Himmler, Heinrich

Himmler, Heinrich (1900–45).Son of a Catholic schoolmaster, who was Nazi head of the SS from 1929 to 1945, and Germany's minister of the interior from 1943 to 1945.

Born in Munich, Himmler trained as an officer cadet at the end of the First World War without seeing active service, then studied at Munich's technical college where he obtained an agricultural diploma. He worked as a fertilizer salesman then as a poultry farmer, joined the Nazi Party in 1925, served as a deputy Gauleiter, became deputy leader of the SS in 1927 and its head in January 1929, and was elected a member of the Reichstag the following year.

Using his position as head of the SS, Himmler now began to build a state within the state. At first he concentrated on expanding the organization (by January 1933 it numbered 53,000), then on establishing its autonomy within the Nazi Party, and lastly on ensuring its dominance in every sphere of state security and domestic policy. It was his vehicle for translating Nazi ideology into action and as early as March 1933, the same month as he became head of the Munich police, he established Dachau, one of the first Nazi concentration camps, and later founded the Lebensborn organization. By 1936 he had manoeuvred himself into a position where he was not only head of the SS but of a newly unified nationwide police.

In October 1939 he was given total control of the annexed parts of Poland and within a year more than a million Poles and 300,000 Jews had been pushed eastwards to be replaced by Volksdeutsche. He then became Reich Commissioner for the Strengthening of German Nationhood, to oversee all racial matters, and in August 1943 was appointed minister of the interior in which post he oversaw the Final Solution, administered the system of forced labour, and authorized the medical experiments of SS doctors.

The July 1944 bomb plot against Hitler (see Schwarze Kapelle) further strengthened Himmler's hand (though he behaved with extreme deviousness during the crisis) and the army was obliged to accept him as Fromm's successor as C-in-C of the Replacement Army (see Germany, 6(b)); and despite his lack of military experience in January 1945 he was even given command of the newly-activated Army Group Vistula, though he was soon replaced by General Gotthard Heinrici. During the last months of hostilities Himmler, who had for some time suspected the eventual outcome of the war, realized that it was now lost for Germany. He ordered a halt to the Final Solution and by various methods attempted to start peace negotiations with the Allies. But his grip on reality was beginning to slip for he really believed the Allies would endorse him as Germany's new leader once Hitler had been deposed and peace restored.

Just before he killed himself, Hitler, on learning of Himmler's latest efforts to contact the Allies, via Count Bernadotte, dismissed him from all his posts and ordered his arrest. When Dönitz became head of state Himmler offered his services, which were declined. After Germany surrendered Himmler tried to escape in disguise, but was captured and on 23 May 1945 killed himself with poison.

Bibliography

Smelzer, R., and Zitelmann, R. (eds.), The Nazi Elite (London, 1992).