Heinrich Himmler

Heinrich Himmler (1900– 1945) was a very imporntant political figure in Nazi Germany and chief of the Schutzstaffel, or SS. Not only did he oversee all police and security forces, which included the Gestapo, but also supervised the concentration camps where the Jews and other minorities were eliminated during the Third Reich period.

Heinrich Himmler was born in Munich, Germany, on October 7, 1900, to Joseph Gebhard Himmler, a strict schoolteacher and principal of the prestigious Wittelsbacher Gymnasium. His mother was Anna Maria Himmler, who was a devout Roman Catholic and an attentive mother. Heinrich had two brothers, Gebhard and Ernst Himmler. In 1910, Himmler attended Gymnasium in Landshut, where he studied classic literature. He struggled in athletics, but he did well in his schoolwork. He played chess and collected stamps.

Although there was no trace of the sort of dramatic maltreatment, such as beatings, that might acount for what he was to become as an adult, there were portentous shadows. Young Heinrich was forced gently but relentlessly into a narrow mold by a pedantic father who supervised every detail of the boy’s education and every moment of his time. His father, who had once served as tutor to Prince Heinrich of the Bavarian royal family, even made lists of his son’s classmates, analyzing their family connections and giving instructions on which boys to befriend and which to ignore.

At the outbreak of the Great War, Himmler enthusiastically followed the events of the escalating conflict with a schoolboy’s fervor, but until 1917 he was too young to participate in anything other than relief work and home guard training. In January 1918, the young Himmler finally reported for training as an officer candidate in the 11th Bavarian Infantry Regiment. To Himmler’s everlasting frustration, the war ended just as he finished his training.

Crestfallen, Heinrich Himmler returned home to find that, almost overnight, everything had changed. The family’s patron, Prince Heinrich, had been killed in action. The monarchy itself was a casualty. Prostrated by the lost war, threatened with communist revolution, Germany had become a democratic republic under the Weimar Constitution. In 1919, Himmler enrolled in a technical college in Munich as an agricultural student, graduating with a degree in agriculture in 1922.

In 1923, Himmler joined the Nazi Party, quickly developing a reputation for thoroughness and efficiency. He participated in the coup attempt in Munich, known as the Beer Hall Putsch, in November 1923, as a standard bearer, walking at the side of Ernst Röhm before the march was broken up. From 1925 to 1930, he was the chief of propaganda for the Nazis in Bavaria, Swabia and the Palatinate. In 1928, Himmler married Margarete Siegroth (née Boden), a nurse seven years his senior, and with whom he had his only child, Gudrun. They bought a small farm and worked unsuccessfully as chicken farmers.

In 1929, Hitler assigned Himmler the task of building up a unit composed of faithful and fit men that were to be Hitler’s personal bodyguard; the Schutzstaffel, or SS. By 1929, this unit numbered 200 men. From 1929 to January 1933, the violence and chaos on the streets most associated with Weimar Germany came from the SA. The SS was rarely involved in this, as its task was only to protect Hitler.

In 1930, Himmler was elected to the German Parliament (the Reichstag) as Nazi deputy for Weser-Ems. But he devoted most of his time to expanding the SS so that by 1933, it had grown to 52,000 men. Himmler also made sure that the SS remained free from interference by Röhm and the SA. Himmler created the Security Service, appointing Reinhard Heydrich as its chief.

Himmler was a keen astrologist and cosmologist as he was convinced that Germany’s future rested in the stars. He considered the SS the Twentieth Century’s Teutonic Knights, as many SS ceremonies were held at night in castles lit only by flaming torches. He saw the SS as being a new type of people – soldiers, administrators, academics and leaders all rolled into one. In the mind of Himmler, the SS were to be the new aristocracy of Germany.

Obsessed with racial purity in Germany, Himmler encouraged Aryan breeding programmes. When the Second World War broke out, Himmler was able to pursue another racial goal, which was the elimination of Jews. After Poland had been defeated, Himmler was given total control of the annexed parts of the country. In the first year of the war more than 300,000 Jews had been forced out to be replaced with German settlers. By June 1941, when Germany invaded the Soviet Union, Himmler controlled the police and the political administration of the occupied territories, and the concentration camps, which were run by the SS. In 1943, Hitler appointed Himmler minister of the interior. During this period he supervised the "Final Solution," which was a plan to kill all the Jews in Europe.

After the failed attempt to assassinate Hitler, on July 20, 1944, Himmler’s position was strengthened still further. Nevertheless, as Germany’s defeat became imminent, Himmler made attempts to negotiate with the Allies. Hitler was furious and stripped Himmler of all his offices. Following Germany’s surrender, he tried to escape under a false identity but was captured by a British unit. On May 23, 1945, Heinrich Himmler committed suicide by taking a cyanide capsule in his cell while he was under custody.