Heinrich Himmler Documentary - Biography of the life of Heinrich Himmler

[Music] the man known to history as Heinrich Himmler was born on the 7th of October 1900 in the German Bavarian city of Munich his mother Anna Maria Himmler came from a traditional Catholic family and as well as Heinrich also parented two more boys Gephardt ludwig born in 1898 and ernst herman in 1905 Emilie's father Josef Gebhardt Himmler was a 35 year old schoolmaster at the time of Heinrichs birth and had previously gained a degree in phonology and languages have Munich University and afterwards was appointed to be the tutor of prince heinrich of bavaria of the house of wittelsbach before returning to munich as a professor and teacher a proud organized and pedantic man Gephardt took great pride in his career success which is evidenced by him collecting lavish furnishings to adorn the Himmler household along with paintings and collectibles including old German coins and memorabilia meaning that both Heinrich and his brothers enjoyed a comfortable but traditional middle-class upbringing although Gebhardt had proven himself to be a success his father Heinrich's grandfather had been a poverty-stricken lifelong soldier and to start with at least the Himmler's had survived thanks to the support of and his family at Regensburg southeast germany as her father was a successful tradesman who had enabled the family to move into a spacious second-floor apartment on the Hildegard Strasse in Munich where Anna gave birth to a second son in 1900 who's she and Gebhardt named after his former student prince heinrich who also consented to become the young Himmler's Godfather as was typical of children their age in class within German society the himmler brothers received a strict regimented upbringing that was only intensified by their mother's religious ardour and their father's occupation and any hopes they may have had of escaping their parents attention was soon ended when all three were sent to a Grammar School in lancet northeast of Munich where their father was the joint schoolmaster it was during this time in LANs hood that the young Himmler began to take an interest in Germanic heritage and history in general that had possibly been inspired by the Bavarian towns castles and countless centuries old buildings and after his son also showed a keen interest in his father's historical memorabilia Gebhard went to every possible length to encourage Heinrichs newfound fascination and in return young Himmler returned his father's attention by becoming an obedient and devoted son over the coming months and years Eriksson proved himself to be his father's son as he became a hard-working methodical but quiet and unimaginative child which is evidenced by the fragments of surviving diary he wrote in 1910 in which instead of writing his daily accounts and sentences he merely listed his trivial daily activities such as a meal or bath times and refer to any adults by their full name or title giving the impression that from an early age that Himmler was proper organized and fastidious as Heinrich grew older his diary entries became more descriptive but remain periodical the most notable of them recounting additions to his stamp collection or church services however after the outbreak of World War one him riba gann to write about events or battles he had read about in the local press as well as letters his father received from prince heinrich who had joined the german army in 1901 as a left tenant and after the outbreak of war was badly wounded in action on the western front in 1914 it was during this period that Himmler began to prepare himself to join the German army which was only a few years hence by exercising regularly and lifting weights in an effort to gain muscle mass but as much as young Himmler may have wanted to appear as a strong youthful German he during this period also complained of regular colds stomach pains and other illnesses there were a cause of near constant frustration and concern for him at school higher it proved himself to be a hard-working pupil who need a excelled nor failed and the various subjects he was expected to master which included science mathematics history geography shorthand Latin and Greek as well as piano lessons which he showed little natural talent for and after many years of failure eventually plucked up enough courage to ask his parents to quit from 1915 onwards his diary entries began to subside in number which may have been due to the death in 1916 of his Godfather prince heinrich of bavaria in the mountains of romania and although this undoubtedly was a severe blow for both heinrich and his father their reaction to the prince's death is not recorded but it is probable that they were greatly affected by it possible evidence for what effect the prince's death may have had on him his father then came in 1917 when his father wrote to the Bavarian royal household asking for his son to be considered as a future officer cadet but not before he reached maturity and in the meantime Himmler was cooled up for training in 1917 at his mother's hometown of Regensburg with the 11th Bavarian Infantry Regiment the next year Himmler continued his army training first as a machine gunner and then as an officer however despite his later claims that he saw action on the Western Front in World War 1 records show that Heinrich never finished his army training before the end of hostilities as he was discharged in December 1918 without completing his officer training course Himmler's hopes of military service were then further hindered in the aftermath of World War one as the German army was massively reduced in size largely due to the terms of the Versailles Treaty and also because the country's economy had been decimated as a consequence of the war meaning that although Himmler still intended to join the military he was due to disarmament forced to seek a civilian occupation instead this then led to Himmler seeking employment on a farm as an apprentice near the city of Ingolstadt where his father had taken a teaching position in 1919 however whilst working there he soon began to feel ill and was soon diagnosed as having contracted parrot typhoid fever caused by salmonella poisoning that in turn was caused by ingesting unclean meat or water on his doctor's advice Himmler was told to steer clear of farm work for at least a year however he evidently wished to seek a career in farming at this time as he then enrolled on an agronomy course and the Technical University of Munich in October of 1919 where he would study crop and soil types until 1922 during which time he joined a fencing fraternity and even received the badge of honor there was a fencing scar to his face he was during this period that a large part of Himmler's time was spent at a student society named the apollo club there largely consisted of ex-soldiers and top graduates whose president was a jewish man named Abraham Hoffner and although he was at first polite to the Society's Jewish members in public it is clear that Himmler had already formed strong anti-semitic views as he was involved in violent arguments at which he protested against their membership there soon earned him a reputation as a nationalistic militarist himself all in all him his diary as well as the accounts handed down to us by his fellow students paid a picture of a methodical even pedantic traditional and morally upright young man who seems to have taken his studies and church-going extremely seriously and who took great pride in Germanic culture and traditions whilst avoiding intimate relationships with young women as he thought they should be protected and prevented from going astray due to temptation and even told his brother Gebhard that he intended to remain a virgin until he was married then on the 25th of January 1922 at a meeting of his rifle Club Himmler by chance met a man who would change his life and start a chain of events that would ultimately make him one of the most famous and indeed notorious men in human history the person in question was Captain Ernst Roehm who is one of the few officers that had been able to remain in the German army after the first world war who Himmler described as being very friendly as well as pessimistic about communism within Bavaria this meeting is considered to be the first hard evidence of Himmler becoming involved in organized nationalistic politics as it is evident that he was greatly impressed by the army captain as after concluding his agricultural studies in August 1922 both he and his brother gerhard in early 1923 joined Rome's newly formed nationalistic paramilitary unit named the Bund Reich's creeks flogger or imperial war flag society although he had now become involved with Rome and his paramilitary group him--let still sought work after leaving college and as his studies had also covered chemistry or rather the chemistry of fertilizers he soon got a job as a fertilizer laboratory assistant in the municipality of schleissheim around 10 miles north of Munich thusly meaning he was able to continue his membership of the Reich's creeks lager it is probable that it was around this time that Himmler would have become aware of the growing influence of the Munich based National Socialist German Workers Party formally the German Workers Party that since the 29th of July in 1921 had been led by certain Adolf Hitler whose rabble-rousing bombastic speeches with immune experimenting the admiration of the local nationalists including Ernst röhm as well as the hatred of the Communists resulting in regular street battles breaking out between the two it was also around this time their support for the Nationalists within Germany was beginning to grow as in 1923 the country's economy had been further damaged by the onset of hyperinflation that it had been experiencing since the first world war who was now compounded by the fact that the German government had undertaken massive debts in order to pay for its war reparations under the Versailles Treaty and as Germany had to repay these reparations with foreign currency the [ __ ] his government then began to buy foreign currency on mass by printing massive quantities of paper German marks that consequently made the country's currency more and more worthless then as a value of the mark fell more marks were needed to pay for foreign currency meaning that eventually that the German government in 1922 failed to pay the French one of their scheduled preparation instalments and as a result the French government ordered the occupation of the industrial rural region of western Germany after which it seized large amounts of German industrial output including coal that the German population desperately needed to heat their homes and to make things worse prices of foodstuffs such as bread skyrocketed due to hyperinflation meaning that a loaf of bread in 1923 cost a staggering 200 billion marks this dire situation was a direct benefit to the Nationalists and the Communists whose support were now beginning to grow due to the increasing discontentment and unemployment leading to yet more civil unrest and street fights therefore in an effort to strengthen their forces the Bavarian nationalist societies including Ernst Roehm shrikes creeks lager agreed to transfer the power of their organisations to ad of Hitler on the 25th of September 1923 forming the camp Bund after which Hitler announced that he would hold fourteen more mass meetings in Munich beginning on the 27th of September as it was clear that the National Socialist Party was becoming the dominant force of the Bavarian right Himmler joined the party a month before Hitler's formed takeover of the separate right-wing paramilitary groups although he still remained a member of Ernst rome's Reich's creeks larger unit and thusly a subordinate of Rome whose final downfall he would in little over a decade have a crucial hand in bringing about in the meantime the reich's creeks flogger with Himmler in tow took part in Hitler's failed Beer Hall Putsch attempt on the eighth and ninth of November 1923 in which the National Socialists the SA and the camp Bund attempted to seize control of the Bavarian government are capturing its leaders including Gustav von Kahr before marching on Berlin much in the same way that Hitler's hero Benito Mussolini had seized the Italian government with his march on Rome the year before this attempt ultimately ended in failure however when the First World War general Erich Ludendorff who had joined the pusher temped alongside Hitler released von Kahr and his allies from custody and after Hitler and his supporters attempted to march through Munich the following day to link up with Rome and Himmler's Reich's creeks lager they were met by government troops who opened fire on the Nationalists and forced them to retreat after attempting to go into hiding Hitler was subsequently arrested and tried for high treason in February of 1924 and was given five years in prison at Landsberg along with several other ringleaders of the purge including rudolf hess but in contrast Ludendorff who was still at war hero was released without charge or stimler after being arrested was released due to lack of evidence although his involvement in the purge lost him his job and as the Nazi Party in SA was now banned he was now forced to return home to his parents although Hitler's Beer Hall Putsch had ended in humiliating failure him 'lest still maintained contact with Ernst röhm who had been incarcerated himself at standalone prison where Himmler visited him in February 1924 on his motorcycle shortly before Rome was released on probation whilst Hitler still at Landsberg wrote his infamous autobiography and political doctrine mine camp after which he decided to seek power in Germany via peaceful means instead of revolution before being released on the 20th of December 1924 Ernst Roehm on the other hand was now trying to reform more paramilitary groups with a view to seizing power by force and it was because of this that a rift soon grew between him and Hitler until out of contempt what he thought was weakness on the Fuehrer's part Rome resigned from all his party commitments on the 1st of May 1925 before to Bolivia where he took a position as an adviser to the country's armed forces in contrast to Rome it is clear that Himmler had no intention of giving up his nationalist political activities as he refused to look for work during this period must to his parents displeasure and instead became a campaigner for the newly formed National Socialist freedom movement which was effectively the National Socialist Party under a different name as it had been banned after the purge and during the 1925 elections the party managed to secure 32 seats half of which they would lose during another election within a matter of months during the campaign Himmler taught Bavaria's towns and villages making speeches on the evils of capitalism as well as the Jews but despite his activism when Ernst röhm left Germany for Bolivia Himmler was left without a powerful friend through which he could make himself known but when Hitler was released from Landsberg prison new life was breathed back into the National Socialist cause leaving Himmler to rejoin the newly renamed party on the 2nd of August 1925 after which Himmler who was now aged 24 joined a staff for Gregor and Otto Strasse as a general assistant who during Hitler's imprisonment had done more than most to keep the movement alive after assuming this position Himmler soon became indispensable to Gregor Strasser whose brother Otto would recall how Himmler was doubly useful as he had a motorbike and because Himmler had rapid transport he was placed in charge of checking the various arms dumps the Nazi Party had built up around Bavaria and insuring that they were not discovered by the government during 1925 whilst assisting in the party organization within lower bavaria Himmler also helped to edit the party's local folk journal in which he in his own words named and shamed all Jewish persons living in Bavaria along with those he judged rightly or wrongly to be their friends leading to some within the party to question whether Himmler was becoming obsessed with the Jews to which his boss Gregor Strasser replied that although his er system was loyal he had no intention of facilitating his promotion as he thought that Himmler despite being ambitious was no world-beater although his diligence did eventually earn him a promotion to become Strauss as deputy within Bavaria surely afterwards it was around this time that Himmler also joined a seemingly obscure bodyguard unit within the National Socialist Party named the Schutzstaffel or SS that owed its formation to being the latest in a succession of personal bodyguard units to the Fuhrer as Hitler had entertained the idea of forming an elite personal protection squad from amongst the ranks of the SA or stung up Tai Lung which was the paramilitary arm of the Nazi Party largely because in the aftermath of the first world war there were as many as 380 political assassinations within Germany these prototype bodyguard units were short-lived however as they were disbanded in the aftermath of Hitler's failed Beer Hall Putsch but after the Furies release had been reformed in March of 1925 and after being renamed several times the title protection squadron or shoot star fool was decided upon in November that year but although the SS was set up to give Hitler close protection it was still subordinate and part of the SA despite this the SS members from its earliest days saw themselves as an elite unit within the SA as his members walked caps with the Prussian tooten coughed skull and crossbones as well as a field gray uniform differing considerably from the brown shuttered SA members whose own uniforms originated in the early 1920s when the Nazis had procured thousands of surplus brown tropical German army uniforms but despite already having different clothing from the main body of the essay the SS would soon adopt the notorious black German army style uniforms with peaked caps and polished boots which would become the unit's trademark in the years to come and truly marked them out as the elite force within Nazi Germany nonetheless it was perhaps out of a desire to stand out or satisfy his long-held ambition of becoming a soldier that prompted him units to join the SS in which he was given the rank of SS Fuehrer or SS leader which may have been an attraction for him along with the membership number one six eight and a year later in 1926 Himmler was promoted within the SS under its new head Josef Berchtold to be a SS gal Fuehrer or district leader within lower bavaria however Berchtold soon resigned as SS leader in 1927 and was replaced by the young Erhard Hyden by this time Himmler was proving himself to be an ambitious hardworking and devoted member of the National Socialist Party although he was not seen as having a particularly bright future whereas the likes of Joseph Goebbels who worked with him during this period of malaria was seen as a rising star within the party although gurbles were marked in his diary that he liked him la calling him intelligent and a good fellow who often gave him lifts on his motorcycle to party events it is clear that until 1926 Himmler was a mere functionary rather than a leader within the Nazi Party as his salary was a modest 120 marks a month and his SS duties largely consisted of canvassing members of the Bavarian public to subscribe to the party newspaper as well as securing advertisements however his diligence soon prompted Gregor Strasser to promote him in 1926 to become deputy propaganda chief within Bavaria in which role he worked closely with Joseph Goebbels it is likely that during this period the Himmler first came to the Fuhrer Adolf Hitler's attention as he was after all based in Bavaria where he was steadily becoming an important figure within the party however it is not known exactly when Himmler and Hitler first met although there are accounts which state that Himmler held a meeting with Hitler in September of 1927 in which he told the Fuhrer of his I did turn the insignificant SS into the elite paramilitary unit of the National Socialist Party and evidently being impressed by this Hitler promoted Himmler to become deputy SS leader under Erhard Hyden and the rank of SS oberfuhrer or SS senior leader by this time the membership of the SA numbered in the tens of thousands was the SS membership had declined from around a thousand to under 300 under her hard haydn's leadership perhaps seeing an opportunity to outshine his superior Himmler now showed his characteristic bureaucratic ability by initiating a reorganization of the SS and setting up separate jurisdictions across Germany there soon made it clear that he was far more able than his SS superior who he began to eclipse an up stage it was during this period that the Nazi Party as a whole was beginning to expand its reach beyond its homeland to Bavaria meaning that the attention or focus of its camp raining increasingly centered around Berlin resulting in Himmler in 1927 embarking on a lecture tour in the German capital where he met his future wife a 34 year old nurse named margarita Boden who owned a nursing home within Berlin and was according to accounts of Polish heritage Himmler who was 27 years old at this time clearly formed a close bond with Margaretta as like him she was fastidious hard-working and shared his anti-semitism and although the details of their relationship were sparse Margaretta was evidently rather taken with the young Bavarian as only a few months after their first meeting she sold her nursing home brought a chicken farm near Munich and finally married Himmler in July of 1928 the following year of 1929 would prove to be one of the most important of Himmler's life as in August both he and margarita greeted their only daughter goodwin into the world but earlier that year an equally significant event had occurred where Jude's poor performance combined with him as good performance Earhart Hyden was dismissed as leader of the SS by Hitler and replaced by the 28 year old Himmler has obergruppenfuehrer or senior group leader of the SS and despite the fact Himmler is known today as reichsfuhrer SS this title was not officially given to him until 1934 although him--let still addressed himself as reichsfuhrer SS or realm leader from 1929 regardless although the SS was tiny compared to the SA in 1929 its primary role of guarding top party officials now gave him a direct access to the very top of the National Socialist Party and it is clear that him his vision to transform the SS into an elite Praetorian Guard like force met with Hitler's approval from the very beginning of his leadership meaning that the young office clerk from Bavaria could effectively mold his unit into what he saw as the very ideal of Germanic warriors whose loyalty racial purity physical fitness and courage were surpassed by none and feared by all in the meantime whilst Nazi popularity soared in the aftermath of the Wall Street Crash Hitler soon became one of the most high-profile political leaders within Germany along with Hermann Goering and the now propaganda head of the Nazi Party Josef Goebbels was Timur and contrast remained in the back and continuing his earlier habit or strategy were quietly accumulating power and expanding the membership of his SS from 300 in 1929 to 3000 in 1930 despite the National Socialists popularity increasing in the early 1930s and I'll hit the strategy of securing power by peaceful means was increasingly at odds with the SI leadership who were still in favor of seizing power by force as they far outnumber the German army by this stage and his groundswell of agitation was now increasingly causing Hitler problems as he could not convince the German public as well as the Army in Parliament or Reichstag that he was a viable leader whilst his own party members were increasingly becoming a law unto themselves the German parliament was at this time in a state of flux or rather chaos itself as in 1930 the social democratic government fell largely as a result of disputes within the Reichstag over employ contributions of unemployment insurance leading to an election being held in September in which the Social Democratic Party failed to win a majority leading to Hitler's National Socialists securing the second largest number of seats with over 6 million votes and as he was a figure of some importance by this stage Himmler was selected to become a member or deputy of the German parliament himself then around the time of the 1930 election a group of SA leaders led by Walter Stennis who had grown tired of Hitler's political campaigning stayed to the so-called Stennis revolt in which they issued a list of demands including a resumption of street attacks on communists and Jews as well as three places on the ballot paper for the up and coming elections which Hillier rejected out of hand telling Stennis to quote get lost prompting the Berlin SA members to trash the party's regional headquarters in response after arriving in Berlin and taking control of the si in person and calling the unrest Hilla then sent personal appealed Ernst Roehm who was still in Bolivia who after returning to Germany took up his new position as chief of staff of the SA in January of 1931 but as the essays loyalty had now come into question Heinrich Himmler's SS now acted as bodyguards to all top Nazi officials and increasingly became the party's internal police force was the SA under Rome's leadership became more militaristic and radical which would over the coming years put his rods with the German army government and Adolphe Hitler himself at the beginning of 1931 Heinrich Himmler began setting up a counterintelligence division of the SS one of the candidates for which was an unemployed former Navy cadet and champion fencer named Reinhard Heydrich who Himmler interviewed on his smallholding and was evidently so impressed by that he hide Heydrich on the spot and in 1932 made him head of the newly named SD or sicker Heinz dienst meaning security service that would in the hands of Heydrich come to act as the covert espionage and surveillance arm of the SS as the election of 1930 had ended in no party gaining a majority a Social Democrat coalition was formed but soon collapsed in 1932 leading to to further elections being held in which the National Socialists gained a majority in July but lost it again six months later in another election and as no one party could form a government Germany's political elite were forced to consider offering the Nazis a place in the coalition prompting leading politicians to write to the head of state paul von hindenburg recommending he appoint Hitler as leader culminating in an of Hitler being made Chancellor of Germany on the 30th of January 1933 after this Hitler immediately sought to claim total control of the country by asking Hindenburg to dissolve the German parliament so that fresh elections could be held in March of 1933 however in February the Reichstag caught fire and burned to the ground after which Hindenburg and hilah's insistence enacted the Reichstag fire decree which suspended all basic civil rights and allow detention without trial and afterwards an enabling act was asked which gifted Hitler de facto control over Germany for the period of four years and enabled him to pass laws without the consent of the country's parliament making him the de facto dictator of Germany by 1933 Heinrich Himmler's SS membership had ballooned in size to over 50,000 members all of whom were now subject to strict entry rules involving ancestry physical fitness and height checks to ensure only the most Nordic looking Germans gained admission to him his Elite Force whilst on the flip side those within the Third Reich who had deemed to be undesirable soon began to fill the full implications of Himmler's planned purge of the German people the first stage of this was the setting up of the SS race and settlement main office that was tasked with maintaining high entry standards for SS members that was augmented in December 1931 when Himmler caved the so-called marriage order there acquired SS members who sought to marry to produce a full family tree dating back to at least 1800 and if those in question would deemed to be of sufficiently pure heritage they were expected to parent as many children as possible in order to further increase Germany's Arian stock in conjunction with instigating measures designed to ensure the purity of the SS membership Himmler after Hitler's rise to power in 1933 also began to adopt other measures to contain and even persecute those he considered to be of impure blood or enemies of the burgeoning Nazi state by setting up the first concentration camps such as Dachau that were initially designed to hold those the Nazis wanted to contain which along with Germany's established prisons were now used by the new government to indefinitely detain and even execute political prisoners including Himmler's former boss and leader of the SS her hard Hyden he was arrested and murdered in 1933 by agents of Heydrich SD back in Berlin only two obstacles now stood between Adolf Hitler and absolute power in Germany one of which was Hindenburg who was still technically his superior whilst the second was the army or rather the army High Command who were now increasingly voicing their concerns regarding the power of Ernst Roehm was now massive SA for sometime Hitler and other Nazi leaders have become concerned that Rome was planning to seize power himself as by 1933 the SA now numbered in the region of three million men to wharfing the hundred thousand strong German army and to make matters worse Rome was becoming increasingly arrogant and insulting to Hitler himself even publicly stating that if revolution did not come the Fuhrer would have to go in 1933 Hermann Goering who is now Minister president of Prussia formed a new covert branch of the region's police force named the geheime a stance pallettes I or Gestapo however after he became increasingly concerned that his leadership was not ruthless enough to contain the SA Goering reached an agreement with Himmler in April of 1934 to hand over the control of the Gestapo to the SS chief who then placed it in reinhard heydrich scapel hands after which hitler further awarded Himmler by placing him in charge of all Germany's police forces outside of Prussia meaning that he now had control over the close protection of the Nazi elite Germany's secret services and the majority of the country's conventional police forces in little under five years Heinrich Himmler had gone from relative obscurity as a Nazi Party clerk in lower Bavaria to gaining control of the interior of virtually the entire German state however one last threat to his positions still have to be dealt with that being the SA and the man who had introduced him to the National Socialist Movement in the first place Ernst röhm by this time in June of 1934 Hitler had already decided that Rome and the SA leadership had to be eliminated and thusly plans were then set in motion with Hitler's approval to permanently muzzle the SA in an operation codenamed hummingbird which was headed by Hermann Goering along with Heinrich Himmler and Reinhard Heydrich when all was ready hummingbird was then carried out by the SS from the 30th of June to the 2nd of July in 1934 in which arrests were made throughout the country leading to over 100 of Hitler's political enemies including Ernst Roehm being arrested and executed without trial and as the SA leadership had now been eliminated the door was wide open for Himmler's SS to expand its remit even further across Germany the year after the so-called night of the Long Knives as Operation hummingbird is now known in September of 1935 anti-semitism in Germany reached new levels when Hitler who is now head of state after the death of paul von hindenburg the year before introduced the so-called nuremberg laws which forbade marriage between jews and non-jews across Germany and even deprived non-aryans of German citizenship which marked the beginning of an increasingly severe series of governmental measures designed to persecute non-aryans that would eventually culminate in what many consider to be one of the most infamous periods of mass murder in human history in the meantime Himmler's power over the interior of the Third Reich hid even greater heights in June of 1936 when Hitler decreed that unification of all state police forces within Germany and thusly named Himmler as head of all state police forces effectively bringing them under the umbrella of the SS as a result now that the SS controlled Germany's police forces and Secret Service's camera perhaps in an effort to fulfill his dream of a military career began the formation of a new fighting arm of the SS which would eventually become the infamous waffen-ss or armed SS whose origins can be found as early as 1933 when the so called SS Sonderkommando was formed in Berlin under Sepp Dietrich that initially acted as an elite body guard unit to ad off Hitler pledging allegiance and obedience to him until death however after the 10th anniversary of Hitler's Beer Hall Putsch in 1933 this unit was renamed the livest and data adolf hitler effectively making it the furious elite paramilitary bodyguard and a year later in 1934 Himmler renamed it as the livestand data SS Adolf Hitler as he wanted it to be clear that the unit was comprised of SS members that was not part of the German armed forces the livest and art would eventually form the first of 38 waffen-ss divisions each consisting of around 20,000 daily troops many of which were comprised of nationalities from Germany's captured territories including the 5th SS Panzer Viking division which was comprised of men from Scandinavia whilst the 13th Waffen mountain division consisted of Bosnians Slavs and Croatia that along with other SS divisions comprised of French Belarusian Flemish Hungarian Dutch as well as Latvian troops eventually gave the waffen-ss a total manpower of 900,000 men during World War two as well as this the waffen-ss also boasted a number of Panzer divisions that were equipped with the very latest German tanks making the dreaded SS Panzer divisions amongst the most effective units of the entire Second World War as they were given the very best equipment Nazi Germany possessed such as Tiger tanks whilst their troops were amongst the most fanatical and loyal Himmler's SS had to offer despite their fighting prowess the waffen-ss would go on to commit numerous war crimes during World War two in countries such as Poland France and the Soviet Union including oradour-sur-glane in the Nouvelle Aquitaine region of France in which 642 French civilians including women and children were massacred by the second SS Panzer Division along with the worm Hood massacre of May 1940 where 80 Allied prisoners of war was shot by men from the SS livestand data Adolf Hitler although Himmler is well known as being the head of Nazi Germany's police and intelligence services a less known aspect to his character is his fascination with Nordic mythology as there are records of him approving expeditions and research projects to find ancient relics as well as evidence of the existence of pagan Germanic cultures before the spread of Christianity which he believed to be a threat to the morality of the german-speaking peoples these included a wide array of obscure and even fanciful projects in expeditions such as sending German scientists to Japan to ascertain if there were any geological links between the Asian and demonic people whilst Himmler also sought evidence from archaeological and research projects across Europe and beyond in an attempt to prove the superiority of the Aryan race and historians also summarized that it was him his intention to replace Christianity altogether in Germany as Jesus after all was a Jew this replacement of Christianity was also manifested in the SS itself by its members hung to renounce their faith for the new SS pseudo religion which consisted of Christmas being replaced by winter solstice festivals and Christian weddings being changed to pagan ceremonies devised by Himmler himself who then in 1933 bought a castle of agels board that he initially intended to become an SS training center but soon had made into a venue for hosting SS dinners and pagan ceremonies an example of Himmler's reverence for Nordic history and mythology is the SS logo itself which was designed by an SS graphic designer named Walter heck in 1933 and consisted of two Scandinavians sig runes that originally represented the Sun however these were interpreted in error in 19th century Germany too meaning victory as the German word for victory is cede therefore the infamous SS logo not only stands for shoot startled but is also supposed to mean victory indeed the cry of Sieg Heil was soon adopted by the masses during Hitler's rallies in which they would give the Nazi salute whilst crying Sieg Heil meaning victory Heil in the lead-up to world war ii and of hitler expanded the third reich by means of annexing his homeland of Austria Czechoslovakia and Poland and to ensure that the subjugation of both countries was brought about as quickly as possible special units were formed consisting of SS and Gestapo operatives who were given the title of einsatzkommando that were tasked with the resting all persons deemed to be a threat to the new order as well as securing public buildings and bringing local police forces under their remit these units were normally under the control of him his right-hand man Reinhard Heydrich and would later in the war form the dreaded Einsatzgruppen units of the SS that were tasked with hunting down and eliminating resistance groups Jews and all those deemed to be a threat by the Nazis during World War two resulting in later massacres such as Babi Yar in September of 1941 in which some 33,000 Jews were executed by the SS in the Ukraine along with numerous other mass killings in the Baltic States and the Soviet Union itself we know these massacres took place as a detailed SS report was found after the war that had been sent by the commander of Einsatzgruppen a Franz Walther star leaker to Reinhard Heydrich in January of 1942 that detailed the number of Jews that had been killed by his unit since the start of the German invasion and even included a map listing the exact number of Jews killed in each of the fault extents which totaled over 220,000 men women and children the total number of Jews estimates to have been killed by SS Einsatzgruppen and death squads during World War two between 1941 and 1945 is around 1.3 million involving women and children often being shot at point-blank range however the sheer logistics of exterminating the Jews by these methods combined with the psychological effects on SS soldiers would soon prompt Himmler and Heydrich to turn the extermination of the Jews into a modern industrialized process as the borders of Hitler's Third Reich expanded so too did the responsibilities of Himmler's SS as the organization was responsible for policing the interior of the Third Reich and as entire nations such as France were now being brought under Nazi jurisdiction the number of SS personnel ballooned along with it in order to cope with the challenge after failing to cross the English Channel and invade Britain in 1940 Hitler ordered the invasion of the Soviet Union the following year with Operation Barbarossa which were designed to eradicate what Hitler and Himmler saw as the Bolshevik Jewish Soviet Union and create Lebensraum or living space for the ethnic Germans thusly starting the Germanization of Eastern Europe laying the foundations for the so-called thousand-year Reich in the lead-up to the invasion Himmler was given the responsibility of preparing the SS for Operation Barbarossa in which he was tasked with bringing the eastern territories under Nazi administration but after the outbreak of hostilities the SS were overwhelmed with as many as six million Soviet prisoners of war 50% of whom in direct contravention of the Geneva Convention was shot gassed or starved to death by the Germans up until 1945 these massive numbers combined with the hundreds of thousands of Jews that have been rounded up by this time presented Himmler and the SS with a massive number of prisoners and in an attempt to contain the huge numbers of people now under their charge in Poland areas of the country's inner cities were walled off and populated with the country's Jews the most famous of which were the Warsaw and Krakow ghettos lost options for the final solution to the Jewish Question were considered then in August of 1941 Himura travelled eastward to minsk where he attended the executions of an unknown number of jews but as he observed the firing and the corpses dropping into pre-prepared graves Himmler was deeply affected leading to his chief of staff Carl wolf to later state after many volleys I could see that Himmler was trembling he ran his hand across his face as he swayed his face was almost green and he immediately threw up and complained that a piece of brain had splattered his face after which he ordered his subordinates to quote devise a less gruesome means of mass execution rather than just shooting people this change in policy with regard to the mass executions would lead to experiments being undertaken in which Jews were killed in the rear of sealed vans by means of exhaust gases however these experiments were still considered to be inefficient and thusly plans were drawn up on him as orders in early 1942 for gas chambers to be added to existing concentration camps such as outfits Birkenau in southern Poland these plans were formulated by him his deputy Reinhard Heydrich on the 20th of January 1940 to summon Nazi Party officials from various departments to attend the von C conference where he outlined the SS plan for the so called total solution of the Jewish Question in territories under German control through the cold nation of the government departments which both Heydrich and Himmler were authorized to carry out by Hermann Goering on the 31st of July 1941 it is known what was discussed at this meeting as a transcript belonging to one of the delegates named Martin Luther survived the war which clearly describes the estimated number of Jews who were expected to be killed which totaled around 11 million along with various criteria of who was to be considered Jewish or otherwise however in the transcript evasive language was used which described the fate of the Jews as being evacuation rather than extermination it is clear that by the spring of 1942 the plans for the final solution had been finalized and were ready to be put into effect but the Holocaust instigator reinhard heydrich would never see the final solution become reality as he died of sepsis on the 4th of June 1942 after two allied trained czechoslovakians attacked him in his chauffeur driven car in Prague on the 27th of May leading to thousands of Czech citizens being murdered in reprisal after Heydrich steth Himmler took personal command of the final solution along with Heydrich deputy Adolf Eichmann which he soon escalated in the so-called operation Reinhardt named in Heydrich sonner between 1941 and 1943 in which around 2 million of Poland's Jews were exterminated at purpose-built camps such as Belzec Sobibor and Treblinka the most notorious of the Nazi concentration camps was of course eros which Himmler ordered to be expanded in early 1942 with the addition of gas chambers and furnaces where Jews Romani gypsies homosexuals along with all those deemed to be undesirable by the Nazis were killed using a pesticide could zyklon-b after which their bodies were incinerated despite few recorded documents remaining that specifically relate to the Nazi extermination of the Jews perhaps the most damning piece of evidence came from the mouth of Heinrich Himmler himself as on the 4th of October 1943 during a secret meeting with SS officers in the nail polish city of Poznan him expressly refer to the evacuation of the Jews that had been outlined at the Vance a conference in 1942 as actually meaning their extermination if you know I'm done speakers capable we'll hear forties in August height limit this sorry attrition of design team that many inter-ethnic I need are very smiley you ever hear the author on distribution focus [Music] despite some claiming that this audio recording does not contain the voice of Heinrich Himmler later audio recordings of separate speeches he made in 1944 do confirm that the audio of the pose and speeches as they are known are without a doubt the voice of Heinrich Himmler and thusly conclusively prove that the Third Reich's prosecution of the Jews an implementation of the final solution did take place whilst this combined with the testimonies of Himmler's chief of staff Karl Wolfe out of Eichmann the previously mentioned Isaac's group and reports as well as thousands of eyewitness testimonies former damning and irrefutable compendium of evidence further evidence that verifies him the speeches comes from the pages of Joseph Goebbels diary on the 9th of October 1943 in which he states regarding the Jewish Question he Himmler gives a very unadorned and frank picture his of the conviction that the Jewish Question can be solved by the end of this year he advocates the most radical and most severe solution namely to exterminate Jewry bag and baggage of course if brutal this is a consistent solution because we must take on the responsibility of entirely solving the question in our time by 1944 it was evident that Hitler's attempt to secure European domination had failed which was evidenced by the massive reversal suffered by the German army in the Soviet Union as well as d-day and in response Hitler ordered the creation of new army units consisted of every able-bodied man the germ state could muster resulting in Himmler finally realizing his childhood dream of becoming a soldier by being appointed as commander of army group Upper Rhine in the winter of 1944 as well as this Hitler ordered Himmler to facilitate the creation of the so called Volkssturm units which were little more than armed civilians or militia in the desperate hope of holding back the advancing Allied and Soviet forces nonetheless these units although nearly half a million strong largely consisted of teenagers as well as pensioners who were equipped with makeshift weapons and despite their best efforts they were unable to offer much resistance against the Soviets who in many cases just swept them aside as the noose was tightened around the neck of the Third Reich Himmler attempted to initiate peace negotiations through Swedish representatives by arranging with the World Jewish Congress for the release of some 20,000 Jews to Scandinavia and later on the 23rd of April 1945 Himmler also met with count Bernadotte head of the Swedish Red Cross and despite the fact that Hitler was still alive sent a written proposal to the Supreme Commander of Allied forces in Europe Dwight D Eisenhower offering Germany surrendered to the Western Allies that was promptly refused a few days later him his peace offer was broadcast by the British Broadcasting Corporation on the 28th of April 1945 and after discovering that his loyal Heinrich as he called him had betrayed him Hitler flew into a rage stripped Himmler of all his offices and titles and issued a warrant for his arrest before committing suicide on the 30th of April 1945 in the Reich Chancellery bunker in Berlin as Berlin had capitulated and the majority of Germany was overrun Himmler then sought to go into hiding by masquerading as an ordinary German soldier however was travelling through the German countryside west of Hamburg Himmler and his comrades were detained at a checkpoint by former Soviet prisoners of war and after spending several days in internment camps was brought to a British civilian interrogation Center near loon burg on the 23rd of May during an interview Himmler openly admitted who he wants and was then transferred to British second army headquarters in lüneburg where a doctor began a medical examination but when the physician attempted to look in his mouth he resisted and a few seconds later collapsed onto the floor and despite efforts to revive him died 15 minutes later from biting a potassium cyanide capsule and shortly afterwards the form of right Fury's body was interred in an unmarked grave near Luneberg the location of which remains a mystery to this day in his 44 years of life Heinrich Himmler went from being the dutiful son of a schoolteacher and a lowly member of a fringe nationalist group to becoming the head of all police and security services within Nazi Germany and finally becoming one of the architects one of the largest mass killings in human history despite his unassuming and quiet manner Heinrich Himmler is widely considered to have at least in part masterminded the details and implementation of the Holocaust and although shocking and even horrifying it is essential that we learn about his life as well as the final solution itself in all its appalling detail as if we forget the mistakes of history we ourselves are surely doomed to repeat them you you

Channel: The People Profiles

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Keywords: Biography, History, Historical, Educational, The People Profiles

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Length: 50min 29sec (3029 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 20 2019