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Heinrich Himmler
Birth	October 7, 1900 (Munich, Germany)
Death	May 22, 1945 (aged 44) (Uelzener Straße 31a Lüneburg, Germany)
Party	National Socialist German Workers Party (NSDAP)
Political positions	Reichsführer-SS (RF-SS: “Reichs leader of the SS”) in the NSDAP (1929–1945) Reichs- und Preussischer Minister des Innern (Reichs & Prussian minister of the interior) of Germany (August 1943–1945) Chef der Deutschen Polizei (ChdDtP: “chief of German police”) (June 1936–1945) Chef der Heeresrüstung und Befehlshaber des Ersatzheeres (Ch H Rüst u.BdE: “chief of army equipment and commander of the replacement army”) of Germany (July 1944–1945) Reichskommissar für die Festigung des Deutschen Volkstums (RKFDV: “Reich commissar for the strengthening of Germanism”) in the NSDAP (October 1939–1945) Verein Lebensborn e.V. (“president of the ‘Fountain of Life’ society”) of the NSDAP (September 1936–1945) Verein Das Ahnenerbe Forschungs- und Lehrgemeinschaft (“president of the ancestral heritage research & teaching society”) of the NSDAP Beauftragter der NSDAP für alle Volkstumsfragen (“Nazi Party commissioner for all racial matters”) Generalbevollmächtigter für die Verwaltung (“plenipotentiary for administration”) of Germany (August 1943–1945).

Heinrich Luitpold Himmler (listen (help·info); 7 October 1900 – 23 May 1945) was commander of the Schutzstaffel (SS), as well as one of the most powerful men in Nazi Germany and the Nazi hierarchy. As Reichsführer-SS he controlled the SS, and to a degree, all the German police and security forces (including the infamous Gestapo).

As founder and officer-in-charge of the Nazi concentration camps and the infamous Einsatzgruppen death squads, Himmler held final command responsibility for annihilating “subhumans” whom the Nazis deemed unworthy to live. Shortly before the end of the war, he offered to surrender all of Germany to the Allies if he was spared from prosecution as a Nazi leader. Later in 1945, Himmler committed suicide with cyanide when he became a captive of the British Army after Germany had lost World War II.

Contents 1 Early life 2 Rise in the SS 2.1 Early SS (1927–1934) 2.2 Consolidation of power 3 Himmler’s war on Jewish people 3.1 Posen speech 4 The Second World War 5 Allach Porcelain 6 Peace negotiations, capture, and death 6.1 Alternate theories 7 Historical views 8 In fiction 9 Sources 10 References 11 See also 12 External links

Heinrich Luitpold Himmler was born in Munich to a Bavarian middle-class family. His father was Joseph Gebhard Himmler, a secondary-school teacher and principal^[1] of the prestigious Wittelsbacher Gymnasium in Munich. His mother was Anna Maria Himmler (née Heyder), a devout Roman Catholic and attentive mother. Heinrich had an older brother, Gebhard Ludwig Himmler, who was born on 29 July 1898s; and a younger brother, Ernst Hermann Himmler, born on 23 December 1905.^[2] Himmler’s childhood was quite normal for the time. His father and mother were extraordinarily strict but were actively involved in the rearing of their three children.^{[citation needed]}

Heinrich was named after his godparent, Prince Heinrich of Wittelsbach of the royal family of Bavaria, who was tutored by Gebhard Himmler.^[3] In 1910, Himmler began attending elite secondary schools in Munich and Landshut, where studies revolved around classic literature. While he struggled in athletics, he did well in his schoolwork. Also, at the behest of his father, Heinrich kept a fairly extensive diary from age ten until he was 24. He enjoyed chess, harpsichord, stamp collecting, gardening and other extracurricular activities. During Himmler’s youth, and into adulthood, he was never quite at ease in his interactions with the opposite sex.^[4]

In 1914 World War I began, and Himmler’s diaries from the time show that he was extremely interested in news pertaining to it. He began imploring his father to use his royal connections to obtain him a position as an officer candidate. His parents initially objected, yet eventually acquiesced, allowing him to train upon graduation from secondary school in 1918 with the 11th Bavarian Regiment. Since he was not athletic, he struggled throughout his military training. Later in that same year, the war ended in Germany’s defeat. The Treaty of Versailles, which Germany signed limiting its military numbers, ended his aspirations of becoming a professional army officer, and he was discharged; he never saw battle.

From 1919 to 1922 Himmler studied agronomy at the Munich Technische Hochschule following a short-lived apprenticeship on a farm and subsequent illness.^[5] Himmler at this time was pursuing a chaste lifestyle when he became interested in a young girl who was the daughter of the owner of a place where he ate. In his diary he compares his initial encounter with her as being akin to finding himself a sister. Later he experienced rejection when he let his true feelings be known to her. A difficulty with women persisted throughout life. His view of them is shown in a diary excerpt:

A proper man loves a woman on three levels: as a dear child who is to be chided, perhaps even punished on account of her unreasonableness, and who is protected and taken care of because one loves her. Then as wife and as a loyal, understanding comrade who fights through life with one, who stands faithfully at one’s side without hemming in or chaining the man and his spirit. And as a goddess whose feet one must kiss, who gives one strength through her feminine wisdom and childlike, pure sanctity that does not weaken in the hardest struggles and in the ideal hours gives one heavenly peace.^[6]

Himmler was also a good chess player. He thought that a game of chess was like a battle between two nations, and that only the smartest would win.^{[citation needed]} Himmler also underwent religious turmoil during his studies at Munich Technische Hochschule. In his diaries he claimed to be a devout Catholic, and wrote that he would never turn away from the church. However, he was a member of a fraternity which he felt to be at odds with the tenets of the church: biographers have defined Himmler’s theology as Ariosophy, his own religious dogma of racial superiority of the Aryan race and Germanic Meso-Paganism, partly from his interests in folklore and mythology of the ancient Teutonic tribes of Northern Europe. Himmler became a disbeliever of Christian doctrine and was also very critical of sermons given by priests. During this time he became obsessed with the idea of becoming a soldier. He wrote that if Germany did not find itself at war soon, he would go to another country to seek battle.

In November 1923, Himmler took part in Hitler’s Beer Hall Putsch under Ernst Röhm. In 1926 he met his wife in a hotel lobby while escaping a storm. Margarete Siegroth (née Boden) was blonde-haired and blue-eyed, seven years his senior, divorced, and Protestant. She was physically the epitome of the Nordic ideal. On 3 July 1928, the two were married and had their only child, daughter Gudrun, on 8 August 1929. Himmler adored his daughter, and called her Püppi (“dolly”). Margarete later adopted a son, in whom Himmler showed no interest. Heinrich and Margarete’s marriage was difficult, and they separated in 1940 without seeking divorce. Heinrich was far too engulfed in militaristic ideology by this time to serve as a competent husband. Himmler started to become friendly with a staff secretary, Hedwig Potthast, who left her job in 1941 and became his mistress. He fathered two out-of-wedlock children with her — a son, Helge (born 1942), and a daughter, Nanette Dorothea (born 1944).

Himmler joined the SS in 1925 and in 1927 was appointed deputy–Reichsführer-SS, a role he took very seriously. Upon the resignation of SS commander Erhard Heiden, Himmler was appointed Reichsführer-SS in January 1929. At that time the SS had 280 members and was considered a mere battalion of the much larger Sturmabteilung (SA). Himmler was only considered to be an SA-Oberführer, but after 1929 he referred to himself as “Reichsführer-SS.”

By 1933, when the Nazi Party gained power in Germany, Himmler’s SS numbered 52,000 members. The organization had developed strict membership requirements ensuring that all members were of Adolf Hitler’s Aryan Herrenvolk (“Aryan master race”). Now a Gruppenführer in the SA, Himmler, along with his deputy Reinhard Heydrich, next began a massive effort to separate the SS from SA control; he introduced black SS uniforms (designed by Hugo Boss) to replace the SA brown shirts in the autumn of 1933. Shortly thereafter, he was promoted to SS-Obergruppenführer und Reichsführer-SS and became an equal of the senior SA commanders, who by this time loathed the SS and the power it held.

Himmler, Hermann Göring, and General Werner von Blomberg agreed that the SA and its leader Ernst Röhm posed a threat to the German Army and the Nazi leadership of Germany. Röhm had strong socialistic and populist views and believed that although Hitler had successfully gained power, the “real” revolution had not yet begun and that the SA should become the sole arms-bearing corp of the state. This left some Nazi leaders believing Röhm was intent on using the SA to undertake a coup.

With persuasion from Himmler and Göring, Hitler agreed that Röhm had to be executed. He delegated the task of Röhm’s demise to Himmler and Göring who, along with Reinhard Heydrich, Kurt Daluege and Walter Schellenberg, ordered the execution of Röhm (carried out by Theodor Eicke) and other senior SA officials, as well as some of Hitler’s personal enemies (like Gregor Strasser and Kurt von Schleicher) on 30 June 1934, in what became known as the Night of the Long Knives. The next day, Himmler’s title of Reichsführer-SS became a rank to which he was appointed, and the SS became an independent organization of the Nazi Party.

In 1936 Himmler gained further authority as all of Germany’s uniformed law enforcement agencies were amalgamated into the new Ordnungspolizei (Orpo: “order police”), whose main office became a headquarters branch of the SS as Himmler was accorded the title Chief of the German Police. Himmler, however, was never able to gain operational control over the uniformed police. The actual powers granted to him with the appointment were those previously exercised in police matters by the ministry of the interior, and not even all of those. It was only in 1943, when Himmler was appointed minister of the interior, that the transfer of ministerial power was complete.

Germany’s political police forces came under Himmler’s authority in 1934, when he organized them into the Gestapo, as well as Germany’s entire concentration camp system. Once war began, though, new internment camps not formally classified as concentration camps would be established, over which Himmler and the SS would not exercise control. In 1943, following the outbreak of popular word-of-mouth criticism of the regime as a result of the Stalingrad disaster, the party apparatus, professing disappointment with the Gestapo’s performance in deterring such criticism, established the Politische Staffeln (political squads) as its own political policing organ, destroying the Gestapo’s nominal monopoly in this field.

With his 1936 appointment, Himmler also gained ministerial authority over Germany’s non-political detective forces, the Kriminalpolizei (Kripo: crime police), which he attempted to combine with the Gestapo into the Sicherheitspolizei (Sipo: security police) under the command of Reinhard Heydrich, and thus gain operational control over Germany’s entire detective force. This merger was never complete within the Reich, with Kripo remaining firmly under the control of its own civilian administration and later the party apparatus as the latter annexed the civilian administration. However, in occupied territories not incorporated into the Reich proper, Sipo consolidation within the SS line of command proved mostly effective. Following the outbreak of World War II, Himmler formed the Reichssicherheitshauptamt (RSHA: reichs security headquarters) wherein Gestapo, Kripo and the Sicherheitsdienst (SD: security services) became departments. Attempts in 1940 to use the new RSHA structure to gain full control over the Kripo by giving RSHA regional officers command authority over Kripo offices in their jurisdictions were rebuffed.

The SS during these years also developed its own military branch, the SS-Verfügungstruppe, which would later become the Waffen-SS. Even though nominally under the authority of Himmler, the Waffen-SS developed a fully militarised structure of command and operationally were incorporated in the war effort parallel to the Wehrmacht.

After the Night of the Long Knives, the SS-Totenkopfverbände was given the task of organizing and administering Germany’s regime of concentration camps and, after 1941, the extermination camps in occupied Poland. The SS, through its intelligence arm, the Sicherheitsdienst (SD), was charged with finding Jews, Gypsies, communists and those persons of any other cultural, racial, political or religious affiliation deemed by the Nazis to be either Untermensch (sub-human) or in opposition to the regime, and placing them in concentration camps. Himmler opened the first of these camps near Dachau on 22 March 1933. He became one of the main architects of the Holocaust, using elements of mysticism^{[citation needed]} and a fanatical belief in the racist Nazi ideology to justify the mass murder and genocide of millions of victims. Himmler had similar plans for the Poles and for many other nations in Eastern Europe (such as the Russians). All intellectuals were to be killed and other Poles were to be only literate enough to read traffic signs.

In contrast to Hitler, Himmler inspected several concentration and war camps. In August 1941 Himmler was present at a mass shooting of Jews in Minsk and was said to have turned green in the face after brain matter from a victim splashed onto his coat; his assistant Karl Wolff had to jump forward and hold him steady.^[7] After that the Nazis searched for a new and more expedient way to kill which culminated in the use of the gas chambers.

Himmler believed that it was actually possible to breed a master race of Nordic Aryans in Germany as his previous experience as a chicken farmer had taught him the rudimentary basics of animal breeding. He believed that he could engineer the German populace, through selective breeding, to be entirely “Nordic” in appearance within several decades of the end of the war.^[8]

On 4 October 1943, Himmler referred explicitly to the extermination of the Jewish people during a secret SS meeting in the city of Poznań (Posen). The following are excerpts from a transcription of an audio recording that exists of the speech:

I also want to mention a very difficult subject before you here, completely openly. It should be discussed amongst us, and yet, nevertheless, we will never speak about it in public. I am talking about the Jewish evacuation: the extermination of the Jewish people. It is one of those things that is easily said. “The Jewish people are being exterminated,” every Party member will tell you: “Perfectly clear, it’s part of our plans, we’re eliminating the Jews, exterminating them, ha!, a small matter.”

Before the invasion of Russia in 1941, Himmler began preparing his SS for a war of extermination against the forces of “Judeo-Bolshevism”. Himmler, always glad to make parallels between Nazi Germany and the Middle Ages, compared the invasion to the Crusades. He collected volunteers from all over Europe, including Danes, Norwegians, Swedes, Dutch, Belgians, French, Spaniards, and, after the invasion, Ukrainians, Latvians, Lithuanians, and Estonians, attracting the non-Germanic volunteers by declaring a pan-European crusade to defend the traditional values of Old Europe from the “Godless Bolshevik Hordes”.

In truth the “volunteers” from the occupied Soviet territories were mostly collaborator policemen pressed en-masse into the Waffen SS once their territories of origin were overrun by the Red Army, though especially in the Baltic states many natives volunteered to serve in the Black Order of Himmler due to their loathing of communism. As long as they were employed against Soviet troops, they performed fanatically, expecting no mercy if captured. When employed against the Western Allies, they tended to surrender eagerly. Waffen SS recruitment in Western and Nordic Europe was abysmally unsuccessful, though a number of Waffen-SS Legions were founded, such as the Wallonian contingent led by Leon Degrelle, whom Himmler planned to appoint chancellor of a restored Burgundy controlled by the SS once the war was over.

In 1942, Reinhard Heydrich, Himmler’s right hand man was killed near Prague after an attack by Czech special forces. Himmler immediately carried out a reprisal, killing the entire male population in the village of Lidice.

In 1943, Himmler was appointed German interior minister. This was very much a pyrrhic victory. Himmler sought to use his new office to reverse the party apparatus' annexation of the civil service and tried to challenge the authority of the party gauleiters.

This hopeless aspiration was easily frustrated by Martin Bormann, Hitler’s secretary and party chancellor. It also incurred some displeasure from Hitler himself, whose long-standing disdain for the traditional civil service was one of the foundations of Nazi administrative thinking. Himmler made things much worse still when following his appointment as head of the Ersatzheer (replacement army; see below) he tried to use his authority in both military and police matters by transferring policemen to the Waffen-SS.

With Himmler about to hang himself, Bormann could not give him the rope fast enough, initially acquiescing in the lunacy, until furious protests broke out. Then, destroying the scheme with a vengeance leaving Himmler much discredited, especially with the party, whose gauleiters now saw Bormann as their protector since Himmler was urged on by his SS and Police Leaders to cement the authority of the SS in the Reich at the expense of the party.

The involvement in the 20 July 1944 plot against Hitler of leaders of the Abwehr (military intelligence), including its head, Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, prompted Hitler to disband the Abwehr and make the SD the sole intelligence service of the Third Reich. This increased Himmler’s already considerable personal power.

It also soon emerged that General Friedrich Fromm, commander-in-chief of the Ersatzheer, was implicated in the conspiracy. Fromm’s removal, coupled with Hitler’s great suspicion of the army, led the way to Himmler’s appointment as Fromm’s successor, a position he predictably abused to enormously expand the Waffen SS even further to the detriment of the rapidly deteriorating Wehrmacht.

Unfortunately for Himmler, the investigation soon revealed the involvement of many SS officers in the conspiracy, including some senior ones, which played into the hands of Bormann’s power struggle against the SS, as very few party cadre officers were implicated. Even more importantly, a number of senior SS officers began to conspire against the Himmler himself, as they believed that he would be unable to achieve victory in the power struggle against Bormann. Among these defectors were Ernst Kaltenbrunner, Heydrich’s successor as chief of the Reichssicherheitshauptamt, and Gruppenführer Heinrich Müller, the chief of the Gestapo.

In late 1944, Himmler became commander-in-chief of the Upper Rhine army group, which was fighting the oncoming U.S. 7th Army and French 1st Army in the Alsace region on the west bank of the Rhine. Himmler held this post until January 1945 when, after the Wehrmacht’s failure to halt the Red Army’s Vistula-Oder offensive, Hitler placed him in command of the newly formed Army Group Vistula despite Himmler’s total lack of experience and ability in commanding troops. The appointment may have been at the instigation of Bormann, anxious to discredit a rival, or through Hitler’s continuing anger at the “failures” of the general staff.

Himmler established his command centre at Schneidemühl, using his special train, the Sonderzug Steiermark, as his headquarters, despite its having only one telephone line and no signals detachment. Eager to show his determination, Himmler ordered at immediate counter-attack. The operation failed within a day and Himmler dismissed his corps command and appointed Heinz Lammerding; his headquarters was also forced to retreat to Falkenburg. On 30 January, Himmler lost much of a battalion of irreplaceable Tiger tanks: when ordered to advance, they were still on their flat cars when caught by Soviet tanks near the Landsberg road. The same day he issued draconian orders: Tod und Strafe für Pflichtvergessenheit —“death and punishment for those who forget their obligations” to encourage his troops. The worsening situation left Himmler under increasing pressure from Hitler; he was unassertive and nervous in any conference. In mid-February the Pomeranian offensive by his forces was actually directed by Walther Wenck, and after intense pressure from Guderian on Hitler, although Himmler did intervene to forbid any evacuation of civilians from eastern Pomerania^[vague]. By early March Himmler’s headquarters had moved west of the Oder, although his Army Group was still called Vistula. At conferences with Hitler he aped the leader’s line of increased severity towards German soldiers who retreated. On March 13, Himmler suddenly abandoned his command, and claiming illness he retired to a sanatorium at Hohenlychen. Guderian visited him there and carried his resignation to Hitler that night; he was replaced by General Gotthard Heinrici.

As the war was drawing to a German defeat, Himmler was considered by many^{[citation needed]} to be a candidate to succeed Hitler as the Führer of Germany. However, it became known after the war that Hitler never really considered Himmler as a successor, even before his betrayal, believing that the authority that was his as head of the SS had caused him to be so hated that he would be rejected by the party.^{[citation needed]}

The porcelain factory Porzellan Manufaktur Allach was established as a private concern in 1935 in the small town of Allach, near Munich, Germany. In 1936 the factory was acquired by the SS. Heinrich Himmler saw the acquisition of a fine porcelain factory as a way to establish an industrial base for the production of works of art that would be representative, in Himmler's eyes, of truly Germanic culture. Allach porcelain was one of Himmler’s favorite projects and produced various figurines(soldiers, animals, etc.) to compete in the small but profitable German porcelain market.

High-ranking artists were locked into contract. The program of the factory included over 240 porcelain and ceramic models. As output at the Allach factory increased, the Nazis moved production to a new facility near the Dachau concentration camp. The fact that the factory might have been taking advantage of a pool of slave labor provided by the Dachau camp was strongly denied by the factory managers at the Nuremberg Trials. Initially intended as a temporary facility, Dachau remained the main location for fine porcelain manufacture even after the original factory in Allach was modernized and reopened in 1940. The factory in Allach was instead retrofitted for the production of ceramic products such as household pottery.

The fall of the Third Reich brought an end to the Allach concern. The Allach factories were shut down in 1945 and never reopened.

Allach porcelain made a variety of candle holders ranging from elaborate gilded baroque candelabras, to the most basic plain white porcelain single candle holder. Production numbers for most candleholders were above average for other Allach items, indicating popularity and interest among the German people. The varying styles and cost of the candleholders produced at Allach allowed most Germans of every class to own them. The Allach Julleuchter was unique in that it was made as presentation piece for SS officers to celebrate the winter solstice. It was later given to all SS members on the same occasion. Made of unglazed stoneware, the Julleuchter was decorated with early pagan Germanic symbols. Himmler said, “I would have every family of a married SS man to be in possession of a Julleuchter. Even the wife will, when she has left the myths of the church find something else which her heart and mind can embrace.” Production numbers in 1939 alone were a staggering 52,635, certainly a record for any single item produced at the Porzellan Manufaktur Allach.

In the winter of 1944–45, Himmler’s Waffen-SS numbered 910,000 members, with the Allgemeine-SS (at least on paper) hosting a membership of nearly two million. However, by the spring of 1945 Himmler had lost faith in German victory, probably partially due to his discussions with his masseur Felix Kersten and Walter Schellenberg.^[9] He came to the realization that if the Nazi regime was to have any chance of survival, it would need to seek peace with Britain and the United States. Toward this end, he contacted Count Folke Bernadotte of Sweden at Lübeck, near the Danish border, and began negotiations to surrender in the West. Himmler hoped the British and Americans would fight their Soviet allies with the remains of the Wehrmacht.

When Hitler discovered this, Himmler was declared a traitor and stripped of all his titles and ranks the day before Hitler committed suicide. Hitler’s successor as chancellor of Germany was Joseph Goebbels who had disputed with Himmler many times during his Nazi career. Hermann Göring was also considered a traitor by Hitler. At the time of Himmler’s denunciation, he held the positions of Reichsführer-SS, chief of the German police, Reich commissioner of German nationhood, Reich minister of the interior, supreme commander of the Volkssturm, and supreme commander of the Home Army.

Himmler’s negotiations with Count Bernadotte failed. Since he could not return to Berlin, he joined Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz, who by then was commanding all German forces within the northern part of the western front, in nearby Plön. Dönitz immediately sent Himmler away, explaining that there was no place for him in the new German government.

Himmler next turned to the Americans as a defector, contacting the headquarters of General Dwight Eisenhower and proclaiming he would surrender all of Germany to the Allies if he was spared from prosecution as a Nazi leader. In an example of Himmler’s mental state at this point, he sent a personal application to Eisenhower stating he wished to apply for the position of “minister of police” in the post-war government of Germany. He also reportedly mused on how to handle his first meeting with the Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF) commander and whether to give the Nazi salute or shake hands with him. Eisenhower refused to have anything to do with Himmler, who was subsequently declared a major war criminal.

Unwanted by his former colleagues and hunted by the Allies, Himmler wandered for several days around Flensburg near the Danish border, capital of the Dönitz government. Attempting to evade arrest, he disguised himself as a sergeant-major of the Secret Military Police, using the name Heinrich Hitzinger, shaving his moustache and donning an eye patch over his left eye,^[10] in the hope that he could return to Bavaria. He had equipped himself with a full set of false documents, but someone whose papers were wholly in order was so unusual that it aroused the suspicions of a British Army unit in Bremen. Himmler was arrested on 22 May by Sergeant Arthur Britton, and in captivity, was soon recognized. Himmler was scheduled to stand trial with other German leaders as a major war criminal at Nuremberg, but committed suicide in Lüneburg by swallowing a potassium cyanide capsule before interrogation could begin. These cyanide tablets were fitted in caps in SS officers’ teeth (which they snapped open and swallowed the tablet)^{[citation needed]} before the Holocaust began so that they would always have the choice of suicide if anything went wrong.^{[citation needed]} His last words were Ich bin Heinrich Himmler!^{[citation needed]} (“I am Heinrich Himmler!”). Shortly afterwards, Himmler’s body was secretly buried in an unmarked grave on the Lüneburg Heath. The precise location of Himmler’s grave remains unknown.

There were later claims that the man who committed suicide in Lüneburg was not Himmler but a double. Statements allegedly attributed to ODESSA were said to have asserted that Himmler escaped to the tiny and rustic farming village of Strones in the Waldviertel, a hilly forested area in the northwest part of Lower Austria just north of Vienna, the birthplace of Alois Hitler, where he was running a reborn SS in exile.^{[citation needed]}

The probability of a double was taken up in the book SS-1: The Unlikely Death of Heinrich Himmler by Hugh Thomas, published in 2001 by 4th Estate. Thomas gained access to the autopsy records which were so thorough, they recorded such details as the amount of hair in the ears of the corpse (p. 172), yet made no mention of a v-shaped scar which Himmler was known to have had; the remnants of a wound above his left cheekbone, sustained in a fencing duel in his youth.

A recently-published book by American pro-Nazi writer, Joseph Bellinger, Himmler’s Death, offers another alternative theory to Himmler’s death, stating that Himmler was assassinated by his British interrogators in May 1945 along with other high-ranking officers of the SS and Werewolf Resistance Organization. Bellinger’s book was first published in Germany by Arndt Verlag, Kiel. A similar book, Himmler’s Secret War, by Martin Allen makes similar claims: it is, however, based on forged documents smuggled into the (British) National Archives.^[11] David Irving also claimed Himmler was beaten and killed by the British interrogators. He also claimed his nose was broken by the beating.

The neutrality of this section is disputed. Please see the discussion on the talk page.

Historians are divided on the psychology, motives, and influences that drove Himmler. Some see him as a willing dupe of Hitler, fully under his influence and seeing himself essentially as a tool, carrying Hitler’s views to their logical conclusion.

A key issue in understanding Himmler is to what extent he was a primary instigator and developer of anti-Semitism and racial murder in Nazi Germany in his own right, and not totally within Hitler’s control, or was simply the executor of Hitler’s direct orders. A related issue is the extent to which anti-semitism and racism were primary motives for him, over and above self-aggrandisement, accumulation of power and influence.

Himmler to some extent answered this himself saying if Hitler were to tell him to shoot his mother, he would do it and “be proud of the Führer’s confidence”. It was this unconditional loyalty that was the driving force behind Himmler’s unlikely career. Most commentators agree that commitment to Hitler’s murderous racism made Himmler the mastermind of genocide and the Holocaust.^[specify]

According to the Jewish Virtual Library, Himmler’s decisive innovation was to transform the race question from “a negative concept based on matter-of-course anti-Semitism” into “an organizational task for building up the SS ... It was Himmler’s master stroke that he succeeded in indoctrinating the SS with an apocalyptic ‘idealism’ beyond all guilt and responsibility, which rationalized mass murder as a form of martyrdom and harshness towards oneself.” [1]

The wartime cartoonist Victor Weisz saw Himmler as a terrible octopus, wielding oppressed nations in each of his eight arms. [2]

Wolfgang Sauer, historian at University of California, Berkeley, felt 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.” [3]

In an extract in the Norman Brook War Cabinet Diaries[4], Winston Churchill took a view towards Himmler widely shared during the war, advocating his assassination. According to Brook, responding to a suggestion that Nazi leaders be executed, “this prompted Churchill to ask if they should negotiate with Himmler ‘and bump him off later’, once peace terms had been agreed. The suggestion to cut a deal for a German surrender with Himmler and then assassinate him with support from the Home Office. ‘Quite entitled to do so’, the minutes record [... Churchill] as commenting.” [5]

A main focus of recent work on Himmler has been the extent to which he competed for, and craved, Hitler’s attention and respect, along with other Nazi leaders^[vague]. The events of the last days of the war, when he abandoned Hitler and began separate negotiations with the Allies, are obviously significant in this respect.

Himmler appears to have had a completely distorted view of how he was perceived by the Allies; he intended to meet with US and British leaders and have discussions “as gentlemen”. He tried to buy off their vengeance by last-minute reprieves for Jews and important prisoners. According to British soldiers who arrested Himmler, he was genuinely shocked to be treated as a prisoner.

• In Douglas Niles and Michael Dobson’s alternative-history novel Fox on the Rhine (ISBN 0-8125-7466-4), in which Hitler is killed in the attempted Bomb Plot of 20 July 1944, Himmler assumes command of the Third Reich by a series of assassinations of the conspirators planning to form a new government and, most prominently, of Hermann Göring, who was appointed the official new Führer. Thus Himmler, as the highest-ranking official remaining, takes up the position as leader of Nazi Germany, which enables him to execute “Operation Carousel”—a new offensive against the Allies. Himmler also features in Fox at the Front (ISBN 0-641-67696-4), the sequel to Fox on the Rhine.
• Himmler is played by Donald Pleasance in the movie The Eagle Has Landed, which is based on a novel by Jack Higgins (ISBN 0-425-17718-1). He is also featured in several other Jack Higgins books, including The Eagle Has Flown, the sequel to The Eagle Has Landed.
• He also appears in Return to Castle Wolfenstein as an SS chief overseeing the resurrection of Heinrich I and the occult during Operation Resurrection. He and his team were successful in the ordeal, but Heinrich I and his dark knights were quickly defeated by Agent Blazkowicz. He watched in horror that “This American, he has ruined everything” before he was told that he needed to go back to Berlin to report to Hitler.
• In the Colonization alternative history/sci-fi novel series by Harry Turtledove, Himmler is the Führer of the Greater German Reich in the 1960s, following the death of Hitler in the 1950s of a seemingly natural heart attack. Himmler dies of a stroke while working at his desk in 1965. He was succeeded shortly thereafter by Ernst Kaltenbrunner, who proceeded to adopt Himmler’s plan of invading Poland, which is occupied by aliens referred to as The Race, with catastrophic consequences.
• In Turtledove’s stand-alone novel In the Presence of Mine Enemies, in which Germany won World War II and which is set in 2010, Himmler had succeeded Hitler as Führer at an unspecified date, and remained so until his death in 1985—though some say he died in 1983 and the Reich was secretly ruled by a junta until a successor could be agreed upon.
• The plot of Anthony Burgess’s novel Earthly Powers hinges on an episode in which the narrator, a homosexual British novelist, accidentally saves Himmler from assassination by falling in front of him when the assassin shoots. As a result he takes the bullet, but survives. The Nazis praise him as a hero for shielding Himmler.
• The Spear by James Herbert deals with a neo-Nazi cult in Britain and an international conspiracy which includes a right-wing US general and a sinister arms dealer, and their obsession with and through the occult with resurrecting Himmler.
• Himmler also made an appearance in the Gordon Stevens book And All The Kings Men about German Operation Sea Lion succeeding and Britain being invaded.
• Himmler is the godfather of Herr Otto Flick, a fictitious Gestapo officer in the BBC comedy 'Allo 'Allo.
• Himmler appears briefly in Jerry Spinelli’s book Milkweed.
• Himmler is depicted as a vampire who ultimately faked his death in the White Wolf, Inc. publication for Vampire: the Masquerade entitled Berlin by Night.
• Himmler is played by Michael Palin in the legendary sketch-show Monty Python's Flying Circus

• Nazi mysticism
• Germanic neopaganism — Himmler was a neopagan adherent.
• Karl Maria Wiligut
• Gudrun Burwitz (Formerly Gudrun Himmler)-Himmler's beloved Daughter.
• Racial policy of Nazi Germany — Himmler’s involvement

• List of Himmler speeches A very detailed list of Himmler speeches including online sources and material in the U.S. National Archives. Article numbers in the archives are listed for professional scholars.
• Die Schutzstaffel als antibolschewistische Kampforganisation An essay by Himmler
• About Heinrich Himmler

Preceded by Erhard Heiden	Reichsführer-SS 1929–1945	Succeeded by Karl Hanke
Preceded by Wilhelm Frick	Interior Minister of Germany 1943–1945	Succeeded by Wilhelm Stuckart

v • d • e The Hitler Cabinet – 30 January 1933 to 30 April 1945

Adolf Hitler (Chancellor & Führer, NSDAP) | Franz von Papen (independent) | Konstantin von Neurath (independent → NSDAP) | Joachim von Ribbentrop (NSDAP) | Wilhelm Frick (NSDAP) | Heinrich Himmler (NSDAP) | Lutz Graf Schwerin von Krosigk (independent) | Alfred Hugenberg (DNVP) | Kurt Schmitt (NSDAP) | Hjalmar Schacht (independent) | Hermann Göring (NSDAP) | Walther Funk (NSDAP) | Franz Seldte (DVP → NSDAP) | Franz Gürtner (DNVP) | Franz Schlegelberger (NSDAP) | Otto Georg Thierack (NSDAP) | Werner von Blomberg (independent) | General Keitel (independent) | Freiherr von Eltz-Rübenach (independent) | Julius Heinrich Dorpmüller (NSDAP) | Wilhelm Ohnesorge (NSDAP) | Richard Walther Darré (NSDAP) | Herbert Backe (NSDAP) | Joseph Goebbels (NSDAP) | Bernhard Rust (NSDAP) | Fritz Todt (NSDAP) | Albert Speer (NSDAP) | Alfred Rosenberg (NSDAP) | Hanns Kerrl (NSDAP) | Hermann Muhs (NSDAP) | Otto Meißner (independent) | Hans Lammers (NSDAP) | Martin Bormann (NSDAP) | Karl Hermann Frank (NSDAP) | Rudolf Hess (NSDAP) | Ernst Röhm (NSDAP)

Persondata
NAME	Himmler, Heinrich Luitpold
ALTERNATIVE NAMES
SHORT DESCRIPTION	Commander of the Schutzstaffel (SS) and one of the most powerful men in Nazi Germany
DATE OF BIRTH	7 October 1900
PLACE OF BIRTH	Munich
DATE OF DEATH	23 May 1945
PLACE OF DEATH	Lüneburg