Heinrich Himmler: Architect of The Final Solution | WW2 Documentary

it is too easy to cast all the blame for the holocaust on one man adolf hitler the leader of nazi germany and the man who has now come to personify true evil however no one man could truly achieve such horrors on their own from the start of his political career he had allies people who would flock to his cause and would ultimately help propel him to a stage where he could inflict such cruelty on the world there was herman goering commander of the german air force the luftwaffe joseph goebbels the third reich's minister for propaganda and heinrich himmler the head of the vaunted ss and one of the chief architects of the holocaust against the jews and anyone else who did not fit his vision of a pure germany in today's documentary we will delve into this terrifying figure of history and explore the career of a man who on both ideological and practical levels is literally responsible for the deaths of millions this is the story of one of the true monsters of history welcome to wars of the world [Music] early life heinrich or heinrich in german was born in munich on october 7th 1900 into a conservative middle class bavarian family his father was a teacher while his mother devoted herself to their roman catholic faith but both of them had close ties to the then ruling german monarchy with heinrich taking his name from his godfather prince heinrich of bavaria when it came to his schooling the young heinrich himmler proved to have a keen intellect doing well in his academic studies while he attended the cathedral school in salvottaplatz before attending the grammar school in lanshut where his father was the deputy principal however such european grammar schools of the day emphasized that boys demonstrate their prowess physically as well as mentally and sadly for the young himmler this was an area where he struggled he was prone to bouts of ill health throughout his life especially concerning stomach pains that inhibited his athletic performance in his first year at the salvatoplat school he missed around 150 days due to illness prompting his father to take measures to prop up his son's education such as lessons during summer holidays however when he was well his classmates noted that he would often exercise vigorously possibly in the belief that it would fight off such ailments from returning but nevertheless they persisted throughout his school days it is known that heinrich's father expected a lot from all his children and it has long been speculated that these stomach pains were probably the result of stress from this incredible paternal pressure his classmates often noted that the young himmler was always rather awkward in social gatherings but from his diaries which he began taking meticulously from age 10 we can see that he was a keen observer of people he would write down his thoughts on topics including imperial germany's growing economic and military power in the lead-up to world war one and the relationship between religion and sex which reflected his own questions on sexuality as he entered puberty heinrich was too young to join the german army when the first world war broke out in the summer of 1914 and he would have to wait one more year to join his school cadet corps where he would be prepared for eventual military service during this time like many boys of his age and class he heard the stories of the glorious campaign against germany's enemies and wished very much to be a part of it however he was dismayed that in the towns around his school there seemed to be less enthusiasm for the war than he would have liked which possibly emphasized the naivety of the young teenage heinrich himmler even as that initial patriotic mania that swept through germany during the early stages of the war began to subside himmler remained excited with the prospect of earning himself glory commanding troops into battle and was envious of his older brother who reached military age in july of 1915 and immediately joined up himmler seemed oblivious to the suffering that was going on as a result of the war even when it began to affect his own family the once privileged himmlers saw their influence wane as like every other family rich or poor in germany they had to live under the restrictions placed on them such as rationing perhaps the biggest hit to the family was when prince heinrich heinrich himmler's namesake and godfather was killed in battle which cut off the family's access to the aristocracy and severely limited their future prospects and influence yet despite all of this heinrich himmler continued longingly playing soldier in the cadet corps and then pretending to go into battle with his friends in the fields around the school where as heinrich recorded in his diary they achieved such imaginary feats as capturing 1 000 russian soldiers almost single-handedly it would not be until late 1917 that he would finally join the german army as an officer candidate but the war would end in november of the following year without heinrich completing his training having missed out on the war he instead completed his grammar school education before attending munich's technical university where he studied agricultural techniques it was at this time that heinrich himmler began writing in his diaries on the topic of german jewish relations anti-semitism had long lingered under the surface of german society since the country's birth in 1871 but primarily took the form of social isolation with there being very little in the way of interaction between those of the jewish community and the rest of germany at the university heinrich and his classmates always separated themselves from their jewish classmates creating a perfect environment for germans to view the jewish population as different and not true germans thus when the war was lost and a scapegoat was needed many germans reignited their anti-semitism and took to blaming the jews in august of 1923 himmler's political ideologies led him to the small but growing national socialist german workers party himmler had joined the nazis the sa and the ss from the outset the nazi party fell back on the experiences of the militaristic mindsets that prevailed in its upper echelons forming the blueprints for when they would eventually come to power the nazi party adopted uniformed departments with specific roles one of the most significant in the early days was the storm thailand or storm detachment but more commonly known by the abbreviation of the sa the sa wore brown uniforms to distinguish them and adopted military ranks and discipline while they conducted their duties in providing security at nazi rallies and meetings later they adopted a more aggressive role actively attacking opposing political groups in particular those in support of germany adopting communism and the often public brawls that resulted left an impression on the general public that the sa were nothing more than a criminal gang or mob having missed out on fighting in the war himmler was attracted to the military environment of the sa and so signed up to join them but just like in the military there were elite units within their ranks and one of these was the sal schutz which translates into hall security but its members were known as the ss the ss had the important task of providing security for party meetings at their headquarters in munich but like the sa at large its role evolved as the nazi party's fortunes rose and then fell in spectacular fashion in 1923 when hitler attempted to seize power in the failed beer hall putch the unit was largely disbanded while hitler was briefly in prison but was re-established upon his release hitler now wanted a bodyguard unit to assume direct responsibility for his safety as he suspected there were opponents to him throughout the party in particular amongst the sa it was soon renamed the shut-staffle or protection squadron in 1925 and a new member was absorbed into its ranks heinrich himmler the ss was initially commanded by julius shrek a trusted friend of hitler but within a year he was replaced by joseph birchdolls one of the founders of the sa however he swiftly became frustrated by having to come under command of the essay and so he delegated many of his duties to his second in command erhard haydn haydn eventually replaced birchold in march of 1927 and appointed himmler as his own deputy at a crucial time in the ss's history as the force was in decline thanks to it being overshadowed by its parent organization it was also around this time that himmler met his wife margaret bowden and after a brief relationship where they exchanged letters with one another they married in july of 1928 margaret was seven years older than himmler but they had similar interests she was also a known anti-semite as in one of her letters to her husband she made negative remarks about a jewish doctor before describing all jews as being the same himmler's excellent organizational skills coupled with haydn's strict discipline meant that the ss were saved from oblivion by proving their worth to hitler and perhaps more importantly their loyalty to achieve this himmler oversaw the establishment of an intelligence agency within the ss to monitor groups such as the freemasons the communists and the jewish political groups of germany all of whom were potential stumbling blocks in the nazis rise to power himmler eventually dictated every detail of the ss's day-to-day operation right down to their uniforms which distinguished them from the brown shirts in the sa but they were not yet the famous black ones in january of 1929 himmler's work was recognized by hitler and he was appointed as haydn's replacement after it was announced he was standing down in official documentation hitler stated that haydn was leaving the ss for reasons related to his family however it has long been suspected that himmler either deliberately or unintentionally gained favor with hitler over haydn either way himmler was now the reich fuhrer ss on the eve of the party's great breakthrough in german politics nazis in power the best political weapon is the weapon of terror cruelty commands respect men may hate us but we don't ask for their love only for their fear himmler on september 14th 1930 the german people went to the polls hitler's trial following the beer hall putch had catapulted him and the nazi party into the limelight this coupled with his famously hypnotic personality and their message of restoring germany's prestige following the humiliating terms of the versailles treaty after world war one meant that their support base grew exponentially in the late 1920s during these elections the number of seats the nazis occupied in the german reichstag rose from 12 to 107 however this was still not enough to legally take power nevertheless they were now a formidable political force but this newfound power brought with it new problems for the nazi leadership the sa began demanding that some of its leaguers occupy the newly won seats but hitler refused leading to resignations of senior sa figures in protest the frustrations of the sa with the party they were formed to protect only worsened and was often vented on the ss men especially when it was discovered that himmler had ordered his ss intelligence personnel to start monitoring sa meetings over the coming months the sa openly turned on the party and the ss found itself protecting nazi leaders from other nazis himmler would later claim that the sa rank and file were loyal nazis but they had been corrupted by a power-hungry cabal at the top of the sa leadership the crisis only seemed to end when hitler appointed himself the official head of both the sa and ss which appeared to bring the former back into line however the whole affair left a deep impression on the future german leader it taught hitler that the sa could not be wholly trusted while himmler and the ss were of unquestioning loyalty himmler hoped that the experience would finally free the ss from the shackles of being subordinate to the sa and even declared as much at the height of the crisis but following the appointment of ernst rome to handle the day-to-day running of the sa rome issued a formal order that solidified himmler's subordinate status to him himmler would not be content with this and was determined to distance his elite ss from the sa in every way possible he enforced special rules of conduct that were aimed at perpetuating the view that the ss were akin to medieval knights being of nobility and honor compared to the often less reputable lifestyles of the sa members many of whom displayed more disreputable traits such as drunkenness womanizing and homosexuality all of which were considered big taboos by the nazis rome himself was a gay man although he managed to hide this from other nazis by dismissing rumors as mere propaganda by opposition groups for his part rome tried to repair the rift between the sa and ss by clearly defining each department's duties and when these duties would cross over authority would fall to the highest ranking member of either however within months the ss again found itself having to suppress sa dissenters during a virtual repeat of the crisis a year earlier the rift had only grown as himmler outlined his plans for the ss to become more than just an elite bodyguard units but the very best of nazi society itself when they eventually seized power he explained that the ss would become a premier military fighting unit in combat while its members in everyday life would embody national socialism in all aspects including their genetic purity but this would not be confined solely to members any future wives would have to meet the same stringent criteria or the ss man in question would have to be dismissed as germany sunk into the great depression more and more flocked to the nazi corps seeing them as their savior on their promises of restored greatness with himmler being elected to the reichstag in 1930 the sa more than doubled to over a quarter of a million men in 1931 alone but while the ss also grew it was actually at a slower rate than rome or hitler would have liked because of himmler's stringent entry requirements himmler was little concerned however since he believed that his men who rose to just 10 000 in the same period were of such a high caliber that they could achieve feats far beyond anything the sa was capable of at the same time himmler founded a department given the task of safeguarding the racial purity of the ss while members soon began to adopt their now familiar black uniforms for the first time meanwhile the sa continued their war in the streets against the communists and anti-nazis it should be noted that the sa and ss were by no means the only political parliamentary force at work in germany at the time but their uniformity and effectiveness elevated their public perception in early 1932 with the nazi party still making gains politically although not enough to legally seize power the sa engaged in violent street battles with pro-communist groups leading to many deaths this prompted the newly elected government under president paul von hindenburg to outlaw both the sa and ss in april of 1932 but this did little to stop their function and deaths continued leading many to speculate that germany would soon be plunged into civil war finally on january 30th 1933 after much political turmoil and negotiation adolf hitler legally became chancellor of germany both the sa and ss which were now agencies of germany's federal government carried out torchlip parades through germany in celebration of their triumph nazi germany almost overnight the world seemed to change for germany for heinrich himmler the nazis coming to power finally allowed him to mold his beloved ss into the new aristocracy of nazi germany the purest and the best of their ideologically driven society but it was not enough to simply dictate how the men of the ss and their families should look act and even think they had to be protected from the outside threats to their nazi elites be they racial or political and for his part himmler had to make sure that his ss was still of use to hitler given hitler's newfound power therefore within months himmler found himself looking for a suitable location at which he could imprison such threats to hitler and by association the ss in march of 1933 he inspected an unused munitions factory north of munich and decided it could be reconstituted as a prison camp for political prisoners the camp would take its name from the nearby medieval township known as dakao it would become the first nazi concentration camp many of the prisoners themselves would be forced to build the facilities at dakao with the original aim for it being to hold around 6 000 inmates both himmler and his deputy reinhard hedrick seized more and more control of the country's police forces and this allowed them to round up anyone who opposed nazi rule and in doing so prevent the feared civil war and cement nazi authority an arson attack on the reichstag building which hitler decreed was part of a communist takeover plot resulted in president hindenburg restricting many civil liberties declaring a national emergency which only relaxed legal restrictions on himmler's crackdowns one of those arrested was erhard haydn himmler's former commander in the ss who had been accused of colluding with jewish businessmen and being a as the nazis termed it practicing homosexual he was murdered on orders from himmler at dakao himmler appointed theodore ike as the commander of the prison who was himself a convicted criminal but also a dedicated nazi under ike's leadership decal became the blueprint for how future concentration camps would be run but while the mass exterminations in gas chambers had not yet begun deaths at the camp from violence and disease were frequent shortly after the nazis came to power hermann goering established a new secret police organization from the remnants of existing ones dub the gestapo an abbreviation of the german words for secret police the organization was tasked with exposing opponents of the new regime and gathering intelligence on anti-nazi groups on april 20th 1934 hitler appointed himmler to take command of the organization since he and the ss were by now wholly involved in the protection of the new order so it seemed a logical decision hitler was pleased with himmler's work and soon promoted him making him the equivalent rank to anyone in the sa but this did not please the leaders of what should still have been the ss's parent organization in fact the sa leadership was growing frustrated once more feeling left out in the new order compared to how close himmler and the ss were to hitler it did not help that hitler himself did not wholly trust the sa anymore after their revolts in 1933 and that the sa was still seen by the wider public as a group of thugs starting fights and even riots in the streets which embarrassed hitler and caused friction with president hindenburg by early 1934 the sa's leader ernest rome was making more and more demands of hitler which included the sa taking over the army which was still under the constraints of the world war one peace agreement the treaty of versailles hitler knew he did not yet possess the political capital for such an act and so the sa were becoming a problem that had to be taken care of and he knew just the man to help him do it himmler and his ss once again served hitler's will and beginning on june 30th they began making arrests of leading s.a men who were then either shot or sent to prison in prison rome was visited by theodore ike who gave him a pistol with a single round in it instructing him to kill himself when he refused demanding hitler come and personally shoot him ike and his deputy opened fire and killed him the sa was now destroyed tarnished with leaders labeled as traitors and executed their exact number who died in the event now remembered as the night of the long knives is unclear as during the operation many sa men were shot on site such as edmund hines who was discovered in bed with an 18 year old sa man when the ss entered the official figure is 85 but some historians argue that it was much much higher the rank and file of the sa now had to find new lives in nazi germany while the power and prestige of himmler's ss seemed to only grow and this allowed them to concentrate more on what they viewed as the cleansing of germany's undesirables such as communists homosexuals and of course jews purging the undesirables by the time the nazis had come to power their hatred for the jews had become akin to a runaway train which no one in or outside of the nazi party could stop hitler himmler and all their followers were convinced of jewish betrayal and the sabotage of germany achieving victory in world war one therefore they wasted little time in stamping out this group of so-called undesirables in january of 1933 germany's total population was in the region of 67 million people excluding germans who lived outside of the fatherland in the newly redrawn map of europe after 1918. of this number the jewish population numbered just 520 000 or 00.83 of the population it is needless to say that to the nazis the jews were nothing more than a convenient scapegoat for their cause an ethnic minority who could be used to focus the anger and resentment of post-war germany without them having the sufficient numbers to resist while certainly there was this element to it we also have to remember the protective measures himmler put in place for his ss to truly gauge the nazi mindset concerning the jews for himmler and other senior nazis there was a clear distinction between a jewish man and a german man with the jewish man being the inferior specimen worse still for himmler in his mind the inferior jewish blood could potentially pollute a true ss man's bloodline hence these stringent hereditary checks before becoming a member of this elite social class it was unbridled unadulterated racism in its purest and most primal form this racism was so severe it led to a level of paranoia that we today would call simple insanity it is recognizing this fact that there was almost an immediate mass emigration of jewish peoples from germany after january 1933 approximately 37 000 in fact within just six months but that still left over half a million to threaten the prospect of a racially pure nazi germany the nazis began by organizing boycotts of jewish shops and businesses while the first formal restrictions were largely administrative jewish civil servants lost their jobs amidst the law for the restoration of the professional civil service which also covered the removal of germans who were seen as having unfavorable opinions of hitler and the nazis other professions soon followed including lawyers judges doctors and other health care professionals while a law concerning the overcrowding of german schools allowed nazis to exclude jewish children from attending eventually the nazis began clamping down on jewish culture itself preventing them from attending gatherings and celebrations as well as the ritual slaughter of certain animals in accordance with jewish dietary laws if any jews broke these laws or were found trying to conceal their heritage they would often find himmler's gestapo knocking down their door and the punishments were becoming increasingly severe eventually in 1935 the nazis passed the law for the protection of german blood and german honor which aimed to prevent intermarriage between jewish people and german people because remember the nazis did not view someone born in germany raised in germany educated in germany and having worked their entire lives in germany as german if they were jewish they combined this law with the reich citizenship law which declared that only those of german or related blood were eligible to be reich citizens combined these were known as the nuremberg laws it could be argued that himmler wanted to go even further by essentially arranging marriages for his men with women who had the right genetic traits to produce desirable offspring however in the early years despite the nazi party's efforts to purge the jewish people from german culture it was often the german people who gave the most resistance in fact as well as combating communists anti-nazis and democrats the gestapo under himmler found itself investigating opposition groups found within the catholic church especially after pope pius xi denounced nazism for its treatment of jewish people the gestapo also had to contend with teachers who opposed the new education laws professionals who came to the defense of their jewish colleagues and middle-class men and women who wanted germany to return to a more pre-war aristocratic society himmler's men broke up numerous groups throughout 1934 and 35 including a handful that were discovered to have been plotting hitler's assassination which no doubt only reinforced hitler's belief that as long as he had himmler by his side he would be safe from his enemies many of those arrested by the gestapo were placed in what was euphemistically called protective detention where they would be held until they could join the growing number of inmates at one of the equally growing number of concentration camps if arrested by the gestapo there was very little legal protection given the ruthless efficiency with which himmler's men operated in germany and the consequences of arrest by the gestapo terror became the most effective tool at himmler's disposal in forging and protecting the ideal nazi germany in the belief of establishing such a nation he viewed anyone opposed to it in any way including the germans as the enemy as he would say in 1936 i know there are some people in germany who become sick when they see these black uniforms we understand the reason for this and do not expect that we shall be loved by all that number of people those who come to fear us in any way or at any time must have a bad conscience towards the fuhrer and the nation for these persons have established an organization called the security service the nazis continued their crackdowns on jewish people within their borders including thousands of jews being forced into refugee camps in poland those who tried to get back into germany were reportedly shot by border guards after a 17-year-old polish jew herschel grinspan shot a german official in france the resentment towards the jewish people in germany that the nazis had been fostering finally erupted in november of 1938 as germans attacked jewish shops and homes while the police only interfered if german property was ever put at risk now remembered as the night of broken glass it served as a final warning to the remaining jews in germany that anti-semitism in hitler's reich was not a passing phase in addition to purging germany himmler and several other leading nazis also took to researching for historical and anthropological evidence of the germanic people's genetic superiority himmler's authority included the annan urba organization which conducted numerous archaeological digs across europe often the findings of the group were interpreted in such a way by the group that they would prove that the german people were examples of the so-called master race and had been held back by the impact of the impure peoples further solidifying the racism in nazi germany for anyone who did not meet nazi criteria himmler and the ss were especially interested in the medieval world but this was not at the expense of himmler's own religious belief something he insisted the men of the ss embrace however he found his new order coming into conflict with the christian world and in many ways began to form his own religion for the ss he would state categorically in fact quote i have not tolerated an atheist in the ranks of the ss every member has a deep faith in god in what my ancestors called in their language walada the ancient one the one who is mightier than we are himmler and the ss at war while the bulk of the german people's attention on the role of himmler and the ss throughout the mid-1930s was focused on their security roles when of course they weren't being nazi poster boys for propaganda purposes the ss was slowly adopting another role that was focused on the threat from outside germany's boundaries eventually known as the waffen ss this small military arm can trace its origins back to a 120 man unit known as the sonder commando berlin formed in march of 1933 this number would swell several times over by the end of the first year and all members pledged their support to adolf hitler above all others even if it should cost their lives himmler was eager to have his ss men proving their worth on the front lines of the future battlefields that most in germany knew would eventually come given the nazi drive for germany's restoration as a superpower having them fighting germany's enemies also played into himmler's ideas of the ss being the modern equivalent to ancient knights as well as concepts surrounding german citizenship and manhood not being a true military unit upon conception himmler had to initially go to the army for training and equipment this bred resentment amongst the army leadership who viewed the waffen ss as rivals particularly during the period before hitler abolished the military restrictions imposed on germany in the treaty of versailles these concerns would prove justified as in the coming war the voffin ss would possess some of the most modern equipment in the german army as the 1930s drew on hitler began expanding germany's borders back to pre-war boundaries such as in the rura and czechoslovakia while the western allies milled around with their response himmler's ss units joined the regular army as they entered these countries and he hoped they would get to prove their superiority in battle but the resistance never came by the summer of 1939 hitler confided in his top eight such as himmler his next goal the invasion of poland by this point it was obvious to all that such open hostility against a neighboring country would spark another major european war with britain and france while the soviet union threat had been neutered by berlin at least for the foreseeable future thanks to clandestine's secret meetings in which they carved up eastern europe in an effort to justify the invasion not just to the world but the german people themselves himmler and his second in command heydrich conceived an operation which would provide them with just such an excuse dubbed operation himmler ss soldiers dressed up in replica polish army uniforms and staged a number of border skirmishes with germany's border forces despite polish denials that they had anything to do with these skirmishes the german people were suitably motivated for war when the german army crossed into poland on september 1st 1939 while the invasion did spark war with britain and france the western allies could do little to stop poland's fall which took just one month to complete with the soviet union invading the east of the country as per their agreements with germany for himmler personally the absorption of this new land into the greater german reich expanded the scope of his operations in maintaining the security and of course purity of the german people from their paranoid insane racially motivated perspective poland was infested with undesirables that needed to be cleansed if the german people were to develop their new territory for the good of nazi germany unlike in the preceding years there were fewer places for poles and jews to be deported to and so the only option was for them to be housed in ghettos and concentration camps but even then some were going to have to be removed from the equation to allow such places to cope with the nazi demand for this role himmler turned to the ss einsatzgruppen or task force under himmler's instruction the einsatzgruppen began their killings almost immediately lands earmarked for german development were cleansed of poles jews romani peoples intellectuals and anyone with a physical or mental disability how they were to be killed himmler left up to his men's initiative but the most common method was by shooting the einsatzgruppen were by no means alone in these atrocities such was the scale of killing that they had to enlist the help of the regular german army and air force the luftwaffe and even polish collaborators to assist them ordinary german soldiers joined in the shootings while german pilots strafed and bombed large pockets of refugees many of whom were crowding the roads trying to flee the onslaught however the german military was not as enthusiastic as their ss counterparts with army generals writing to hitler asking that their men be spared these duties as it was damaging their morale some 65 000 civilians were killed in this initial orgy of blood much to the satisfaction of himmler by 1940 the killings were scaled back but the nazi leadership had decreed that poland would be cleansed entirely of the jews although howe was still unclear in the meantime the ss began rounding up the survivors and herding them into squalid ghettos in polish cities as for polish leaders and soldiers who were being held by the ss until it was decided what to do with them they were held at a polish army barracks that had been taken over and turned into a prisoner camp its name was auschwitz before long the war spilled over into western europe and the waffen ss were finally locked in a duel with formidable opponents exactly what himmler had dreamed of to prove his supermen's worth on may 10th the ss joined in the assault on then neutral holland overpowering the dutch border guards and allowing the german army to flood into the country bypassing france's main defensive line a week later they were successful in repelling an anglo-french tank assault at the battle of araz despite their anti-tank guns proving wanting against the thick armor of british tanks one of the most prestigious of the waffen ss was the unit leipzin starter adolf hitler formed out of hitler's personal bodyguards and eventually growing to become the most elite army division on may 28 1940 members of the 2nd battalion leibstand data herded 80 allied soldiers into a barn near the village of vermhout once inside the ss men threw in a few hand grenades which detonated killing most instantly a handful of survivors were left to simply die from their wounds but some were eventually saved from death by regular german army medics who came across the carnage by the summer of 1940 most of mainland western europe was under german occupation and this meant himmler and his men especially the gestapo were now having to protect germany from occupied lands lands which would grow again in the coming year as the war expanded once again the usual crackdowns began against the undesirable elements while more and more concentration camps were assembled to house the growing numbers of prisoners in the nazis clutches but hitler knew the advantages of enlisting collaborators to the nazi course and authorized himmler to begin recruiting new ss members from the occupied lands providing of course they met the physical and genetic requirements in order to form these new foreign battalions himmler relaxed the background requirements needed to become a member of the ss but it was still something of a feat to be accepted nevertheless over forty thousand belgiums and twenty thousand french among others would serve in the waffen ss at the very height of the war after hitler had withdrawn from his agreement with the soviets and launched operation barbarossa over half of the entire waffen ss would be non-germans but every unit would still be commanded by german officers as the germans pushed into the soviet union the waffen ss recruited many nationalist and anti-soviet groups into their ranks from countries like ukraine a unique unit was the tiger legion one comprised of some 4 500 indian nationalists who joined the ss to fight the british when india was still under the british empire one of the smallest foreign units but also one of the most notorious was the british free corps made up of 54 ex-british army soldiers captured in combat who were recruited on the promise they would be fighting communism only 54 men would serve in this unit but they were of enormous propaganda value to the germans after the war the surviving members were pursued by british authorities with one member john amory being hung for high treason when the ss joined in the invasion of the soviet union in 1941 hitler promised that no one fighting for the german army would ever have to answer for their actions in fighting the soviets because in his mind no war in the east could ever be fought along civilized lines essentially the ss and the german army were given a free hand to murder loot and rape but for himmler the invasion saw his work towards cleansing europe increase the old methods were too inefficient and he had to find alternative and faster methods to orchestrate his plans of genocide [Music] the jewish question himmler said on the topic of anti-semitism quote anti-semitism is exactly the same as de-lousing getting rid of lice is not a question of ideology it is a matter of cleanliness in just this same way anti-semitism for us has not been a question of ideology but a matter of cleanliness less than a month after the start of the invasion of the soviet union himmler was appointed by hitler to assume full and exclusive responsibility for security and race resettlement operations in the occupied soviet union this included the physical annihilation of the jewish population like in poland in 1939 large swaths of land were to be cleansed of undesirables for their eventual use by the german people to power the greater german reich however not all of the local population were killed or displaced in fact himmler was keenly aware that there were individuals in these lands that had desirable traits for germany specifically regarding children who had not yet been corrupted by their parents own ideology he said obviously in such a mixture of peoples there will always be some racially good types therefore i think that it is our duty to take their children with us to remove them from their environment if necessary by robbing or stealing them either way we win over any good blood that we can use for ourselves and give it a place in our people or we destroy that blood the einstein's groupon immediately went to work on shooting thousands of people and burying them in mass graves but it was a time-consuming affair another method that saw wide use were gas vans these were vans with air-tight compartments in the back where carbon monoxide from the vehicle's engine would be fed in suffocating the victims inside gas vans had been in use since 1939 to euthanize sick and infirm patients in polish hospitals but again this method could not murder in the numbers needed to be effective for hitler's ambitions himmler traveled into occupied soviet territory in late 1941 to observe his men at work in eradicating the jewish population according to ss obergruppenfuhrer carl wolfe his unit was inspected by himmler at one of their so-called special actions outside minsk recounting the experience later he said and there an open grave had been dug and they had to jump into this and lie face down and when a certain number had already been shot they had to lie on the people who had been shot and himmler had never seen dead people before and in his curiosity he was leaning over this pit a sort of triangular hole and looking in while he was looking in himmler had the deserved bad luck from one or another of those that had been shot in the head that he got a splash of brains on his coat and i think it also splashed onto his face and he became very green and pale he wasn't actually sick but he was heaving and swaying and stumbled back from this pit then i led him away in december of 1941 hitler tasked himmler and the ss with the final solution to all the jews of all of europe their total and utter eradication hitler himmler and hedrick concocted their plans to either gas shoot or work their jewish prisoners to death until they were nothing more than a memory on the continent after briefing leading nazi figures at a conference in onesie heydrich was travelling in an open top car in occupied prague when he was assassinated by czech resistance fighters under british control in retribution for this killing hitler and himmler settled on raising the town of ladiza to the ground during the ladies massacre 199 men were shot 195 women deported to concentration camps and 81 children eventually killed in gas vans while another eight were adopted by german families finally in heidrick's honor himmler dubbed the stepping up of the extermination of the jews operation reinhard himmler's organizational skills were again put to good use for the nazi cause as he plotted the extermination of jewish people romany people slavs homosexuals and anyone deemed inferior in poland four extermination camps auschwitz being the most famous began their killings using the gas zyklon b with incredible efficiency by mid-1942 under operation reinhard almost two million jews were murdered up until november of 1943 in polish camps there was never even a hint of remorse or regret from himmler emphasizing the true cruelty and insanity of nazi ideology on the contrary he viewed the task as not only necessary but even noble as he would say while the killings were taking place it is one of those things that is easily said the jewish people is being exterminated every party member will tell you perfectly clear it is part of our plans we are eliminating the jews exterminating them altogether we can say we have carried out this most difficult task for the love of our people and we have suffered no defect within us within our soul within our character for some of the unfortunate souls within his grasp and even crueler fate befell them being used in nazi medical experimentation ss doctors treated the prisoners at extermination camps as genetic material for their twisted experiments for the betterment of the german people as well as investigating diseases and their possible cures their experiments were designed to push the very limits of human endurance such as extreme heat or cold it is a curious contradiction in their ideology that nazi doctors who had gone to such efforts to prove the genetic inferiority of people such as the jews would use them for such experimenting since by their own definitions they were not people to the nazis but while himmler was cleansing the interior threats to the reich the waffen ss and the rest of the german people were focused on the exterior threats as 1944 loomed and the beginning of the end finally began the beginning of the end hitler's leadership through much of the early period of the war could be described as one gamble after another on several occasions he came into conflict with his most trusted generals over germany's war plans the two most significant being the invasion of the soviet union and the declaration of war on the united states however german forces were able to achieve what was previously thought unthinkable on numerous occasions thanks to superior tactics and weaponry but once america britain and the soviets were fully engaged in the war things began to change thanks to the incredible industrial output of weapons and war material the allied powers were able to achieve compared to germany by 1944 it was the sheer weight of enemy numbers that looked set to doom the nazis but hitler remained convinced that germany's new weapons then in development such as the me 262 jet fighter would keep the balance in their favor but his generals were not so confident many in the german leadership viewed hitler now as a problem because of his interference at the strategic level something that only worsened after june 6 1944 when the western allies invaded normandy a plot was thus devised to kill hitler with a bomb on july 20th hitler was attending a briefing when an explosive device detonated under a thick wooden table that absorbed much of the blast and in doing so spared hitler the german leader was furious about the betrayal and equally by himmler's failure to uncover the plot before the assassination attempt could be made needing to save face himless gestapo sprung into action arresting over 5 000 people from germany's upper echelons around 4 900 of these people were executed for being associated with the plot including one of germany's top generals the desert fox erwin rommel who took his own life rather than be executed so the nazis could conceal his death as him finally succumbing to his wounds any lack of faith hitler had in himmler after the assassination attempt seemed to be repaired by these reprisals and himmler gained yet even more power in the third reich hitler placed himmler in charge of the army reserve and made him responsible for prisoners of war before appointing him commander in chief of army group upper rhine by the end of the year himmler was now a frontline military commander protecting the reich from its enemies an ambition he had harbored since he was a boy but while he was an effective man in the offices of power this did not translate to him being a good military leader he frequently butted heads with more experienced generals leading to delays in operations which the allies successfully exploited himmler was also tasked by the fuhrer to create the volkster or people's storm akin to britain's home guard the volksterm recruited the young and the elderly into militias to help repel the invasion of germany quote our opponents have to learn to understand that every kilometer of our country will cost streams of blood each city block each village each farmstead every ditch every bush every forest will be defended by men boys old men and if need be by women and girls himmler meanwhile the nazi elite that himmler had created continued their desperate fight against the enemy on all fronts in december 1944 the germans launched their last great offensive of the war aimed at the ardennes forest in belgium spearheading the assault would be the sixth ss panzer division who would use poor weather to deny the allies their powerful air cover but whose battle plan relied on capturing allied supplies to keep the advance going the offensive began on december 16th and achieved great success on the first few days of what history now remembers as the battle of the bulge on the second day of the offensive ss men rounded up 84 american prisoners of war and massacred them near the town of malmedy belgium eventually the weather would clear before the ss could capture the allied supply stocks and allied aircraft blasted them back to their lines by february of 1945 himmler was beginning to reel from the pressures of all the duties he had absorbed by this point particularly his military wants as he commanded troops on the eastern front against the soviets his inability to deliver on his promises of victory to hitler finally saw the pair's relationship start to break down in all honesty germany's situation was so dire at this point that not even the experienced german generals could do much to change germany's fate on the eastern front especially german soldiers began uttering words to the effect of enjoy the rest of the war emphasizing the reprisals they could all expect at the hands of the soviet soldiers when the peace came himmler's nerves began to fail him and soon he began experiencing all the ailments that had troubled him as a boy leading to him being taken to a sanatorium which was run by an old school friend of his while recuperating there himmler concluded that germany's only chance was to negotiate a peace settlement with the allies after leading the sanatorium which was itself on the verge of being overrun by the soviets himmler met with hitler in his berlin bunker on april 20th declaring his loyalty to the fuhrer and wishing him a happy birthday it would be the last time the two men would meet in person the next day himmler did what must have seemed unthinkable just five years earlier he met with a swedish representative of the world jewish congress sweden having been neutral throughout the war and negotiated the release of some 20 000 concentration camp prisoners during the talks himmler downplayed the exterminations claiming that many of the deaths the world were increasingly becoming aware of as germany shrank away from its occupied territories were down to diseases at the camp something that would eerily foreshadow the claims of holocaust deniers for years afterwards of course this was nonsense and himmler and the nazi party's meticulous records of their own crimes serve as irrefutable proof of the murders they committed over the next few days himmler would meet with more swedish delegates until on april 28th the bbc broadcasted what was going on hitler was again furious the once unquestioned faith hitler had in himmler was shattered and hitler described himmler's negotiations as the single greatest act of treachery in history death of a devil hitler wanted himmler arrested but just two days later the fuhrer shot himself sparing himmler for a short while longer at least hitler appointed admiral carl dernitz as his replacements while stripping himmler of his position and title himmler offered his services to dernitz as second in command of his new government wanting to negotiate peace with the western allies who he thought would then join what was left of the german army in waging a war against the soviet union and while it was true that america and britain did not trust the soviets and vice versa they had nonetheless carefully negotiated a plan for ending the war without the two sides fighting one another by mistake or intentionally himmler's views were fanciful and unrealistic and he was denied a role in dernitz's government which was now suing for a unilateral ceasefire on the night of may 8th 1945 germany surrendered and the war in europe was over all that was left for himmler to do now was try and evade capture and certain death for the crimes his men had carried out in his and the furious name himmler was generally ill prepared for life on the run save for a forged payback under the name of sergeant heinrich hitzinger he and a few others fled blindly across germany but they had no final destination planned at any time since their own country was now broken in half by two huge invading armies on may 21 himmler and two others were stopped and detained at a checkpoint set up by former soviet prisoners making the prospect of them discovering who he really was a terrifying one for himmler who had been responsible for their conditions during their imprisonment the soviets transferred himmler to the british 31st civilian interrogation camp near loonberg on may 23rd where duty officer captain thomas sylvester began a routine interrogation himmler finally admitted who he was and he was soon transferred to the headquarters of the second british army upon arrival a british doctor conducted a medical exam on him but when he attempted to examine the inside of himmler's mouth the senior nazi refused despite repeated requests himmler still would not open his mouth and so the doctor decided to force the matter instead himmler bit into a hidden potassium cyanide pill and collapsed onto the floor just 15 minutes later he was dead he was soon buried in an unmarked grave near loonberg with the location being unknown thus preventing it becoming a shrine for surviving or even future nazis like much of the story of nazi germany himmler has become the source of fascination for historians the world over as they tried to understand the mentality behind why himmler and the ss carried out their atrocities legends have emerged of things such as himless fascination with the occult and have been blown up in importance by some and in many cases overshadow reality but perhaps this is to be expected perhaps it is easier for us to imagine some occult fascination than for us to comprehend that it was simply another human being that orchestrated and committed such horrors

Channel: WarsofTheWorld

Views: 923,842

Rating: 4.6773577 out of 5

Keywords:

Id: dmV1ehLK9sI

Length: 63min 39sec (3819 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 09 2021