped with those of others. In this way, Hitler fostered mistrust, competition, and infighting among his subordinates in order to consolidate and maximize his own power. His cabinet never met again after 1938, and he discouraged his ministers from performing their duties independently.Hitler normally did not issue written orders, but did give them orally in meetings or in telephone conversations; he also relied on Bormann to relay orders.Bormann used his position to control the flow of information and access to Hitler, making many enemies, including Himmler himself.

Hitler promoted and practiced the Führerprinzip. This principle required the absolute obedience of all subordinates to their superiors; consequently, Hitler viewed the government structure as a pyramid, with himself at the apex. Consequently, Himmler was placed in a subordinate position to Hitler, and became unconditionally obedient to him. However, Himmler — like other senior Nazi officials—had an aspiration that he would one day succeed Hitler as Reich leader. For example, Himmler considered Albert Speer an especially dangerous rival, both in the Reich administration and also a potential successor to Hitler. Speer refused to accept the high rank of SS-Oberst-Gruppenführer that Himmler offered him, as he understood that this would put him in Himmler's debt and would force him to allow him to have a say and decision-making power. in the production of weapons.

Hitler went so far as to say that Himmler's mystical and pseudo-religious interests were "nonsense." Himmler did not belong to Hitler's inner circle; the two men were not very close, and were rarely seen together in public. Himmler socialized almost exclusively with other members of the SS. His unquestioning loyalty and his efforts to please Hitler earned him the nickname der treue Heinrich (& # 34; the loyal Heinrich & # 34;). However, during the last days of the war, when it became clear that Hitler planned to die in Berlin, Himmler did not hesitate to abandon his idolized superior in order to save himself.

Marriage and Family

Himmler with his wife Margarete and her daughter Gudrun.

Himmler met his future wife, Margarete Boden, in 1927. She was a nurse, and part owner of a private clinic. They were married in July 1928, and their only daughter, Gudrun, was born on August 8, 1929. The two also served as foster parents to a boy named Gerhard von Ahe, the son of an SS officer who had died before the war. war. Margarete sold her share of the clinic and used the money to buy a plot of land in Waldtrudering, near Munich, where they built a prefabricated house. Because of party business, Himmler was constantly away from the family, so his wife took over his mostly unsuccessful efforts to raise cattle for his later sale. They also had 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. Subsequently, Himmler also received a large house in Berlin, located in the Dahlem district and tax-free, since it was an official residence. However, by then the couple had little contact with each other, as Himmler was completely absorbed by work. The relationship became strained. From then on, the couple only met for social events; they were frequent guests at the Heydrich family home. Margarete saw in this a social role that she had to fulfill, and she used to invite the wives of the leaders and senior officers of the SS for tea on Wednesday afternoons.

Hedwig Potthast, who had been Himmler's young secretary since 1936, had become his lover by 1939. Hers He left her job in 1941. Himmler arranged housing arrangements for her, first in Mecklenburg, and later in Berchtesgaden, a Bavarian mountain refuge where Hitler had her vacation villa. Himmler was the father of two children with Hedwig: a son, Helge (born February 15, 1942) and a daughter, Nanette Dorothea (born July 20, 1944 in Berchtesgaden). Margarete, who was living in Gmund with her daughter at the time, learned of the relationship around 1941; she and Himmler were already virtually separated, although she decided to tolerate this relationship because of the love that Himmler had for her daughter. Working as a nurse for the German Red Cross during the war, Margarete was appointed supervisor in the 3rd Military District (Berlin-Brandenburg). Unlike his wife, Himmler did maintain a close relationship with their first daughter, Gudrun, at the that he called Püppi ("little doll"); he used to call her every few days and visit her whenever she could.Margarete's diaries reveal that Gudrun had to drop out of the Institute for National Political Education in Berlin due to her poor academic results. At the age of sixteen she joined the SS in Brno and soon after she marched "into battle". Destined for the Eastern Front, he was captured by the Soviets, although he later returned to Germany and lived in North Germany.

Hedwig and Margarete remained loyal to Himmler. Margarete and Gudrun left Gmund when the allied troops advanced on that area. They were arrested by US troops in Bolzano, Italy, and for some time were held in various internment camps in Italy, France, and Germany. They were taken to Nuremberg to testify at the trials, being released in November 1946. Gudrun came away bitter from the experience—over her alleged mistreatment—and has dedicated herself to reclaiming her father's memory ever since.

Awards

NSDAP Gold Brooch (Partiabzeichen Gold)
Insignia de Honor en oro de las Hitlerjugend (Golden Hitler-Jugend-Abzeichen)
General District Distinctive (Allgemeines Gau-Abzeichen)
District of Nuremberg (Nürnberger Gau Parteitagsabzeichen)
Combined pilot-observer in gold with diamonds (Gemeinsames Flugzgeugführer- und Beobachter-Abzeichen in Gold mit Brillanten)
Blood Order (Ehrenzeichen des 9. November 1923 or Blutorden)
SS ring (Totenkopfring der SS)
Civil Brooch of the SS, N° 2 (SS-Zivilabzeichen, Nr. 2)
Yule Candelabra (Julleuchter)
1.a Class of 1936 Olympics (Deutsche-Olympia Ehrenzeichen 1. Klasse)
NSDAP Award for 10 Years of Services (Dienstauszeichnung der NSDAP 10 Jahre)
NSDAP Prize for 15 years of service (Dienstauszeichnung der NSDAP 15 Jahre)
SS Prize, 2. Degree for 12 years of service (SS-Dienstauszeichnung 2.Stufe, 12 Jahre)
Medal of the annexation of Austria (Medaille zur Erinnerung an den 13. März 1938)
Medal of Sudetes annexation (Medaille zur Erinnerung an den 1. Oktober 1938)
Brooch of the Sudden Medal (Spange zur Medaille zur Erinnerung an den 1. Oktober 1938)
Medal commemorative of Memel's Reintegration (Medaille zur Erinnerung an die Heimkehr des Memellandes)
Veterans' honorary badge (Ehrenwinkel für Altekämpfer)
West Wall Medal (Westwall-Medaille (1944) or Deutsches Schutzwall- Ehrenzeichen)
German Sport Insignia in Silver (Deutschland Sportabzeichen in Silber)
Bronze SA sports badge (SA-Sportabzeichen in Bronze)
Grand Cross of the Imperial Order of the Yugo and the Arrows (of the Spanish State)

Contenido relacionado

Más resultados...