Heinrich Himmler

Heinrich Himmler
[[image:File:H Himmler.png|200px]]
Political Party	NSDAP
Occupation	military commander, politician

Heinrich Luitpold Himmler (7 October 1900 – 23 May 1945) was commander-in-chief of the Schutzstaffel (SS) and one of the most powerful men in the Greater German Empire and the NSDAP hierarchy. As Reichsführer-SS he controlled the SS and to a degree, all the German police and security forces (including the Gestapo). As founder and officer-in-charge of the labour camps and the Einsatzgruppen counter-insurgency groups, Himmler held final command responsibility for Germany’s security.

Himmler, of all the National Socialist leaders, was the one most interested in medievalist German folkishness and further back into deep history of the Indo-European peoples. Some of these tendencies were not particularly embraced by Hitler who was more of a classicist in cultural disposition. Much of the research in this area was undertaken as part of the Ahnenerbe project. Himmler is said to have believed himself to be the reincarnation of Holy Roman Emperor Otto I the Great and had a strong mystical bent.

Early life

Himmler was born in Munich to a Bavarian family. His father was Joseph Gebhard Himmler, a secondary-school teacher and principal 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 (29 July 1898–), and a younger brother, Ernst Hermann Himmler (23 December 1905–). His father and mother were strict but actively involved in the rearing of their three children.

Heinrich was named after his godparent, Prince Heinrich of Wittelsbach of the royal family of Bavaria, who was tutored by his father Gebhard Himmler. In 1910, Himmler began attending elite secondary schools in Munich and Landshut, where studies revolved around classical 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.

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 the German Empire 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. Himmler also began to think seriously about religion 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 speculated Himmler was interested in Germanic Paganism and Ariosophy, a religious dogma of racial superiority of the Aryan race, 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, but felt that the teachings of the church were of the utmost importance to Aryans, as he thought, as most people think, that a “supreme deity” rules the world.

In November of 1923, Himmler took part in the March on the Feldherrnhalle in Munich led by Hitler. In 1926 he met his wife in a hotel lobby while escaping a storm. Margarete Siegroth (née Boden) was blonde and blue-eyed, seven years older than Himmler, 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, their daughter Gudrun, on 8 August 1929. Himmler adored his daughter, and called her Püppi (“dolly”). Margarete later adopted a son, in whom Himmler showed little interest. Heinrich and Margarete’s marriage was difficult, and they separated in 1940 without seeking divorce. Himmler started to become friendly with a staff secretary, Hedwig Potthast, who left her job in 1941 and became his mistress. He fathered two children with her: a son, Helge (1942) and a daughter, Nanette Dorothea (1944).

Rise in the SS

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Himmler and Karl Wolff share a joke at SS headquaters in Berlin.

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).

By 1933, when the Party gained power in Germany, Himmler’s SS numbered 52,000 members. 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 were bitter rivals with the SS.

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 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 party 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 removed. 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 in German Nacht der langen Messer, which is a falsified name, since the national socialists themselves never used that name.

Himmler about the future of SS

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Himmler in Germany, 1930s.

In a personal conversation with Artur Silgailis, chief of staff of Inspection General the Latvian Legion, the Latvian Waffen-SS, Heinrich Himmler outlined his future intentions with the SS and the organization of Europe:

He [Himmler] then singled out those nations which he regarded as belonging to the German family of nations and they were: the Germans, the Dutch, the Flemish, the Anglo-Saxons, the Scandinavians and the Baltic people. 'To combine all of these nations into one big family is the most important task at the present time' [Himmler said]. 'This unification has to take place on the principle of equality and at that same time has to secure the identity of each nation and its economical independence, of course, adjusting the latter to the interests of the whole German living space (...)
After the unification of all the German nations into one family, this family (...) has to take over the mission to include, in the family, all the Roman nations whose living space is favored by nature with a milder climate (...) I am convinced that after the unification, the Roman nations will be able to persevere as the Germans (...)
This enlarged family of the White race will then have the mission to include the Slavic nations into the family also because they too are of the White race (...) it is only with such a unification of the White race that the Western culture could be saved from the Yellow race (...)
At the present time, the Waffen-SS is leading in this respect because its organization is based on the principle of equality. The Waffen-SS comprises not only German, Roman and Slavic, but even Islamic units and at the same time has proven that every unit has maintained its national identity while fighting in close togetherness (...) I know quite well my Germans. The German always likes to think himself better but I would like to avert this. It is important that every Waffen-SS officer obeys the order of another officer of another nationality, as the officer of the other nationality obeys the order of the German officer.

However, since Himmler's speeches and utterings were largely falsified by the victors after the war, not authentic citations, like the above are not to be considered, as reality. The most well known fabrication of these is the so called Posen speech.

Posen Speeches

See Posen Speeches.

See also

• Ahnenerbe

External links

• Himmler, the Ahnenerbe and the Wewelsburg at The Occult History of the Third Reich
• The National Socialist Party in Third Reich Germany: Himmler Talks with American journalist Lothrop Stoddard

Article archives

• Codoh: Himmler, Heinrich