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Heinrich Himmler

Surname Himmler Given Name Heinrich Born 7 Oct 1900 Died 23 May 1945 Country Germany Category Government Gender Male

Contributor: C. Peter Chen

ww2dbaseHeinrich Luitpold Himmler was born near München (Munich), Bayern (Bavaria), Germany into a middle-class family with connections to royalty. His father was Joseph Gebhardt Himmler, a teacher and principal of the Wittelsbacher Gymnasium in München. His godfather was Prince Heinrich of Wittelsbach, the crown prince of Bayern, whose tutor was Himmler's father. He was educated strictly Catholic in the conservative household. In 1910, Himmler began attending elite secondary schools in München and Landshut and did well academically. In 1917, he applied to be a cadet with the German Navy, but was rejected due to his dependency on eyeglasses. With the rejection he turned to the Army, joining the 11th Bavarian Infantry Regiment; his father's royal connections might played a part in his acceptance as an officer candidate with the regiment. WW1 ended before he had completed his officer training, thus he was discharged from the military without seeing combat. He was discharged from the German Army after the Treaty of Versailles reduced the size of it.

ww2dbaseIn 1919, Himmler studied agronomy at the Technische Hochschule in München. Around this time he began to steer away from the Catholic doctrines he was brought up with; it was partly due to his new found interest in Germanic Meso-Paganism. He eventually became a critic of the Christian faith but he maintained his political support for the church.

ww2dbaseObsessed with being a soldier, a dream Himmler did not achieve during WW1, he joined a right-wing Freikrops para-military organization and fought against Kurt Eisner's movement for a democratic Bayern. In 1922 he completed his studies and acquired a position as a laboratory assistant in a fertilizer company. He did not hold this job for every long, however, for that he was becoming more and more politically charged. In 1923, his acquaintance with Ernst Röhm led him to join the Nazi Party. During the Beer Hall Putsch in Nov 1923, the failed Nazi coup d'etat attempt, he was the flag bearer under Röhm during the attempt to take control of the War Ministry office building. Seeing that the Nazi movement was getting weaker, he briefly established a side-job as a chicken farmer in Waldtrudering, something he enjoyed as a follower of the völkisch movement that stressed the importance of being close to nature and working with earth. He would not quit from Nazi politics, however. In the next few years received several promotions in the Nazi Party, achieving the rank of deputy commander of the SS in 1927, two years after joining the organization.

ww2dbaseThroughout his adolescent and adult years, Himmler always had trouble with the opposite sex. After many rejections, however, he met divorcee Margarete Boden in 1926 at a hotel lobby. Seven years his senior, she was blonde-haired and blue-eyed, or in other words the ideal appearance of an Aryan that Himmler had come to idolize. They were married on 3 Jul 1928 and had their only child, a daughter by the name of Gudrun, on 8 Aug 1929. Margarete later adopted a son, but Himmler continued to only send his love toward his daughter, ignoring the boy. Their marriage began to see problems around this time as Himmler visited their chicken farm less and less because of his political involvement.

ww2dbaseIn Jan 1929, upon the resignation of Erhard Heiden from the top post at the SS, Himmler took the helm of the 280-strong organization. Heiden had resigned after it was discovered that his tailor was Jewish, a fact that Heiden had known; although not proven, it was possible that Himmler reported this finding to Adolf Hitler in order to gain Heiden's position. The small organization grew, largely with Hitler's support. By Sep 1930, membership grew to over 2,700. By 1933, membership had grown to over 52,000, and its jurisdiction had grown larger, including the responsibility of policing München, the Nazi Party power base; the responsibility was later expanded to all of Bayern. He began maneuvering politics, attempting to separate the SS from the umbrella organization SA which the SS fell under. He introduced black uniforms, designed by Hugo Boss, for the men of the SS in fall 1933 to visually distinguish his men from the brown-clad men of the SA. With persuasion from Himmler and Hermann Göring, Hitler grew apart from SA leader Ernst Röhm, whose socialist ideals and personal ambition to takeover the German Army made Hitler suspicious. With Hitler's blessing, the SA organization was taken apart violently during the Night of the Long Knives on 30 Jun 1934. Himmler participated in this purge directly from Berlin, personally responsible for the arrest and murder of several SA leaders. Röhm, along with many other Nazi leaders, were executed. The next day, the SS became an independent branch of the Nazi Party. Also in 1934, Himmler sold his chicken farm. On 17 Jun 1936, the SS absorbed all of Germany's police forces, expanding Himmler's sphere of influence over all of Germany, though operationally Himmler would not gain total control of all the police until 1943.

ww2dbaseIn Feb 1938, Himmler used Reinhard Heydrich's SD skillfully to maneuver Werner von Blomberg and Werner von Fritsch to their resignations. In Aug, the SS became a non-military force with the privilege to carry heavy weaponry. Himmler's removal of two prominent German military commanders, in addition to his own force being equipped as a standard military force, shaped the near future events as Germany entered the war. The Waffen-SS, a military branch of the SS, was to become an elite group of men in the German fighting forces.

ww2dbaseIn Sep 1939, Germany invaded Poland and started the European War. Throughout the war Himmler was responsible for all intelligence and counterintelligence operations in Germany, but another role he held during the war characterized his historical image as an agent of utmost evil. Starting in the 1930s, the responsibility to purge Europe of the Jews, Roma, Sinti, homosexuals, disabled, Communists, and other groups had been given to the SS. As the leader of the SS, he was considered one of the main architects of the Holocaust and held responsible for the murder of millions of innocent people. On 4 Oct 1943, Himmler referred explicitly to the extermination of Jews during a secret SS meeting in the city of Poznań. "[E]very Party member will tell you, perfectly clear," he said, "it's part of our plans, we're eliminating the Jews".

ww2dbaseIn 1940, Himmler became separated from his wife after their marriage became difficult. The failed marriage had much to do with Himmler being totally engulfed in military and political matters. After their separation without divorce, he had a relationship with a staff secretary, Hedwig Potthast, the daughter of a Cologne businessman. They had two children, son Helge and daughter Nanette Dorothea. In self-justification, as early as 1939 Himmler preached how useful it would be to Germany if every man had a mistress, as it would contribute to the rapid growth of the German population, which was needed to replace men killed in battle.

ww2dbaseIn 1942, Heydrich was assassinated in Prague by Czechs. Himmler immediately carried out a reprisal, killing the entire male population in the village of Lidice.

ww2dbaseIn 1943, Himmler was appointed German Interior Minister. Political maneuvering while in this position began to make him even more political enemies.

ww2dbaseAfter the 20 Jul 1944 failed attempt to assassinate Hitler, Himmler was placed directly into the military as the commander of the Reserve Army. In this role, he attempted to transfer men in the reserve into the Waffen-SS, which raised eyebrows among the military elite considering that the German military was by now dwindling and was badly in need of the men in the reserves. Also as a consequence to the July Plot, Himmler's grasp in the intelligence community was complete after absorbing the Abwehr, military intelligence, into his own organization.

ww2dbaseOn 2 Dec 1944, Himmler was made the commander of the military forces of Upper Rhine, which was fighting a bloody defensive battle against the advancing American 7th Army and the French 1st Army in the Alsace region. His failures there led to his transfer to the Russian Front, which he failed equally against the advancing Russian forces. His complete lack in the understanding of military tactics was characterized by a defense formation he formed near Danzig; instead of running a north to south line to fight the oncoming Russians from the east, he formed an east-west line. The advancing Russian forces mostly ignored the defensive setup of the inept leader, sweeping south toward Berlin. Heinz Guderian visited Himmler to discuss his failings militarily, and caught him while he was sick with a cold. Seizing the opportunity, Guderian suggested that Himmler had taken on too much responsibility and in turn causing him the sickness. Himmler, realizing that he was no good at the military game, agreed and returned to Berlin. Little did he know, he played right into the hands of his political opponent, Martin Bormann. It was Bormann who, knowing well Himmler would fail as a military commander, recommended to Hitler to place Himmler in charge of the Danzig defense.

ww2dbaseNear the end of the war, after learning that he was not in the running to become Hitler's successor and he knew well that he was not a liked figure in the Nazi Party, Himmler attempted to betray him. Through Swedish Count Folke Bernadotte, he attempted to negotiate a separate peace with the Western Allies. He expressed to the Western Allies that the remains of the German military and the Waffen-SS could combine forces in a continued war against the Communists and Russians. His attempt came to Hitler's attention on 28 Apr 1945, and the angered German leader immediately stripped Himmler all his titles and ranks, and placed the order for his arrest. Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz, who succeeded Hitler after Hitler's suicide on 30 Apr, apparently never received Hitler's order for Himmler's arrest though he dismissed him from service on 6 May 1945. Himmler continued to desperately seek favor from the western Allies, but none was given. He even sent a letter to Dwight Eisenhower stating that he would surrender all under his wide influence if he was not to be tried as a Nazi leader after the war; additionally, he also applied to Eisenhower for the position of the Minister of Police of post-war Germany. The letter was intercepted by German authorities before it reached Eisenhower's headquarters, and as a result Himmler was quoted as a "burden" to Germany by Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel. When all was lost, he attempted to disguise himself as a sergeant major and hid himself in a stream of refugees under the name of Heinrich Hitzinger. He was found and captured on 22 May in Bremen en route to Bayern by a British Army unit, which only pulled him aside for further investigations because this "Heinrich Hitzinger" simply had too complete a set of (false) identification documents for a refugee. By this time, his mental condition was so unstable after his fall from power that he was actually shocked that he was taken in as a prisoner instead of a dignitary. He committed suicide in Lüneburg by swallowing a potassium cyanide capsule, avoiding subsequent trials at Nuremberg. His last words were "Ich bin Heinrich Himmler!" ("I am Heinrich Himmler!"). He was buried in an unmarked grave on the Lüneburg Heath, which location had since become unknown.

ww2dbaseSources:

Bill Yenne, Hitler's Master of the Dark Arts

Wilhelm Keitel, In the Service of the Reich

Anthony Read and David Fisher, The Fall of Berlin

Wikipedia



Last Major Revision: Apr 2007

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