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Transcript Provided by YouTube:
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Heinrich Himmler – Hitler’s Enforcer
00:01
He was the quiet, efficient and oh so ruthless architect of the Holocaust; Hitler’s most
00:05
loyal sycophant.
00:07
He ruthlessly dispatched those who stood in his way as he rose to a position of power
00:11
that was second only to the Fuhrer.
00:14
In the end he spectacularly betrayed his master – only to be felled by his own hand.
00:19
In this week’s Biographics, we reveal the cold, calculating life and death of Heinrich
00:25
Himmler.
00:31
Early Years
00:42
Heinrich Luitpold Himmler was born on October 7th, 1900 at Wittelsbacherstrasse 2 in Munich.
00:48
He was the second of three sons to Gebhart and Anna-Marie Himmler.
00:52
Gebhart was the deputy headmaster of Landshut High School and was a pious, pedantic man.
00:58
The family was well-off but not rich and they held a measure of prestige in the local community.
01:03
Gebhart had previously been a tutor to the royal Wittelsbach Princes.
01:08
It was this connection that led to the great honor of having Prince Heinrich of Bavaria
01:12
as Heinrich’s godfather.
01:14
Heinrich was not a well child.
01:16
He was often absent from school with one illness or another.
01:20
Still, he made up for the absences by simply working harder.
01:23
By doing so, he proved himself to be excellent student.
01:26
A middle school teacher remembered him as ‘a very keen pupil whose tireless application,
01:31
burning ambition and active participation in class have achieved excellent results.’
01:36
The man who would go on to persecute the Catholic clergy without mercy, grew up as part of a
01:41
devout family of believers.
01:42
As a youth he wrote in his diary . . .
01:44
I will always love God and remain true to the Church.
01:48
As a teenager, Heinrich served as an altar boy.
01:50
When war broke out, he developed a desire to serve his country in a military capacity.
01:54
Gebhart, a fervent nationalist, approved and tried to use his royal contact to smooth his
01:59
son’s path to becoming an officer.
02:01
However, the seventeen-year-old was turned down by the Imperial Navy due to his short-sightedness.
02:07
He next turned to the army, gaining entry and being sent to officer training school.
02:12
But before he had completed his cadetship, the war was over.
02:16
Unlike the Fuhrer he would come to adore, Himmler saw none of the carnage of the Great
02:21
War first hand.
02:25
The Emerging Nazi
02:30
In April, 1919, Himmler joined one of the many Freikorps army units that were determined
02:38
to crush the Communist movement.
02:40
During the next two years he served in various paramilitary organizations that were on the
02:45
march against democracy, the shameful Treaty of Versailles and the Marxist dictatorship.
02:50
Young Himmler had been frustrated that he had not got to fight in the front lines during
02:54
the war and, lacking any direction, he now sought a cause that he could embrace and a
02:58
leader that he could respect.
03:00
Himmler’s family had not been inherently anti-Semitic.
03:03
In his early twenties, however, he began reading the Jew bashing pamphlets that were circulating
03:08
around Munich.
03:09
He also got ahold of the ‘Protocols of the Elders of Zion’, a faked document that purported
03:14
to contain details of a Jewish world conspiracy.
03:18
Himmler came of age at a time when the old order was in a state of chaos.
03:22
The German people were defeated, their economy decimated and their psyche damaged irreparably.
03:28
This caused fear and depression.
03:30
In the old order, Himmler, the son of a royal tutor, would have found a secure place in
03:35
society.
03:36
But now all bets were off.
03:38
He would have to forge his own path.
03:40
Gerhard Himmler had instilled in his sons the Teutonic ideal that the German Aryan was
03:46
the master human being.
03:47
What Heinrich saw on the streets of Munich in the early ‘20’s was the opposite of
03:51
Aryan supremacy – the people were fast sliding into decadence and immorality.
03:56
But this was no fault of the German people – his readings convinced Himmler that the
04:01
country’s ills could all be laid at the feet of one group – the Jews.
04:07
Himmler would spend the rest of his life championing the Teutonic ideal.
04:11
His constant refrain when faced with a situation was, ‘What would our forefathers have done
04:15
in this situation?’
04:17
Disgusted at what had happened to his beloved German nation, the young Himmler began making
04:21
plan to emigrate.
04:23
On November 23rd, 1921 he wrote the following in his diary . . .
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Today I cut an article from the newspaper about emigration to Peru.
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Where will I end up: Spain, Turkey, the Baltic countries, Russia, Peru?
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I often think about it.
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In two years’ time I will no longer be in Germany.
04:40
A year later he was still in Germany, but the dream of living abroad was still with
04:44
him.
04:45
In 1922 he enquired at the Soviet Embassy about moving to the Ukraine as an estate manager.
04:50
Two decades later he would send his death squads into the Ukraine to decimate the land
04:55
and wipe out its Jewish inhabitants, but for now his greatest ambition was to be a peaceful
05:01
agricultural manager.
05:02
By the end of 1922, Himmler had completed a degree in agriculture and settled into a
05:07
job as an agricultural assistant in a fertilizer factory.
05:10
Then, in 1923, he joined the Nationalist Socialist Worker’s Party.
05:17
He started off as a member of the paramilitary unit under Ernst Rohm and played a part in
05:21
the unsuccessful Beer Hall Putsch attempt to seize power.
05:25
The police threw several people, including Hitler himself, in prison.
05:29
Himmler was questioned but then released through lack of evidence.
05:33
But his involvement in the attempted revolt led to him losing his job as an agricultural
05:38
analyst.
05:39
With no money coming in, he had to move back in with his parents.
05:42
Around this time, Himmler appears to have fallen into a depressive state.
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He had few friends and portrayed an aggressive, volcanic personality.
05:50
The Catholic religion, which had been so dear to him, was abandoned and a fascination with
05:55
the occult began to take shape.
05:57
Unlike a lot of other new recruits to the Nazi party, Himmler was not immediately overawed
06:02
by the presence of Adolf Hitler.
06:03
His adoration of the Fuhrer developed over time.
06:07
As was his nature, Himmler read everything he could about and by Hitler.
06:12
He came to appreciate him first on an intellectual level – the worship would come soon enough.
06:27
The Loyal Worker
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The now unemployed twenty-five-year-old began putting all of his energies into the cause
06:32
of national socialism.
06:33
He took on the position of secretary for Gregor Strasser, a pharmacist from Landshut who was
06:38
standing as a candidate for the Reichstag.
06:41
In return for a monthly salary of 120 Reichsmarks he travelled around Lower Bavaria on his motorcycle
06:46
and gave inflammatory speeches against Jews and Communists.
06:50
Strasser was a Nazi party member who was attempting to wrest control of the organization from
06:54
the imprisoned Hitler.
06:56
Believing that he would succeed, Himmler supported Strasser in this internal power struggle.
07:01
In the early ‘20’s the notoriously shy Heinrich, found his fraulien – a nurse from
07:05
Bromberg named Marga.
07:07
Tall blond and blue-eyed, she fit the Teutonic ideal and matched Himmler’s ideal image
07:12
of Germanic womanhood.
07:13
The couple were married on July 3rd, 1928 with Marga bringing a sizeable dowry to the
07:19
union.
07:20
This financial windfall enabled Heinrich to realize his dream of owning his own piece
07:23
of land and they purchased a chicken farm at Wadltrudering not far from Munich.
07:27
During this time, Himmler managed to rise rapidly in his standing within the party.
07:31
By 1926 he was deputy head of Reich propaganda and then deputy Reichsfuhrer-SS.
07:37
By then Hitler had been released from prison, brushed aside the internal threat from Strasser
07:41
and published his tome, Mein Kampf.
07:44
Himmler effortlessly switched his allegiance back to Hitler.
07:48
He devoured Mein Kampf, commenting that it contained an extraordinary number of truths.
07:53
Very quickly, Himmler’s loyalty to Hitler became absolute.
07:59
The SS
08:07
By the mid-1920’s Hitler came to the realization that he was in need of a special protection
08:12
force.
08:13
He needed a squad of men who gave him unquestioned loyalty and were even prepared to march against
08:18
their brothers if needed.
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To head such a force no one was as fervently devoted and therefore so eminently suited
08:25
as Heinrich Himmler.
08:26
On January 6th, 1929, Hitler appointed Himmler to the position of Reichsfuhrer-SS.
08:31
At that time, the SS was a small division of the larger SA, which was under the headship
08:37
of Ernst Rohm.
08:38
The SA was Hitler’s private army.
08:40
The fighting quality of its men was questionable, but Rohm saw its strength coming from force
08:45
of numbers.
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In contrast, the SS was a far more elite force.
08:49
Its members wore black peaked caps emblazoned with a skull along with black bordered swastika
08:54
armbands.
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The new position was ideal for Himmler.
08:57
From his youth he had admired and been fascinated by the Praetorian Guard that were the elite
09:02
protection force of Roman emperors.
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Now he had the opportunity to craft his own modern day Praetorian Guard.
09:08
He immediately began putting his own stamp on the SS.
09:12
He had belt buckles made that were in scripted with the words . . .
09:14
SS man, loyalty is thy honor.
09:17
He also came up with a succinct motto for his men . . .
09:21
Be more than you seem.
09:23
When Himmler assumed leadership, the SS numbered around 200 men.
09:27
A year later it had grown to just over a thousand.
09:30
By June, 1934 it had swollen to 50,000.
09:33
In 1931, Himmler created a unit within the unit.
09:37
It was called 1C and was put under the leadership of new rising star Reinhard Heydrich.
09:44
Later to become the secret service, this was the organ by which Hitler could have undercover
09:48
surveillance undertaken within the party.
10:01
Night of the Long Knives
10:02
By 1934, the SA under Ernst Rohm had become redundant to Hitler.
10:05
Now that he was Chancellor he had no need for a bunch of street thugs.
10:09
In fact, his association with them was bound to be damaging to his career.
10:13
It was time to break this private army up.
10:15
Himmler was delighted with the news that the SA, along with its commander Ernst Rohm, were
10:19
about to be dealt with.
10:21
For five years he had been a subordinate to the uncouth and unorganized Rohm, whom he
10:25
considered his social inferior.
10:28
Himmler threw himself into planning the overthrow of the SA that history would recall as the
10:32
Night of the Long Knives.
10:34
Documents were forged to show that the SA were planning a coup and Himmler personally
10:38
took those documents to Hitler.
10:40
Immediately death lists were drawn up containing the names of SA leaders as well any others
10:44
who were seen by Himmler and Heydrich as threats to their growing power.
10:48
At the top of the list was Ernst Rohm.
10:50
When Rohm was taken into custody, Hitler was in favor of commuting the death sentence of
10:55
his long-term colleague but he was brow beaten by Himmler and Heydrich into eliminating him.
11:00
This was in calling with Himmler’s underlying nature.
11:03
He was a man who was completely devoid of scruples, lacking any of the normal inhibitions
11:08
or pangs of conscience that would cause others to pause in their actions.
11:13
The arrests, torment and murders of the Night of the Long Knives were carried out by Himmler’s
11:18
SS.
11:19
Their leader was a major beneficiary of the operation.
11:22
In the wake of the purging of the SA, Himmler took over headship of the Gestapo from Hermann
11:27
Goering.
11:28
Around the same time, Himmler ordered the death of Gerhard Strasser the man he had earlier
11:32
supported as Nazi Party leader and who had been his employer.
11:40
Total Power
11:45
By 1935, Himmler was in a position of great power within the Nazi state.
11:50
As well as heading the SS and Gestapo, he was also in command of the entire German police
11:55
force.
11:56
This enabled him to participate in Cabinet meetings with all the rights and privileges
11:59
of a minister of the Reich.
12:01
On October 11th, 1936, Himmler gave a speech in front of the academy of German Law in which
12:06
he made it clear how he was to run the country’s police and defense forces . . .
12:11
Whether or not our actions conflict with a particular article or sub-section is a matter
12:15
of complete indifference to me.
12:17
In the fulfilment of my duty, I do precisely what I can answer for in my work for Fuhrer
12:22
and nation, and what equates with healthy common sense.
12:26
Whether or not others whined about a breach of the law is no concern to me.
12:31
Hitler would only accept the very best Teutonic men into the SS.
12:34
The organization was to be a racial elite class.
12:38
Himmler made sure that he saw a photo of every applicant.
12:42
He meticulously scanned them in search of anything that might give evidence of impurity.
12:46
Once he found his perfect specimens, he intended to do what he could to ensure that there were
12:50
more of them.
12:51
And so, on October 28th, 1939, he issued his procreation order to the SS.
12:57
It was the highest duty of women and girls to conceive children by the soldiers of the
13:01
SS before they went into battle.
13:03
In other words, if a female did not submit to the sexual demands of an SS man, she was
13:08
guilty of treason to the state.
13:09
Himmler became obsessed with the idea of procreating the world with Pure Aryans.
13:14
An order went out that every SS man was to father at least one child.
13:19
He considered monogamy to be a sin.
13:21
His men were allowed to have several wives in order to be able to father as many future
13:25
heroes as possible.
13:29
Mass Murder
13:37
Under Himmler, the SS became much more than a personal bodyguard for the Fuhrer.
13:41
Himmler had been charged with restoring the nation to health.
13:44
This task required ridding the country of racial impurity.
13:48
To do this the SS would go through community after community and cleanse it of Jews, Freemasons
13:52
and Jesuits.
13:53
But Himmler had soon extended the list of undesirables to include Slavs, gypsies, homosexuals,
13:59
Jehovah’s Witnesses and Communists.
14:01
When Hitler invaded Russia in 1941, Himmler provided ‘action squads’ who would follow
14:06
up the regular army as it conquered the land.
14:08
Their job was to take out all Jews, Asiatics, Communist and gypsies.
14:11
Himmler ensured that his men keep meticulous records of their activities.
14:15
One of the squad commanders had recorded 90,000 killings in just the last few months of 1941.
14:22
These mass scale murders, however, presented a problem that Himmler had to provide a solution
14:27
for.
14:28
Having to kill so many people each day was proving challenging for the psyches of the
14:31
soldiers doing the work.
14:34
Was there a more efficient way to kill that did not lead to such demoralization?
14:39
Of course, there was no question in Himmler’s mind that the course of mass murder was morally,
14:43
socially and politically correct.
14:45
For year he had drilled two simple rules into the minds of his SS . . .
14:49
Firstly, the Fuhrer was always right.
14:52
Secondly, the end justifies the means.
14:55
He presented the mass extermination as a monumental secular mission that his men were privileged
15:00
to be fulfilling.
15:02
After personally watching the execution of 200 Jews near Minsk, he said . . .
15:06
It is the curse of the great man to step over corpses.
15:09
In the summer of 1941, Himmler summoned the commandant of the Auschwitz Concentration
15:14
Camp, Rudolf Hoss to a meeting in Berlin.
15:16
He informed him that the Fuhrer had order the final solution to the Jewish question.
15:20
The SS, he told Hoss, were to carry that order out and he had selected Auschwitz as the prime
15:25
location to do it.
15:26
Hoss and Adolf Eichmann were to organize the genocide but Himmler was the man in charge.
15:31
Under Himmler’s watchful gaze the concentration camps, with Auschwitz as the shining model,
15:36
became incredibly efficient death factories.
15:39
Those passing through the gates of the camp were weeded, with those selected going directly
15:44
to the gas chambers.
15:45
In less than fifteen minutes they were dead, victims of the highly poisonous gas Zyklon
15:50
B.
15:51
For those who were considered fit for work, their death would come from exhaustion or
15:54
starvation.
15:55
Himmler paid a personal visit to Auschwitz in 1942.
15:58
He watched as victims were selected and watched through a spyhole in the gas chamber door
16:03
as the executions were carried out.
16:05
He did not comment on what he saw, a sign to camp commandant Hoss that he was happy
16:10
with what he witnessed.
16:11
Himmler went on to inspect the rest of the camp, during which time Hoss campaigned about
16:14
the squalid conditions and the dangers of disease to his men.
16:18
Himmler stopped him in mid-sentence and declared . . .
16:21
I don’t want to hear anymore about your difficulties.
16:23
For an SS officer there are no difficulties; his duty is always to remove difficulties
16:27
himself as soon as they arise.
16:30
How you do it is for you to figure out, not me.
16:36
End of the Reich
16:44
By mid-1944, the tide of war had turned and the writing was on the wall for the Nazi regime.
16:48
Yet, Himmler’s unwavering loyalty to Adolf Hitler was intact.
16:52
This, being the case, historians have noted that it seems odd that, with his massive spy
16:56
network he did not have advanced warning of the July 20th, 1944 plot to kill Hitler.
17:01
Some have even speculated that he was involved in some way.
17:05
It is true that three days before the attack he turned down a written Gestapo request for
17:09
permission to arrest two of the main plotters.
17:11
It is also clear that the ruthlessness with which the SS persecution machine when into
17:16
action after the attack was not matched with its usually impeccable standard of surveillance
17:20
before it.
17:21
It is probable that Himmler did not intend to betray Hitler on July 20th, 1944.
17:26
But that betrayal was to come, and it would manifest itself on the Fuhrer’s birthday,
17:30
April 20th, 1945.
17:33
On that day, Himmler was guest along with other high-ranking Nazis at what must surely
17:37
have been one of the most macabre birthday parties in history.
17:40
It was held in the underground bunker that was Hitler’s final hideout, situated in
17:44
the heart of ravaged Berlin.
17:46
Hitler was unaware that Himmler had a second engagement later that day; with an emissary
17:51
from the World Congress of Jewry.
17:53
He proposed that the jews and the National Socialists bury the hatchet and that concentration
17:58
camps inmates would be handed over to the Red Cross.
18:00
Just a few days earlier he had given orders that no camp survivors were to fall into enemy
18:04
hands and no camps were to be surrendered.
18:07
His about face was clearly a matter of expediency in an attempt to minimize the ire of the allies
18:12
when they discovered the horrors that had been taking place under his watch.
18:16
Three days later, Himmler held talks with the Swedish diplomat, Count Folke Bernadotte.
18:20
Here he presented a surprising offer, saying that, in order to save Germans from the full
18:25
force of a Russian invasion he was prepared to surrender the Western front – but not
18:29
the Eastern front.
18:30
Himmler believed that he could negotiate directly with President Eisenhower and wondered out
18:35
loud whether he should shake the President’s hand or offer him a Nazi salute.
18:40
Of course, Himmler’s clandestine visits were meant to be top secret.
18:44
However, somehow, they got leaked to the media and on April 28th, London’s BBC broadcast
18:48
that Himmler was claiming that Hitler was dead and that he was his successor.
18:53
In the Berlin bunker, Hitler’s adjutants were monitoring the airwaves and this news
18:56
soon found its way to the Fuhrer.
18:58
Hitler was dumbstruck.
19:00
He could accept betrayal from anyone else, but never from his loyal Himmler.
19:04
He called it the most monstrous betrayal in world history and he immediately ordered Himmler’s
19:09
arrest.
19:10
But within days, Hitler was dead, the victim of his own hand.
19:17
An Inauspicious End
19:25
On May 1st, Himmler met with Hitler’s heir, Admiral Karl Donitz at the naval barracks
19:29
at Plon.
19:30
Donitz was wary.
19:31
Even though Himmler had been deposed, there was no telling how much allegiance the men
19:35
of the SS would still give to him.
19:37
Himmler was shown his letter of dismissal.
19:39
Ignoring it he congratulated Donitz on his appointment and offered to work with him as
19:43
his second-in-command.
19:44
Donitz declined.
19:45
The meeting was over and Himmler was allowed to walk away.
19:48
He now resolved to go into hiding and bide his time before coming back to lead his all-powerful
19:53
SS on a surge to power.
19:55
On May 22nd, with the war over and Germany under allied occupation, a British patrol
19:59
stopped a group of ragged looking men outside of Hamburg.
20:03
One of them, a short, thin man with a black eye patch told them his name was Heinrich
20:07
Hitzinger and then produced forged identity papers.
20:10
He was dressed as an ordinary German soldier.
20:12
The seven men were, in fact, Himmler, his bodyguard and adjutants.
20:14
The British guards took the group into custody and placed them in a prisoner of war camp
20:18
just out of Bremen.
20:19
It didn’t take long for the proud Himmler to chafe under the common treatment that he
20:23
was receiving as merely a captured soldier.
20:25
After a few days he requested an audience with the camp commander.
20:29
Expecting to be treated with newfound dignity, Himmler announced his true identity.
20:32
But rather than being respected for his position as the Nazi number two man, his captors treated
20:37
him with contempt.
20:38
He was forced to strip completely and kept under 24-hour watch to prevent his suicide.
20:43
The following day Himmler was brought before the camp commander for interrogation.
20:46
In his mouth he had secreted an ampoule of poison which had been issued to all top Nazis
20:50
and which they always carried with them.
20:52
A body search was ordered and when a doctor tried to examine Himmler’s mouth, he bit
20:56
down on the ampoule.
20:57
The enraged British tried desperately to clear the poison from his system.
21:00
But it was no good.
21:01
Within twelve minutes, Himmler
21:35
was dead.
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Photo credit: Screenshot from video.