Heinrich Himmler - Reichsführer-SS Documentary

foreign The Man known to history as Heinrich Himmler was born on the 7th of October 1900 in the city of Munich in Bavaria in southern Germany his mother Anna Maria Himmler nahider came from a traditional catholic family and as well as Heinrich she also parented two more boys gabehyde Ludwig born in 1898 and Ernst Tallman born in 1905. himmler's Father Yusuf gerbart Himmler known as Gebhart was a 35 year old school Master at the time of heinrich's birth and had previously gained a degree in phonology and languages at Munich's university after this he was appointed to be the tutor of Prince Heinrich of Bavaria of the House of wittelsbach the senior most aristocratic family of Southern Germany before returning to Munich as a professor and teacher a proud organized and pedantic man gebhard took great pride in his career success and would decorate the Himmler household with Quality Furniture paintings and collectibles including old German coins and memorabilia as a result of his success both Heinrich and his two brothers enjoyed a comfortable but strict middle class upbringing this was in stark contrast to previous generations of the Himmler family as while gerpart had made a success of himself his father heinrich's grandfather had been a poor Soldier throughout his life in contrast the himlas had largely survived thanks to the support of Anna's family in Regensburg in the southeast of Germany as her father was a successful Tradesman there this had enabled the himlas to move into a spacious second floor apartment on the Hildegard Strasse in Munich where Anna gave birth to her second son in 1900 this child they named after gerbhard's former student Prince Heinrich the prince also consented to becoming heinous Godfather and so the middle son of the Himmler children would grow up with some semblance of aristocratic pretensions as was typical of children of their age in class within German Society the Himmler Brothers received a strict regimented upbringing one which was only intensified by their mother's religious ardha and their father's occupation any hopes they may have had of escaping their parents attention was soon crushed when all three were sent to a grammar school in lanshoot northeast of Munich here their father was the joint Schoolmaster it was during this time in lansuit that the young Himmler began to take an interest in Germanic Heritage and history in general a Fascination which had perhaps been inspired by the Bavarian towns castles and countless old buildings that still dotted Southern Germany at that time after beginning to also show a keen interest in his father's historical memorabilia gebhard went to every possible length to encourage his son's Newfound Fascination young Himmler returned his father's attention by becoming an obedient methodical and devoted son over the coming months and years Heinrich soon proved himself to be his father's son as he became a hard-working if quiet and unimaginative child which is evidenced by the fragments of a surviving diary he commenced writing in 1910. in this instead of writing his daily accounts in sentences Heinrich merely listed his trivial daily activities such as meal times or when he took a bath and referred to any adults by their full name or title giving the impression that from an early age Himmler was proper organized and fastidious while Heinrich was growing up his native Germany was drifting towards War for decades the continent had been becoming more and more volatile in its politics much of this was due to the unification of the approximately 30 small German states into a German Empire in 1871. with this Germany began its Ascent as the major political economic and military power of Continental Europe only Britain was more powerful this event destabilized the balance of power in Europe and in the decades that followed the continent's politics became more and more fractious eventually shortly after heinrich's own birth in 1900 two major alliances came into existence one consisting of Britain France and Russia and the other of Germany and the austro-hungarian Empire nationalist tensions in regions such as the Balkans and Colonial rivalry in the Scramble for control of Africa from the 1880s onwards fueled this descent towards War the spark which lit it finally came in the summer of 1914 when a Regional Crisis in the Balkans escalated into a full-blown European War such was the global presence of the countries involved which had colonies all over the world that this was deemed a global conflict the first World War as Heinrich Grew Older his diary entries became more descriptive the most notable aspect of them was often his recounting of additions to his stamp collection or the holding of church services which he had attended however after the outbreak of the first world war in 1914 Himmler began to write about events and battles which he had read about in the local press as well as letters his father received from heinrich's Godfather Prince Heinrich who had joined the German Army in 1901 as a lieutenant and who shortly after the outbreak of war was badly wounded in action on the Western Front in northeastern France it is evident that the prince was something of a hero to Himmler as after reading the news of his Godfather being wounded Heinrich wrote in his diary that he and his friends would like nothing better than to go and fight the British and the French other accounts within his diary recall occasions when French prisoners of War arrived at Lansford railway station in Bavaria of these Frenchmen Himmler spoke with some sympathy however Himmler had no such compassion towards the Russian prisoners of War who were brought to Germany these he described as Vermin in a surprisingly early sign of his racial animosity towards the people of Eastern Europe it was also during this period that Himmler began to prepare himself to join the German Army when he was deemed old enough by exercising regularly and lifting weights in an effort to gain muscle mass however as much as young Himmler may have wanted to appear as a strong youthful German during this period he also complained of regular colds stomach pains and other illnesses these ailments were a cause of constant frustration and concern for him at school Heinrich proved himself to be a hard-working pupil who neither excelled nor failed at the various subjects he was expected to master which included science mathematics history geography Latin and Greek as well as piano lessons he showed little natural talent for this musical training and after many years of failure eventually plucked up enough courage to request from his parents but he'd be allowed to quit all in all heinrich's greatest interests during his childhood years seemed to have been German history and folklore it is therefore perhaps not surprising that within his diary there are various entries in which he continuously stated how much he wished to join the German Army and fight in the war despite still only being a teenager due to his age he would ultimately never get the chance to experience Frontline combat before the end of the first World War it was in late 1915 that himmler's diary entries began to subside in number which was a gap that may have been perpetuated by the death in 1916 of Prince Heinrich of Bavaria in the mountains of Romania although this undoubtedly was a severe blow for both heineike and his father their reaction to the prince's death is not recorded but it is probable that they were greatly affected by it indeed we get a glimpse of the possible impact of the prince's death on Himmler 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 in the meantime Himmler was called up for training in 1917 at his mother's hometown of Regensburg with the 11th Bavarian Infantry Regiment however the next year Himmler continued his army training first as a machine gunner and then as an officer yet despite his later claims that he saw action on the Western Front in the first world war records from the time clearly 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 the war had come to an end just over a month earlier Germany had found itself without sufficient resources for its economy to keep functioning and Britain and France had been aided by the entry of the United States into the war on their side in 1917. thus with the government collapsing in Germany the country surrendered in early November 1918. in the aftermath of the first world war the German Army was massively reduced in size largely due to the terms of the Treaty of Versailles the peace agreement signed between Germany on the one hand and the Victorious powers of Britain France and the United States on the other the country's economy had also been decimated as a consequence of the war meaning that although Himmler still wished to join the military in emulation of his Idol Prince Heinrich he was forced in the aftermath of the war to seek out a civilian occupation in the short run this led to Himmler obtaining employment on a poultry farm as an apprentice near the city of Ingolstadt where his father had also taken up a teaching position however whilst working there he began to feel ill and was soon diagnosed as having contracted paratyphoid fever caused by Salmonella poisoning this in turn had been caused by ingesting unsanitary meat or water on his doctor's advice himlo has 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 at the Munich technician hoschula in October of 1919 where he studied crop and soil usage until 1922. during this time he joined a fencing fraternity and even received the badge of honor that was a fencing scar on his face during this period of his life Himmler enjoyed the Fairly stereotypical life of a student of the time he learned to dance although he did not enjoy it while he also engaged in intellectual debates with his fellow students at least when he wasn't practicing his fencing skills because the university did not provide meals for its students Himmler dined at the home of a lady called Frau Lloyds whose daughter Maya he soon became close to although his Diaries reveal no romance taking place between them this platonic but also paternal pattern of relationships with women would come to repeat itself over the coming years on one occasion after meeting a young lady on a train Himmler revealed his views on male female relationships and also some of his sexual proclivities in his diary here he remarked on her innocence and also stated his belief that women should be loved in three ways as a child that must be punished when she is foolish but also protected due to her weakness secondly as a loyal and devoted companion and thirdly as a wife whose feet he longed to kiss it is also clear from himmler's Diary entries during the early 1920s that he felt uncertain and even aimless writing that he was only engaging in his studies as it gave him peace of mind and quarreled his doubts about his life he also stated that he had considered leaving Germany altogether to travel across Europe although he reveals that in his conversations with Maya he had confided in her that he believed that Germany was entering a period of great change he also yearned to join the Army again and with his small circle of friends often practice shooting all told himless diary as well as the accounts handed down to us by his fellow students at the time paint a picture of a methodical even pedantic traditional 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 he even told his brother Gebhart that he intended to remain a virgin until he was married these beliefs were no doubt at least in part formed due to his father's dutiful disciplinarian manner combined with his mother's devout Faith as Himmler at this time still regularly attended Mass it was during this period in the early 1920s that himmler's Diaries also reveal another possible influence over his world view this concerned events which were unfolding in Russia where a civil war had been underway since 1917. by the early 1920s it was clear that the Bolshevik Communists were victorious in this himmler's diary entries revealed that he was deeply perturbed by this emergence of a major communist power in Eastern Europe his views in this regard had been shaped by the events of 1919 when Munich and Bavaria as a whole became a hotbed of communist agitation leading eventually to the Bavarian revolution in April 1919. after which a Soviet Republic was briefly set up it was soon crushed by the Nationalist fry Corps a paramilitary group which had emerged within Germany after the war consisting largely of army veterans and nationalists who opposed the Communists across the country towards the end of his studies Himmler joined the freight Corps with whose nationalistic ethos he clearly felt a kinship it was the beginning of his descent into extremist politics it was also during this period that Himmler began to spend a large part of his time at a student Society named the league of Apollo this largely consisted of ex-soldiers and top graduates its president was a Jewish man named Abraham Hoffner although Himmler was at first polite the society's Jewish members it is clear that he was also forming strong anti-semitic views by this time as he was involved in violent arguments as his time attending the league of Apollo went on during the course of which he protested against the membership of the league including Jews this stance soon earned him a reputation as a nationalist militarist himself then on the 25th of January 1922 at a meeting of his Rifle Club Himmler by chance met a man who changed the course of his life and started a chain of events that would ultimately make him one of the most notorious individuals in human history the chance meeting was with a German Army Captain called elmstrom Rome was one of the few officers who had been able to retain his position in the German army or exvia after the first world war Himmler and he soon found common ground in their discussions as both were virulently opposed to the rise of Communism in Eastern Europe this meeting is considered to be the first hard evidence of Himmler becoming involved in organized nationalist politics after concluding his agricultural studies in August 1922 Himmler joined Rome's newly formed paramilitary Bund rice Creek's Flagger or Imperial War flag Society like the Fry Corps this was a nationalist paramilitary Group by this time Himmler had also become aware of the growing influence of the munich-based National Socialist German Workers Party or as they were more widely known the Nazi party since 1921 these had been led by Adolf Hitler whose bombastic speeches within Munich's beer Halls were attracting the admiration of the local nationalists including aounstroom as well as the hatred of the Communists resulting in regular Street battles in the city around this time as Himmler was becoming involved in Rome's organizations support for nationalist parties was growing amongst certain sections of the population in regions such as Bavaria this was driven by Germany's economic woes crippling economic indemnities had been imposed on the country through the Treaty of Versailles and the French and the belgians had reserved the right to occupy the industrial Heartland of Germany in the Rua and the Rhineland in the west of the country if Germany faltered in its payments to compound the matter inflation had become a problem as had unemployment many young men and middle-aged army veterans were drawn to nationalist parties such as the Nazis with their message of revitalizing Germany and also their extreme antipathy towards the country's Jewish population this was not necessarily unusual in Europe where anti-Semitism was unfortunately widespread in the 1920s but the Nazis views on the country's Jews was especially harsh believing they were responsible for Germany's defeat in the war like many others Himmler decided to join the Nazis in 1923. he also remained a member of rooms rice krieg's Flagger paramilitary group this was around the same time that heightened nationalist activity in Munich was beginning to draw the attention of bavaria's regional government this resulted in the Bavarian prime minister oyegan Fong caniling Banning political rallies in the region and declaring martial law on the 26th of September 1923 he then appointed Gustav fonkar as the stats commissar or state commissioner giving him free Reign Over the maintenance of Law and Order across Bavaria in tandem Colonel Hans Ritter fonseiser was appointed as chief of the Bavarian police and Otto von lossov as commander of the Bavarian branch of the reichsvier the German Army their appointment was notable as Hitler had formed the idea by this time of attempting to emulate in Bavaria Benito Mussolini's fascist seizure of Power with his march on Rome in October of 1922 the Nazi Leader's goal was to seize control of the government of Bavaria and afterwards attempt a similar march on Berlin as plans for doing so escalated in the Autumn of 1928 he even Enlisted the first World War General and war hero Erik ludendorff in an attempt to gain the upper hand over fonkar's government in Bavaria by winning over additional supporters the attempted coup would be launched in early November 1923. Hitler received word during the planning process that Carr along with sisa and lossov were due to address a public meeting in Munich's Burger on the 8th of November 1923. the Nazi leader perceived this as the opportunity to seize bavaria's government he had been waiting for he and the leadership of the Nazi party quickly forged a plan to storm the burger boy killer on the 8th of November following which they planned to take the government leaders in Bavaria hostage and force them to surrender power to them they would be aided in this by anstroom who had recently established a new paramilitary organization known as the Sturm up tylon or sa meaning storm Detachment as the military wing of the Nazi party on the evening of the 8th of November Hitler along with a 600 strong contingent of the sa star domed into the public meeting being held by the head of the Bavarian government Gustav fonkar at the beer hall Hitler proclaimed that a revolution had begun ludendorff arrived shortly afterwards following which the triumvirate of police and army officials effectively surrendered the government of Bavaria to Hitler and ludendorff having seized the beer hall Hitler then made the mistake of leaving to attend to a crisis elsewhere and Carr and the other members of the Bavarian government escaped they quickly took charge of the situation and began pouring military and police forces into the city to crush the Revolt the next morning after realizing that his coup was on the verge of failure Hitler accompanied by ludendorff agreed to March through the streets of Munich with their followers there they would join up with Rome's troops these included Himmler who played a minor role in The Beer Hall push as it later became known thus he was present to see the coup quickly suppressed as armed State troops arrived and opened fire on the gathered Nazis in Bavaria on the 9th of November a panic quickly ensued and Hitler and his supporters fled the scene the last pockets of resistance throughout Bavaria surrendered in the hours that followed bringing the short-lived attempted coup to an end Hitler was subsequently arrested and tried for high treason in February of 1924 and was given five years in prison at Landsberg prison along with several other ringleaders of the putch but ludendorff was released without charge Himmler was arrested but was released due to lack of evidence although his involvement in the putch did lose him his job moreover as the Nazi party and the sa were officially banned by the government following the coup Himmler was forced to return home to his parents although Hitler's beer hall push had ended in a humiliating failure Himmler still maintained contact with elmstrom who had been incarcerated himself at stadelheim prison and even took the time to visit him in February 1924 on his motorcycle shortly before room was released on probation this should have been the end of national socialism and the Nazis in Germany however Hitler used his time in prison to begin plotting a new way to seize power firstly he wrote his Infamous book Mein Kampf a paranoid sprawling political Testament in which he blamed Germany's recent woes on a vast Jewish and communist conspiracy to destroy the country he also determined at this time that henceforth the Nazis would seek to claim power in Germany via peaceful means they would do so by attempting to grow as a political party and to take over the country Through The Ballot Box moreover he would be able to set out on this Mission sooner than expected just a year after being sent to Landsberg prison he was released and shortly afterwards the Bavarian Regional government removed the ban on the Nazi party in what was retrospectively one of the poorest political decisions in modern European history thus from 19 to 25 onwards the Nazis were seeking to seize power through elections to the reichstag meanwhile Himmler had no intention of giving up his political activities during the mid-1920s he refused to look for normal work much to his parents displeasure and instead worked as a low-level campaigner for the National Socialist Freedom Movement during the 1925 elections an organization which had been formed as a front for the Nazis following their brief prescription in this role Himmler toured bavarious towns and Villages making speeches on the evils of capitalism as well as the Jews as such he became a prominent member of the party and when the Nazis were allowed to reform in 1925 Himmler was amongst those who rejoined by this time he was 24 years of age and joined the staff of griego and Otto Strasser two of the most senior members of the party as a general assistant Himmler soon became indispensable to griego Strasser who as well as being a member of the German Parliament was the Nazi party leader in lower Bavaria later his brother Otto would recall how Himmler at this time was placed in charge of checking the various arms dumps the Nazi party had built up around Bavaria and ensuring they were not discovered by the regional government himmler's virulent personal anti-Semitism was also becoming more and more evident during these years for instance it was around this time that he began drawing up and publicizing lists of local German Jews with the goal of shaming them in a region in which anti-Semitism was proliferating during the 1920s shortly afterwards he was promoted to become strasser's Deputy in lower Bavaria although Strasser remained dubious himself about himmler's personal abilities it was also in 1925 that Himmler joined a seemingly obscure bodyguard unit within the National Socialist Party this was named the schutz staffel or SS meaning protection Squad it was initially a personal bodyguard unit for Hitler's protection from the earliest days of the Nazi movement there had been plans to form a bodyguard for Hitler largely because in the aftermath of the first world war there were as many as 380 political assassinations within Germany the first of these prototype bodyguard units was the so-called ordinal or Steward's troop but as the formation of paramilitary groups had been outlawed by this time the group was disguised as a sports division of the party in early 1923 this was renamed the shtos troop Hitler consisting originally of only eight men including its Commander Julius Schreck who would eventually become Hitler's personal show sofa this organization adopted the Toten cop skull and crossbones symbol as its emblem one which had previously been used by the elite Prussian hussars of the Imperial German Army it was subsequently adopted by the SS along with the Nordic Victory rooms when it was formed in April 1925. Himmler was one of the new paramilitary units first members number 168 he would soon rise to become its leader and transform it into one of the most brutal institutions in human history the SS was initially established as a subgroup of the much larger sa however even from its earliest days it distinguished itself as an elite unit for instance its members wore caps with the Toten cop skull and crossbones as well as a field gray uniform differing considerably from the brown-shirted sa members but despite already having different clothing from the main body of the sa the SS would soon adopt the black German army style uniforms with doffed caps and Polished boots which became notorious in future years this uniform and Insignia would become the unit's signature look in years to come and truly mark them out as the elite policing and security Force within Nazi Germany Himmler was promoted within the SS in 1926 he was made an SS Gau filler or District leader within lower Bavaria however the head of the paramilitary organization Joseph bergtold resigned as SS leader in 1927. he was replaced by Earhart Haydn a poorly equipped bureaucrat who proved unsuitable for the task Haydn would eventually be replaced and when he was it would open up an opportunity for Himmler to become one of the leading figures of the Nazi movement by 1926 himmler's salary was about 120 marks a month and his SS duties largely consisted of canvassing members of the Bavarian public to subscribe to the party newspaper he was also charged with securing advertisements and it was this background in journalism that would see gregos traza promote Himmler in 1926 to become Deputy propaganda Chief within Bavaria in which role he often worked alongside another Rising member of the party Joseph Goebbels who in his own diary professed to liking Himmler calling him intelligent and a good fellow it is unknown as to when Himmler first met Hitler in person however it is likely that he came to the fuhrer's attention from even before he was sent to Landsberg prison following the beer hall perch what is clear is that Himmler met with Hitler in September 1927 and told the leader of the party about his idea to turn the relatively insignificant SS into an elite paramilitary unit of the Nazi party the idea evidently impressed Hitler and he promoted Himmler to become the deputy SS leader under Erhardt Haydn at the rank of ss oberfular he was now the second in command of the SS by this time the membership of the larger essay was ballooning in size whilst the SS membership had actually declined from around a thousand to less than 300 members much of this was owing to Erhard Haydn's poor leadership as soon as he became Haydn's Deputy Himmler began demonstrating his organizational abilities by setting up separate SS jurisdictions across Germany this activity soon made it clear to those who chose to look the Himmler was far more able than his SS Superior whom he soon began to eclipse and upstage it was also around this time that the Nazi party as a whole was beginning to expand its reach Beyond its homelands of Bavaria meaning that the attention or focus of its campaigning increasingly centered around Berlin resulting in Himmler in 1927 embarking on a lecture tour of the German capital on one of these visits to the German Capital Himmler met his future a wife a 34 year old nurse named Margaret Borden who owned a nursing home in Berlin and was according to several accounts of Polish Heritage Himmler who was just 27 years old at this time clearly formed a close bond with Margarita as like him she was fastidious hard-working and shared his anti-Semitism therefore only a few months after their first meeting Margarita sold her nursing home bought a house in the country near Munich and married Himmler in July of 1928. as Himmler was still on a modest salary by this stage the couple supplemented their income by keeping around 50 chickens and selling produce although Himmler had little to do with this modest Enterprise nevertheless it has given rise to the notion that Himmler was a chicken farmer when really it was his wife that attended to their small number of livestock as he was away on party business more often than not the following year 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 more significantly earlier that year Erhard Haydn was dismissed by Hitler on the grounds of his General incompetence and was replaced as head of the SS by Himmler although the SS was Tiny compared to the sa in 1929 its primary role of guarding top party officials gave Himmler direct access to the very top of the National Socialist Party and it was clear that himmler's Vision to transform the SS into an Elite praetorian god-like Force had met with Hitler's approval from the beginning this meant that he could now proceed to effectively mold and expand this unit into what he saw as the ideal Germanic Warriors whose loyalty racial Purity physical fitness and courage were surpassed just by none and feared by all this also occurred as the circumstances which would allow the Nazis to secure power in Germany were developing in the Autumn of 1929 a severe economic crisis hit the Americas and Europe after the stock markets on Wall Street in New York City tumbled Nazi popularity soared in the aftermath of the Wall Street Crash and the Great Depression which followed as ordinary Germans found themselves unemployed and impoverished in the process Hitler soon became one of the most high-profile political leaders in Germany along with Hermann Goering and the new propaganda head within the party Joseph Goebbels for the time being Himmler remained in the background continuing his early strategy of quietly accumulating power and expanding the influence and membership of his SS which Grew From 300 to 3000 in the space of just 12 months at the start of the 1930s this mirror at the rise of the Nazis politically who in the reichtag elections of 1930 secured 17 percent of the vote nationally and then in the next elections in the summer of 1932 became the largest party in the country with just short of two out of every five German voters giving them their support the beginning of 1931 Himmler began setting up a counter-intelligence division of the SS one of the candidates for admission to this was an unemployed former Navy officer named Reinhard heide who had recently been fired from the Navy on account of several affairs with married women Himmler interviewed him and was impressed enough that he hired him heidelic grows fast and soon became the head of a new organization named the zika heidstein store SD meaning security service in the hands of heydrich this body would come to act as the covert Espionage and surveillance arm of the SS in the process Heidi would become second only to Himmler himself within the SS and one of the most powerful men in the Third Reich as a result following the summer eichstag elections of 1932 the Nazis had become the largest political party in Germany however the Centrist and center-right political establishment of the German Republic were broadly unwilling to allow Hitler to become chancellor of Germany the party's political Manifesto was seen as being too extreme and there were many who were rightly wary of the fact that they had attempted a military coup in Bavaria back in 1923. accordingly a technocratic government was pieced together in mid-1932 to prevent Hitler becoming the leader of the government however by the winter it was clear that this lacked the necessary political support to tackle the country's seemingly never-ending economic woes accordingly in January 1933 Hitler was appointed as chancellor of Germany and several government Ministries were allocated to Nazi officials after this Hitler immediately sought to claim total control of the country and dissolve parliament so that fresh elections could be held in March before these could be held a fire at the reichstag in February 1933 was used as the justification for suspending all basic civil rights and allowing the detention without trial the fire was blamed on the German Communist party which was all but shut down over the coming months shortly afterwards the reichstag deputies met at the coral opera house and voted on an enabling act which gifted Hitler de facto control over Germany for a period of four years and enabled him to pass laws without the consent of the country's parliament in voting for this act the reichstag effectively signed its own death warrant as the Bill's passing made Hitler the dictator of Germany in all but name meaning the German democracy was now dead over the coming months all political opposition was with the aid of himmler's ss crushed throughout the country political parties were forced to shut down and any persons who were considered any kind of threat were arrested and interned either in prisons or temporary detention centers soon they were being sent to new concentration camps that were being built by the Nazis throughout Germany this video is sponsored by World of Tanks the amazing game that is free to play and available to anyone novice or Pro on PC console and mobile download World of Tanks using the first link in the description to interact with a global community of Gamers who share your passion from the 1st of December to the 9th of January World of Tanks will be hosting its biggest in-game event of the Year holiday Ops the perfect time to start World of Tanks and Arnold Schwarzenegger is back from last year but he isn't alone this time International Star Miller Jovovich makes her holiday Ops debut she and Annie will greet you at the headquarters in your village there will be tons of rewards like premium tanks customizations Crews medals in-game items and special missions complete the character missions from Arnold and Miller to get them as a commander and how you play is 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enemies of Nazism such as the country's half a million Jews Romani gypsies homosexuals or the disabled soon began to feel the full implications of himmler's planned Purge of the German population of course the irony of all this was that Himmler who was becoming one of the foremost Advocates of the idea of a blonde blue-eyed German race with his black hair and frail physique was the furthest thing possible from the racial ideal his SS was trying to promote one of the first stages of this program of racial cleansing under the Nazis was the setting up of the SS race and settlement main office this was tasked with maintaining the high entry standards for SS members for instance members who sought to marry were required to produce a full family tree dating back several Generations in order to prove that they were of sufficiently pure German blood once they passed this test and actually married it was also expected of them that they would sire many children in order to propagate the German race 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 all enemies of the burgeoning Nazi State culminating in the setting up of concentration camps such as dachane near Munich these were initially designed to hold political prisoners but years later and under himless Direction they would become the centers of one of the most brutal genocides ever seen back in Berlin only two obstacles now stood between the fewer Adolf Hitler and absolute power in Germany one of which was President Paul from Hindenburg who was still technically Hitler's Superior the second was the army or rather the Army High command who were now increasingly voicing their concerns regarding Ernst gloom's massive essay which had swelled by 1933 to well over 2 million members this all culminated in Hindenburg telling Hitler he had to reign in the sa and its leader um Hitler was inclined to do so as by now Rome was not just a direct threat to the Army but to the government and to Hitler himself for some time Hitler and the other Nazi leaders became concerned that room was planning to seize power himself as by 1933 he was becoming increasingly arrogant and insulting in his behavior towards Hitler himself as a result in the spring of 1930 4 an operation codenamed Operation hummingbird headed by Hermann Goering one of the chief Nazi ministers along with Himmler and his accomplice Heidi was launched the plan was to decapitate the leadership of the sa and bring it back in line with Hitler's goals the operation was initiated on the 30th of June and would result in three days of violence which has subsequently become known as the night of the Long Knives thousands of the Nazis political enemies and rooms leading supporters in the essay were either arrested or murdered in coordinated attacks across the country these included a Rome himself and also figures like himmler's old boss in the mid-1920s griego strasa who during the Great Depression had begun to publicly distance himself from Hitler another victim was Rita fonkar the former leader of the Bavarian government at the time of the beer hall putch who was dragged into a wood and hacked to death with hatchets a huge proportion of these attacks were carried out by himmler's SS and as a result himmler's paramilitary organization now began to politically supersede the sa which was allowed to continue after Rome was killed but the political significance of which was greatly reduced from the summer of 1934 onwards in addition to now being head of the foremost paramilitary and security force in all of Nazi Germany from the mid-1930s onwards Himmler was also increasingly monopolizing control over the policing Services of Germany back in 1933 Hermann Gering had formed a police force of his own named the gahaimashtaz polizzai or gestapo however from 1934 onwards the Nazi state began re-arming in anticipation of a future war of revenge against the European powers consequently gering's attentions drifted towards establishing a new Air Force called the luftwaffe and in April of 1934 he handed over control of the Gestapo to Himmler the SS Chief quickly placed it in heydrich's capable hands and on that same day Hitler rewarded himmler's loyalty and efficiency by placing him in charge of all Germany's police forces outside of Prussia itself me meaning that he now had control over the close protection of the Nazi Elite the secret services and the police in many ways this effectively made Himmler the second most powerful man in Germany after Hitler himself thus in little under five years hinori Himmler had gone from relative obscurity as a Nazi Party official in lower Bavaria to control the interior of virtually the entire German state the mid-1930s saw the Nazis begin to implement their extreme anti-semitic policies in Germany this began with the introduction of the so-called Nuremberg Laws these forbade marriage between Jews and non-jews and deprived Jews of German citizenship they also prohibited Jews from hiring non-jewish Germans the introduction of these laws marked the beginning of an increasingly severe series of governmental measures designed to persecute German Jews which would eventually culminate in what many considered to be one of the worst periods of mass murder in world history Himmler would be Central to these developments and their unfolding over the years that followed in the meantime himmler's power over the interior of the German Third Reich or Empire hit even greater Heights in June of 1936 when Hitler decreed the unification of all state police forces within Germany and named Himmler the head of all of Germany's 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 Services Himmler perhaps in an effort to fulfill his dreams of a military career began the formation of a new fighting arm of the SS which would eventually become amongst the most feared of the entire second world war this Branch would eventually become the evaphan SS or armed SS whose Origins can be found as early as 1933 when a unit called the Zonda Commander was formed in Berlin under the leadership of septitri this initially acted as an elite bodyguard it to Adolf Hitler pledging Allegiance and obedience to him until death however after the 10th anniversary of Hitler's beer hall putch in 1933 this unit was renamed the leipstand Atta Adolf Hitler making it Hitler's elite paramilitary bodyguard a year later Himmler renamed it as the leibestandata SS Adolf Hitler as he wanted it to be clear that the unit was comprised of national socialists and was not part of the German armed forces the leibstant Atta would eventually form the first of 38 SS military divisions each consisting of around 15 000 to 20 000 Elite troops the vaffan SS would grow to include the fifth SS Panza Viking division that was comprised of men from Norway Denmark Sweden and other Scandinavian countries whilst the 13th raffan Mountain division was comprised of bosnians Slavs and croatians in addition there were even divisions consisting of French Belarusian Flemish Hungarian Dutch as well as latvians meaning that the total Manpower of the Waffen SS numbered in the region of 900 000 men at its height in the early 1940s although Himmler is well known as being the head of Nazi Germany's police and intelligence Services a less well-known aspect of his character it's 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 Germanic cultures before the spread of Christianity which despite his mother's fervent Catholicism he had grown to believe to be a threat to the morality and purity of the german-speaking peoples these antiquarian interests included a wide array of obscure and even fanciful projects and Expeditions such as sending German scientists to Japan to ascertain if there were genealogical links between the Asian and Germanic peoples and he also sought evidence from the German ancestry research Society for ancient intellectual history that undertook archaeological and research projects across Europe and Beyond in an attempt to prove the superiority of the area race historians also surmised that it was himmler's intention to replace Christianity altogether within the Third Reich Jesus after all was a Jew therefore Himmler felt that the Aryan peoples should return to that ancient Nordic Pagan Roots which he and the SS would have jurisdiction over giving Himmler yet another method of control that he and the Nazi Elite could use to bend the German population to their will the replacement of Christianity manifested itself in the SS by its members having to renounce their faith for the new SS suda religion which consisted of Christmas being replaced by winter solstice festivals and Christian weddings being changed to Pagan ceremonies these were devised by Himmler who in 1933 bought a Renaissance style castle at weaversburg in Bavaria which Himmler intended initially to become an SS training center but that soon became 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 valter heck in 1933 and consisted of two Scandinavian Sikh runes that originally represented the sun however these were interpreted in error in 19th century Germany as meaning Victory as the German word for victory is seek therefore the infamous SS logo not only stands for such staffel but is also supposed to mean victory victory indeed the cry seek Heil was soon adopted by the masses during Hitler's rallies in which they would give the Nazi salute whilst crying seek Heil meaning Victory hail while Himmler was establishing the Waffen SS and completing his takeover of all policing and Security Services in Germany Hitler was making preparations for a new war one which as the Nazis saw it would bring about retribution for the humiliation Germany had suffered at the end of the first world war in this they would aim to reclaim the lands they had lost in 1918 as well as acquiring vast new territories in Eastern Europe which would be used as labensrem or living space for colonization by Germans as early as the spring of 1935 a massive program of rearmament had been initiated with the newly formed German wehrmacht or Armed Forces expanding Way Beyond the 100 000 men Germany was supposed to cap its military forces at under the terms of the Treaty of Versailles in 1935 Hitler and his generals began conscripting hundreds of thousands of men a new Air Force as previously seen under the command of Hermann Goering was also created and the German Navy or krieg's Marina was also expanded then in 1936 the demilitarized Rhineland was reoccupied by the Nazis in a further show of aggressive intent however Britain and France had no desire for war and allowed Hitler to continue these bullish methods ultimately though the scene was set for a war in Europe in the coming years originally Hitler and the other senior Nazi leaders such as Himmler had envisaged waiting until the early 1940s perhaps as late as 1942 or 1943 to launch their new war however as the 1930s proceeded and they saw that Britain and France were failing to re-arm and prepare for conflict these plans were moved forward thus from early 1938 a more intense program of diplomatic aggression was initiated in the spring of that year Austria was forcibly annexed into a greater Germany Himmler was deeply involved here ensuring that the SS was quickly expanded into the new regions of the Reich whilst also rapidly expanding his control over the policing services in Vienna and elsewhere no sooner was this done than claims were made by Hitler on parts of Czechoslovakia again Britain and France caved to Hitler's aggression and gave him parts of the west of the country in September 1938 but when the German moved in and annexed the rest of the country in the spring of 1939 both London and Paris made it clear that any further Act of aggression would result in war this was exactly what happened when Hitler ordered the invasion of Poland on the 1st of September 1939. two days later Britain and France declared war on Germany the second world war had commenced the outbreak of the war saw himla with Hydrox Aid establishing a new element of the SS these were called the einsatz kulipin meaning task forces or deployment groups these were effectively squads of ss members who were established to travel in the rear of the main German Army acting as death squads as they moved into Poland in the first weeks of the war the einsatz gluten began murdering thousands of Polish intellectuals and political leaders who had been identified as potential leaders of a Polish resistance movement and these were just the first of the actions undertaken by himmler's einsteopen in the years that followed they would be used extensively in action all over Central and Eastern Europe committing enormous atrocities wherever they went for instance following the German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941 the einsatz kropen were responsible for some of the single worst atrocities of the in entire War such as that at Babi ya in the Ukraine here some 33 000 Jews were executed by the einsatzkopen in the space of two days in late September 1941. all of these activities were overseen and commanded by Himmler this however lay in the future in the immediate term Germany's goal was to conquer Poland and then switch to Western Europe to knock the French and British out of the war this all proceeded very well initially for the Nazis Poland was conquered in a matter of weeks in September and October 1939 then after a lengthy period of inaction Denmark and Norway were occupied in the spring of 1940 before a massive Invasion of France in the early summer this was a blisteringly quick military campaign and within six weeks Paris was occupied and the British expeditionary force was forced to flee over the channel to Britain but London was not defeated instead the island nation held out in the months that followed against a German Naval blockade and bombing campaign and it was at this juncture that Hitler made the Fatal decision to leave Britain be and instead turn eastwards to invade the ideological enemy of Nazism the Communists of the Soviet Union in the summer of 1941 he ordered the invasion of Russia in what was the largest military campaign ever undertaken millions of men streamed into Russia in what was termed Operation Barbarossa the war in the East initially went very well for Germany again hundreds of kilometers of territory were captured in the first months of the war as the German armies closed on Moscow and Leningrad however as the Russians mounted a more solid defense in the early winter the Germans stalled outside these cities it was the first time a German Army had been checked during the war and it was the beginning of a major reversal of Fortunes for the Nazis in the war effort as the German Armed Forces proceeded into Ukraine Eastern Poland the Baltic states and Russia from the summer of 1941 onwards the actions of the einsatz cotton which Himmler commanded became ever more brutal as we have already seen tens of thousands of individuals were massacred in the space of just a few days in some regions these included Jews Romani people the disabled Soviet prisoners of war and almost anybody else who was considered racially inferior or direct political enemy of the Third Reich proof of these massacres can be found in a report sent by the commander of einsatzguben a based in the modern day Baltic states France Walter schtalacker to Reinhardt heidelich in January of 1942 this detailed the numbers of Jews that had been killed by his units since the start of the German invasion and even included a map listing the exact number of Jews killed in each of the Baltic states the number of people murdered totaled over 220 000 men women and children in this region Alone by the end of the war it is estimated that the einzatz globen were responsible for the mass murder of over 2 million people the vast majority of them in Eastern Europe of these approximately 1.3 million were Eastern European Jews including women and children often being shot at point-blank range however the sheer Logistics of murdering so many Jewish people using these methods combined with the psychological effects on SS soldiers who often had to shoot children soon prompted Himmler and Hyde to turn the extermination of the Jews into an industrialized process German expansion into Eastern Europe had brought millions of additional Jewish people under German rule between 1939 and 1941. originally the Nazis had been intent on simply coercing German Jews to leave the country by robbing them of their rights as Citizens and persecuting them through programs such as the night of the broken glass in late 1938 when thousands of Jewish businesses synagogues and homes were attacked across Germany and Austria however there were only half a million Jews in Germany whereas Millions more lived in countries like Poland Ukraine and other parts of nazi-controlled or influenced Europe such as Hungary a new way of dealing with what the Nazis termed the Jewish question or Jewish problem was needed once the War Began initially after the invasion of Poland areas in the country's inner cities were walled off that were then populated with the country's Jews the most famous of which were the Warsaw and track of ghettos the conditions inside which were Grim here the inhabitants were systematically starved from 1940 onwards being given just a few hundred calories of food a day soon the weak and in firm were left dead or dying in the streets whilst families were forced to live with dozens per room often with no heating or running water however soon even this barbaric policy would be eclipsed and Himmler and his SS were at the center of these developments in August of 1941 Himmler traveled eastwards into those parts of the former Soviet Union which had been occupied by the Nazis following the Inception of operation Barbarossa his destination was Minsk where he attended the mass executions of an unknown number of Jews but as he observed the firing squads carrying out their horrendous work followed by the site of corpses dropping into pre-prepared Graves the SS leader was deeply affected this was according to his chief of staff Carl wolf who later testified 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 he immediately threw up and complained that a piece of brain had splattered on his face after the killings had stopped Himmler told an eight 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 quickly led to experiments being undertaken in which Jews were loaded into Vans and were effectively gassed to death by pumping car exhaust fumes into the vehicle however these experiments were still deemed to be inefficient and thus plans were drawn up in early 1942 for gas Chambers to be added to some of the existing concentration camps which had been erected across nazi-occupied Europe to house political prisoners six camps were eventually identified as those which would act as death camps where the continent's Jews would be sent to be gassed to death these were all in a confined location in Poland and consisted of Auschwitz birkenau Treblinka sobibor bierge and maidanic concentration camps these plans for what became known as the final solution were formulated by himmler's Deputy Reinhard heideck who on the 20th of January 1942 summoned Nazi party officials from various departments together at the now Infamous vanza conference which was held in the suburb of vanze outside Berlin here he outlined the SS plan for the so-called final solution to the Jewish question in territories under German control and coordination of all government departments to that effect to over a dozen senior Nazi bureaucrats the orders for the final solution had come down to Himmler and heideli in the late summer of 1941. shortly after the invasion of the Soviet Union was initiated from Hitler and a number of other senior Nazis such as Hermann Gering however over the four years that followed it was Himmler and initially hidily who were responsible for carrying out the Holocaust of Europe's Jews the the policing Services which Hydra oversaw across Europe such as the Gestapo would be responsible for identifying and apprehending all of the continent's Jews while Adolf Eichmann a logistician with a knack for organizing the movement of hundreds of thousands of people from place to place would oversee the actual deportation of the continent's Jews to the six death camps but it was himless SS which ran things within the camps it was they who selected who would die immediately and who would be used for slave labor when people arrived to the camps and it was the SS overseen by Himmler which carried out the final solution over the three years that followed 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 one of the main instigators of the Holocaust Reinhardt heidrich would never see the final solution become reality as he died of a bacterial infection on the 4th of June 1942 after two Allied trained czechoslovak agents attacked him in his chauffeur-driven car in Prague on the 27th of May 1942 leading to thousands of Czech citizens being murdered in reprisals after haido's death Himmler took personal command of the implementation of the final solution though in January 1943 he did eventually appoint a new head of the security services as Heidi's successor an Austrian member of the SS named Ernst kaldenbrenner during the course of 1942 1943 and 1944 over 4 million Jews were Mass murdered in the death camps run by himmler's SS the most notorious of these was of course Auschwitz birkenau which Himmler had ordered the expansion of in early 1942 with the addition of gas Chambers and furnaces were Jews Romani gypsies homosexuals and those who the Nazis termed undesirables were killed using a pesticide called Cyclone B their bodies were then quickly incinerated in purpose-built crematoria nearby all in all it is estimated that over 6 million Jews died during the Holocaust whether they were killed in the death camps or by the einsatzgruppen in Eastern Europe hemless SS was front and Central to their murder however because the Third Reich and himless SS in particular were careful to cover their tracks there has been a significant amount of skepticism in some circles since the war that the Holocaust took place at all despite the previously mentioned einsert scrutin reports sent to Reinhardt heinterich as well as photographic evidence of Einstein's group mass killings the signed confession of Adolf Eichmann at his trial in Israel in the early 1960s and quotes from himmler's Chief of Staff Carl wolf who confirmed that he had been present at mass killings with Heinrich Himmler during the war not to mention the countless eyewitness statements of the survivors of the Holocaust themselves be they Jewish or otherwise perhaps the most damning piece of evidence however came from Himmler himself as on the 4th of October 1943 during a secret meeting with SS officers in the city of poznan Himmler expressly referred to the mass murder of the Region's Jews the poznan speeches and others Himmler made in 1944 were recorded and are without a debt the voice of Heinrich Himmler if you know iron countries capitals here for Enon there's soiletries [Music] foreign programs to bring about a racially pure Nation would prove to be nothing but counterproductive as his insistence and obsession with purging the Third Reich of racial impurity simply wasted massive amounts of resources which could otherwise have been used to Greater effect on the fighting fronts against the Russians as well as the Western allies in short the National Socialist hatred of the Jews proved to be one of their several Achilles heels in essence Hitler Himmler and Hyde diverted hundreds of thousands of troops and billions of Reich marks away from the war effort to genocidal projects that did nothing but weakened the Nazi State as a whole for instance 50 000 guards served in the concentration camp system and hundreds of thousands more Germans and their allies were involved in this program of mass murder in one fashion or another whether it was trying to identify Jews Romani and other enemies of the regime who were are in hiding in cities like Paris Amsterdam or Vienna or in managing the ghettos in Warsaw Riga and other cities or simply running the train systems and the administrative branches of the Concentration Camp system all of this entailed a massive bureaucracy which tied up hundreds of thousands of Germans this Manpower was very much needed elsewhere by 1944 it was evident that Hitler's attempt to secure European domination had comprehensively failed after the German Armed Forces had stalled outside Moscow and Leningrad in the winter of 1941. the Russians had began pumping millions of men into the war effort the war on the Eastern front now became one of attrition while at the same time the United States finally ended the second world war after being attacked in December 1941 by Germany's Ally the Empire of Japan thus from the end of 1941 onwards a new powerful Alliance of Britain the United States and the Soviet Union as well as further allies such as Canada and the free French had coalesced to fight Germany and its allies 1942 did not bring a major breakthrough but the Germans were quite simply losing too many men against a numerically Superior enemy Hitler's hopes now rested on seizing the city of Stalingrad in Southwestern Russia and with it the oil fields of the Caucasus on which the Russians were light for their oil needs this ultimately failed in the winter of 1942 in the first major defeat of a German Army of the war it was all downhill for the Nazis from there in the spring of 1943 the combined forces of Italy and Germany and North Africa which had been attempting to seize the Suez Canal in Egypt and with it control of the Middle East were pushed back into Tunisia and finally expelled from North Africa altogether the Western allies followed up this Victory by opening a new Southern front in Italy through the invasion of Sicily that summer this occasion the Italian fascist government to remove its dictator Hitler's Ally Benito Mussolini from power and surrender unconditionally to the Allies however there would be no quick end to the war there as Hitler established a puppet regime headed by Mussolini in the north of the country and continued to resist the Allied movement North yet this in turn diverted resources from Eastern Europe and by late 1943 the Russians were beginning to push the Germans back towards Poland by 1944 they were making rapid advances westwards a development which was compounded when the Western allies opened a western front in France that summer following the D-Day Landings the third reich's days were numbered the massive reversals suffered by the German Army and the Soviet Union as well as the Allied Landings on D-Day LED Hitler to order the creation of new Army units consisting of every able-bodied man the German State could muster as a result Himmler finally realized his childhood dream of becoming a soldier when he was appointed as commander of army group upper Rhine in the winter of 1944 as well as this Hitler also ordered Himmler to facilitate the creation of so-called folkstorm units which were little more than armed civilians or militia in the desperate hope of holding back the advancing Allied 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 who despite their best efforts were unable to offer much resistance against the Soviets who in many cases just swept them aside as a result by the winter of 1944 the Allies were massing in eastern France and the low countries for an assault on the Rhineland early in 1945 while the massive armies of the Soviet Union had spread out across Poland and were preparing for their own entry into Eastern Germany it was now simply a question of which side would capture Berlin first himmler's time as an army commander in Western Germany overseeing Army group upper Rhine coincided with the final Nazi offensive of the war as Hitler tried to launch a counter-attack against the Western allies in the Arden Forest straddling Luxembourg Belgium and Eastern France this was launched in mid-December 1944 though operational command was held by Field Marshal guard Von runstadt and there is little evidence to suggest Himmler played a major role in the operation which met with some considerable success in the opening days of it but was soon repulsed shortly thereafter Himmler was transferred to the command of the newly formed Army group Vistula named after the river Vistula in Poland near the front lines where the Russians now stood in this capacity Himmler was charged with contributing to the defense of Northeastern Germany the Pomeranian region from the impending Onslaught by the Red Army himmler's appointment to oversee a major aspect of of the military defense of Germany and the route to Berlin was strongly criticized by the career generals within the German Army but Hitler who held many of his most capable commanders responsible for German defeat in the war by this time refused to counter-mind his decision Himmler proved incompetent in this role setting up his headquarters on a train with few resources available he was known to work for only a few hours every day and when Army group Vistula was sent into action in February 1945 his forces became bogged down in rain and mud within days he was revoked from his command an ignominious end to his short career as a military commander one might ask at this juncture why Himmler was given command of two sizable military forces at this critical time in the effort to slow the Allied Advance towards Berlin the answer lies in his personal relationship with Hitler from early on Himmler made it clear that he would obey Hitler's commands unquestioningly moreover his position as head of what was originally Hitler's personal bodyguard unit gave him personal access to the fuhrer he also had Ambitions to succeed Hitler one day who was 11 years his senior and in poor health thus he cultivated his relationship with him as much as he could from the late 1920s onwards the result of all of this was that Hitler trusted the head of the SS referring to him as the faithful Heinrich he consequently promoted him in 1943 to the position of minister of the interior in addition to his already sizable list of titles and positions however this is not to suggest the relationship was ever close and while Hitler considered Himmler to be one of his most loyal followers he otherwise had disdain for many of the SS leaders beliefs and did not count him amongst his inner Social Circle in the same way that he did figures like Goebbels thus when he arrived to the conclusion that Himmler had failed him in his command of army group Vistula the SS leader plummeted quite quickly in Hitler's eyes in the weeks that followed his revocation as The Noose was tightened around the neck of the Third Reich Himmler was just one of many senior and mid-ranking Nazi officials who attempted to initiate peace negotiations some of these such as his second in command within the SS since early 1943 Ernst kaltenbrunner attempted to do so through the Red Cross stationed in neutral Switzerland himmler's efforts also focused on a country which had remained neutral throughout the war Sweden in the final weeks of the war as the Russians were surrounding Berlin and as Hitler held himself up in his bunker in the center of the city and refused to countenance surrender Himmler made contact with Nicolas masur a Swedish representative of the world Jewish Congress in these negotiations he discussed the possible release of tens of thousands of Jews from the concentration camps which were still controlled by the SS to Scandinavia through this action the man who had over seen the Holocaust released twenty thousand Jews in the final days of the war as he plotted some way to save himself as a result of this gesture of some good faith himlo was able to meet with count bernadotte the head of the Swedish Red Cross on the 23rd of April 1945. here he claimed to be acting as the head of the German government despite the fact that Hitler was still alive and submitted a written proposal which he wished to be sent to the Supreme Commander of Allied Forces in Europe the U.S general Dwight D Eisenhower in this he offered Germany surrender to the Western allies but his proposals were quickly refused news of himmler's Peace offer was broadcast by the British Broadcasting Corporation on the 28th of April 1945. once he learned that his loyal Heinrich had betrayed him and tried to negotiate Germany's surrender Hitler flew into a rage he then stripped Himmler of all his offices and titles and issued a warrant for his arrest this was not incongruous and Hitler turned on many other senior Nazis in the final weeks of the war either for countenancing peace negotiations or because he could lay some of the blame for the fall of the Third Reich at their feet his decision to remove Himmler from his position was one of his last major actions shortly afterwards on the 30th of April 1945 the Nazi leader whom Himmler had first encountered over 20 years earlier back in Bavaria killed himself in the Reich chancellery bunker in Central Berlin his appointed successor Joseph Goebbels the propaganda Minister followed suit the next day with that the German Army and interim government entered into peace negotiations the second world war in Europe was thus brought to an end on the 8th of May 1945. henceforth known as victory in Europe or VE Day in the final weeks and days of the war a huge number of the Nazi leadership had fled Berlin for Northern Germany here they formed an interim government at the town of flensburg on the Danish border the goal of eloping here was that this region was relatively unaffected by the war and they would be captured by the Western allies rather than the Russians Himmler had headed to the German Danish Border in the Hamburg region but he was under no illusions that he would avoid detention and prosecution he perhaps more than anybody else had been responsible for the Holocaust of six million of the continent's Jews and the mass murder of millions of more Romany Soviet prisoners of war and other groups in Central and Eastern Europe it was the SS which he built into an army within the Reich which staffed the einzatz corpen and ran the Concentration Camp system indeed by the time the war came to an end the Allies had determined that most Germans would not be punished for the war but that all members of the SS and in particular its officer class were Prime targets as such Himmler like many other members of the paramilitary organization he ran went underground in the first days of May Himmler sought to go into hiding by masquerading as an ordinary German Soldier traveling with some companions however his efforts did not last long with Allied troops spreading out across Germany Himmler and his comrades were detained at Bremer Voda in lower Saxony at a checkpoint set up by former Soviet prisoners of War on the 21st of May 1945. his captors however did not know who he was at this juncture over the following two days Himmler was moved between several internment camps before being brought to a British civilian interrogation camp near Lunenburg on the 23rd of May during an interview here Himmler without any major prompting openly admitted who he was his captors probably found this unusual this was the leader of the notorious SS the man who would stand trial before the international Military Tribunal which was being planned to be held at Nuremberg there he would encounter Justice with figures such as Gering who was still alive amongst the Nazi hierarchy after this confession he was transferred to British second Army headquarters in Lunenburg where a doctor began a medical examination of him but when the physician attempted to look in himmler's mouth he resisted and a few seconds later collapsed onto the floor despite efforts to revive him Himmler died 15 minutes later it was later determined that he had bitten into a potassium cyanide capsule which the SS leader had probably been carrying for weeks with the intention of killing himself if he was apprehended shortly afterwards the former Reich sphera's body was interred in an unmarked grave in Lunenburg the location of which remains a mystery to this day as a result of his suicide and the assassination of Reinhardt Heinrich near Prague in 1942 Ernst Carlton Brunner would be included in the primary trial at Nuremberg as the most senior surviving figure within the SS Heinrich Himmler was undoubtedly one of the most significant figures within the Nazi regime while Hitler will forever be the Paramount figure associated with the crimes of national socialism there were a handful of individuals who are always considered as being nearly as consequential in the regime three in particular stand out they being Helm and going Joseph Goebbels and Heinrich Himmler what is unusual about this is that Himmler Rose from Fairly humble Origins within the party while Gering for instance was a senior figure as early as the time of the beer hall push in 1923 Himmler only became a member of the Nazi party a few months before the attempted coup in Munich he played a negligible role in the Insurrection and even in the years that followed he can hardly be said to have been a major figure within Nazism however all of that began to change from the late 1920s onwards as he gradually gained control over the SS after becoming its leader in 1929 and as the Nazis Rose to power in the early 1930s he used his significant administrative abilities to build the organization into the leading paramilitary wing of the Nazi party he not only managed to replace Holmes essay in this respect but also used the SS to monopolize control over policing and security services within Germany during the mid-1930s aided considerably by his brutal sidekick Reinhardt heidech by the late 1930s the SS which had originally been a small bodyguard unit when Himmler joined it became effectively a small ideological Army within the Third Reich one fashioned around Aryan racial ideology and German folk history however himmler's creation was monstrous already by the late 1930s it was beginning to develop into a brutal instrument of Nazi Terror one which was used to police Germany and then ask Austria rooting out those who were considered racial and ideological enemies of Nazism many of these were already being rounded up and sent to concentration camps by this time but things became even worse once the second world war commenced in September 1939 as soon as the German Army crossed into Poland it was accompanied by the einsatzkopen detachments of fanatical members of the SS who acted as death squads as bad as their actions were in Poland they were eclipsed by what happened following the invasion of the Soviet Union in the summer of 1941 in the years that followed though primarily in the first six months of the invasion these SS death squads acting on himless orders murdered in excess of one and a half million people as the German Army moved eastwards and this was just the Prelude to the implementation of the final solution through the Concentration Camp system which was run by the SS when all was said and done the SS murdered upwards of 10 million people during the second world war through the camp system and their actions on the Eastern Front Himmler did not create the SS but he did turn it into the killing machine that it became as such there is an argument to be made that he was more responsible for the crimes of the Third Reich than any other individual within it what do you think of Heinrich Himmler was he the worst of all the Nazis whose crimes are second only to Hitler himself please let us know in the comment section and in the meantime thank you very much for watching foreign foreign [Music] foreign thank you foreign [Music]

Channel: The People Profiles

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Id: u7GpBjdTM7I

Length: 89min 0sec (5340 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 30 2022