Heinrich Himmler

Heinrich Himmler
Reichsfuhrer-SS Heinrich Himmler in 1942
Reichsführer-SS
In office 6 January 1929 – 29 April 1945
Leader	Adolf Hitler
Preceded by	Erhard Heiden
Succeeded by	Karl Hanke
Chief of German Police in the Reich Ministry of the Interior
In office 17 June 1936 – 29 April 1945
Leader	Adolf Hitler
Preceded by	Office established
Succeeded by	Karl Hanke
Reich Commissioner for the Strengthening of German Nationhood
In office 7 October 1939 – 29 April 1945
Leader	Adolf Hitler
Preceded by	Office established
Succeeded by	None
Director of the Reich Main Security Office (acting)
In office 4 June 1942 – 30 January 1943
Preceded by	Reinhard Heydrich
Succeeded by	Ernst Kaltenbrunner
Reich Minister of the Interior
In office 24 August 1943 – 29 April 1945
Chancellor	Adolf Hitler
Preceded by	Wilhelm Frick
Succeeded by	Wilhelm Stuckart
Personal details
Born	Heinrich Luitpold Himmler 7 October 1900 Munich, Bavaria, Germany
Died	23 May 1945(1945-05-23) (aged 44) Lüneburg, Lower Saxony, Germany
Political party	National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP)
Spouse(s)	Margarete Bode
Children	Gudrun, Helge, Nanette Dorotha
Alma mater	Technical University Munich
Profession	Agronomist
Cabinet	Hitler Cabinet
Signature
Military service
Allegiance	German Empire
Branch/service	Heer
Years of service	1917–1918
Rank	Fahnenjunker
Unit	11th Bavarian Infantry Regiment
Battles/wars	World War I

Heinrich Luitpold Himmler (German: [ˈhaɪnʁɪç ˈluːɪtˌpɔlt ˈhɪmlɐ] (listen); 7 October 1900 – 23 May 1945) was as German high-ranking Nazi politician. He led the Schutzstaffel (SS) and the Gestapo before and during World War II.

Himmler played a central role in planning the Holocaust and making it happen. (So did his deputy, Reinhard Heydrich.) Himmler created and controlled the Nazi concentration camps, where millions of people died.

For his central role in the Holocaust, Himmler has been described as an "architect" of genocide, terror, and the Final Solution.

Of the top leaders in the Nazi Party, Himmler was one of the youngest and one of the few who had not fought in World War I. He was involved in the 1923 Beer Hall Putsch; the 1934 Night of the Long Knives (where he and Heydrich organized the murder of SA leader Ernst Röhm); and Kristallnacht/Night Of The Broken Glass (1938).

Organizing the Holocaust

Under Himmler's direction, the SS-Totenkopfverbände (Death's Head Battalions) organized and managed the Holocaust. This included administering Germany’s regime of concentration camps and extermination camps.

The camp system

Between 1933-1945, the Nazis established a network of thousands of camps throughout Nazi Germany and Nazi-occupied territories. Himmler had authority over all of them. Millions of people died in these camps.

Unlike Hitler, Himmler visited some of the camps, including Auschwitz, Dachau, Mauthausen, andSachsenhausen. In fact, he personally opened the first concentration camp at Dachau on the 22nd of March, 1933.

Under Himmler's authority, the Nazis built gas chambers in death camps like Auschwitz so they could kill people more efficiently. According to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum:

Millions of people were imprisoned, mistreated, and murdered in the various types of Nazi camps. Under SS management, the Germans and their collaborators murdered 2.7 million Jews in the killing centers alone. Only a small fraction of those imprisoned in Nazi camps survived.

Victims of the camps

Through its Security Service (Sicherheitsdienst, or SD), Himmler's SS hunted down anyone they thought were Untermensch (sub-human). This included (among others):

• Jews
• Roma and Sinti people
• Communists and anarchists
• LGBT people
• Slavs and Soviet prisoners of war
• Black people
• People with disabilities
• People of certain religions, like Jehovah's Witnesses
• People who opposed the Nazi regime (or were suspected of opposing it)

Under Himmler's leadership, these people were deported to concentration camps or extermination camps, where millions of them died.

Posen speech

On 4 October 1943, Himmler spoke of the extermination of the Jewish people during a secret SS meeting in the city of Poznań (Posen). The following are parts from an audio recording of the speech:

I also want to mention a very difficult subject before you here, completely openly. It should be discussed amongst us, and yet, nevertheless, we will never speak about it in public. I am talking about the Jewish evacuation: the extermination of the Jewish people. It is one of those things that is easily said. "The Jewish people are being exterminated," every Party member will tell you: "Perfectly clear, it’s part of our plans, we’re eliminating the Jews, exterminating them, ha!, a small matter."

Death

Mail Stamp

As the war ended, Himmler tried to negotiate with the Allies, hoping to avoid prosecution by surrendering. The Allies refused, and Himmler was captured by the British Army.

Before he could be tried at Nuremberg, Himmler committed suicide by swallowing a potassium cyanide capsule. He died on 23 May 1945 at the age of 44. The location of his grave is unknown.

Portrayals

Himmler has been portrayed in various works of fiction. In the 1989 Steven Spielberg movie Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Himmler was portrayed by Ronald Lacey. In the TV series The Man in the High Castle, he appeared along with Reinhard Heydrich (who was actually assassinated in 1942).

Related pages

• The Holocaust
• The Final Solution
• Nazi Germany
• Nazi concentration camps
• Nazi extermination camps
• Genocide

Other websites

• List of Himmler speeches A very detailed list of Himmler speeches including online sources and material in the U.S. National Archives.
• audio recording Archived 2012-05-07 at the Wayback Machine of the Poznan speech
• Die Schutzstaffel als antibolschewistische Kampforganisation An essay by Himmler
• About Heinrich Himmler Archived 2013-10-12 at the Wayback Machine