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As the architect of the Nazi Holocaust, Heinrich Himmler was in charge of a mass slaughter that included the murder of six million Jews.

Now diaries have been discovered which show he was more concerned with what he was having for lunch than the monstrous massacre he was masterminding for his Fuhrer, Adolf Hitler.

And in 1944, at the height of the Nazis’ Final Solution, the head of the SS and Gestapo recorded how he had a massage, before personally overseeing the shooting dead of 10 Polish detainees.

After the end of the war, his 1938, 1943 and 1944 diaries were assumed to have been lost. In fact, they had fallen into the the hands of the Soviet Red Army and had been gathering dust in a military archive in Podolsk, near Moscow.

Filed under the single word Dnewnik – meaning diary in Russian – there are more than 1,000 pages of entries.

They reveal that between 1943 and 1945 Himmler officially met 1,600 people.

(Image: Channel 4)

But it is the entries which cover the minutiae of his life which are most chilling.

Of a visit to the Buchenwald concentration camp in Germany, he writes: “Took a snack at the cafe in the SS-Casino.”

Researchers from the German Historical Institute in Moscow have been sifting through the diary entries for months.

Director, Prof Nikolaus Katzer, described the collection as “a document of shudderingly outstanding historical significance”.

And Himmler researcher Dr Matthias Uhl said: “Himmler is a beast of contradictions.

On the one hand, he was the ruthless enforcer who pronounced death sentences and planned the Holocaust.

"On the other hand, he was, for his SS elite, family, friends and acquaintances, a meticulous carer.

(Image: ullstein bild)

“The archive documents are the key to fully understanding Himmler and all his cruel works.”

Himmler was known to be squeamish at the sight of blood, despite having personal control of the Nazi death camps.

In August 1941, when witnessing the mass shooting of Jews into a pit outside the city of Minsk, in modern-day Belarus, he almost fainted when the brains of one of his victims splattered on to his greatcoat.

But he was quite happy to order atrocity after atrocity, if not to witness it in person.

In a 1944 diary entry, he records having a massage from his personal doctor...and then ordering the shooting of 10 Poles.

On the same day he calls for new guard dogs at Auschwitz “capable of ripping apart everyone but their handlers”.

(Image: Getty)

In 1943, he writes about witnessing the “effectiveness” of the diesel engines at the Sobibor death camp in Nazi occupied Poland, where 400 people were put to death purely as an exhibition of the new technology for Himmler’s benefit.

Later the same day, he records that he was “feted” at a banquet thrown by SS men.

The journals are dotted with references to Puppi, Himmler’s nickname for his daughter Gudrun, who is still alive at 86.

Himmler was obsessed with astrology and the Aryan myths and legends on which Nazi propaganda was founded, and also devoted time to studying strange diets.

The diaries chronicle how, early in 1943, he recommended to Hitler that trapped SS men fighting with the Germany 6th Army at Stalingrad should be fed dried rations, like those Genghis Khan gave his warriors.

The diary also mentions Himmler’s favourite leisure activities, included curling, watching movies and star-gazing.

On June 3, 1944, three days before the D-Day landings, Himmler wrote about the SS general Hermann Fegelein’s marriage to Gretl Braun, the sister of Hitler’s mistress Eva Braun, at the Fuhrer’s holiday retreat in Bavaria.

Himmler describes the wedding day, from 9am to 7pm, beginning with the greeting of guests and going on to tell of a lunch held at the home of Hitler’s secretary, Martin Bormann.

(Image: Getty)

He then moves on to the wedding celebrations held at the Berghof, Hitler’s mountain residence.

The wedding day was to culminate with a trip to the tea house at the top of the mountain, a relic from Nazi times that still exists to this day.

In May 1945, Himmler fled Berlin disguised as an ordinary soldier with false papers, only to be captured by Allied forces in northern Germany

Recognised later, he was taken for interrogation, but soon bit down on a cyanide capsule contained in a tooth and was dead within minutes, aged 44.

Auschwitz survivor Leslie Kleinman, 86, of Westcliff-on-Sea, Essex, said: “I am not surprised Himmler was able to write about his life and then at the same time be responsible for Auschwitz and the other concentration camps.”

(Image: Sunday Mirror)

Leslie, whose parents and seven brothers and sisters were all put to death in the gas chambers, said: “All of Himmler’s SS men shared the same ability to slaughter Jews without becoming upset.

“I, of course, never met Himmler, but we all knew he was the man responsible for Auschwitz.

“I remember how the guards enjoyed what they were doing as we heard the screams and wails of those who were about to die.

“They were quite happy to do it, and that must have come from Himmler. They had no emotion.”

British hero who helped bring the ‘snivelling Nazi coward’ to justice

(Image: Getty)

Heroic Navy test pilot Captain Eric “Winkle” Brown came face to face with Heinrich Himmler when he helped to interrogate him after the Second World War.

The air ace sadly died in February aged 97, but last June he told the Daily Mirror about his confrontation with the head of the SS.

Capt Brown had first helped liberate Nazi death camp Bergen-Belsen and, because of his German language skills, was asked to help quiz the camp commandant Josef Kramer and guard Irma Grese, dubbed the Hyena of Auschwitz.

Afterwards, he was asked to help interview more Nazi high command, including Hermann Goering and Himmler, who he described as a “snivelling coward”.

He added: “He was so frightened of what would happen to him. It was all aimed at saving his own skin.”

Himmler was hiding his identity when captured.

(Image: Mirror)

Capt Brown recalled: “This chap called himself Heinrich Hitzinger. And his papers were forged.

“But the warrant officer kept at him and kept at him. Eventually he got mad and said, ‘I’m Heinrich Himmler’.

“And the warrant officer said, ‘Yes and I’m Julius Caesar’. He didn’t believe him.”

Days later, Himmler committed suicide while in British custody, biting into a cyanide pill he had hidden in his mouth.

Capt Brown went on to be appointed MBE, OBE and CBE and held three world records for his incredible flying skills, including one for the greatest number of different aircraft flown – 487 – and one for his 2,407 landings on aircraft carriers.

The celebrated pilot, nicknamed Winkle because of his short stature, also survived 11 plane crashes and the sinking of HMS Audacity in 1941.