Heinrich Himmler

by Roger Manvell

  22

  See Kersten’s Memoirs, pp. 294, 306.

  23

  See N.C.A. IV, pp. 616-34 for the text of this speech.

  24

  In our book Hermann Göring, we followed Wheeler-Bennett in his Nemesis in placing this challenge as being sent after the hearing. It seems more likely, according to Reitlinger, that the challenge was sent during February. The story of the challenge came originally from Otto John.

  25

  Memoirs, p. 32.

  26

  It is possible that Eichmann was already in Vienna. See Reitlinger, The Final Solution, pp. 25-6, and Lord Russell, The Trial of Adolf Eichmann, p. 186.

  27

  During the winter of 1938-9, Himmler formed two companies, Deutsche Ausruestungswerke and Deutsche Erd- und Steinwerke for this purpose. They were administered by the business management department of the S.S. under Oswald Pohl, who had been a Paymaster-Captain in the Navy. See Reitlinger, The S.S., p. 257.

  28

  See Henderson, Failure of a Mission, p. 111.

  29

  See I.M.T. III, pp. 191-2.

  CHAPTER IV

  1

  Gisevius in To the Bitter End, Kersten in the Memoirs, and Hoettl in The Secret Front, pp. 44 et seq.

  2

  After the war, H.F. interviewed Madame Kitty in Berlin to obtain further details of this exclusive and specialized establishment. By no means all the women who worked there were high-class professional prostitutes; some were young society women who volunteered for service, posing as patriots. Kitty told H.F. that though Ribbentrop was a frequent visitor, Goebbels only came once; he exuded charm, viewed a lesbian display, but declined to patronize any of the girls. Neither Himmler nor Goring thought fit to visit a place of this kind.

  3

  In conversation with H.F., Werner Best, who also had to work closely with Heydrich, confirmed his insatiable ambition, his intelligence and his ruthless energy. He is certain Heydrich aimed to supplant Himmler, and even possibly Hitler himself. He deliberately set out to terrorize his subordinates, and he was always making sarcastic remarks to Best on account of his legal training. However, he made something of a confidant of Best and spoke to him on one occasion about his supposed Jewish ancestry. There was, said Heydrich, a man called Suss among his forebears, but he claimed, quite reasonably, that Suss was not an exclusively Jewish name. (See also Chapter II, note 4). Wolff’s view of Heydrich given to H.F. during an interview, is that he was able and efficient, but a most unpleasant man.

  4

  Frau Heydrich has denied to H.F. that she ever had intimate relations with Schellenberg. Nor does Schellenberg himself claim as much. No doubt it was one of Heydrich’s sadistic exercises to try to make it seem that his wife was unfaithful and his subordinate guilty. Though at the start of his career, Schellenberg may have been associated with interrogations involving torture, he managed after the war to dissociate himself completely from the worst excesses of the S.S. and Gestapo. Nevertheless, when he was sentenced in 1949 to six years’ imprisonment dating from 1945, he was regarded by his judges as involved in the execution without trial of a group of Russian prisoners. He was released in 1951 because of his ill-health, and died of a kidney disease in Turin in 1952. He began to write his lengthy memoirs while in hiding in Sweden after the war, and resumed them again as soon as he was released. His wife negotiated their posthumous publication in England in 1956, and H.F. read the original typescript which ran to some 3,000 pages. The memoirs as published have had much inessential and repetitive material deleted.

  5

  Not to be confused with R.U.S.H.A., the original S.S. marriage office, which was later also concerned with kidnapping children of Nordic blood for German upbringing.

  6

  For the origin of the Einsatzgruppen in Heydrich’s S.D. offices as early as 1938, see Crankshaw’s Gestapo, pp. 146-52, Reitlinger’s S.S., p. 126 et seq,. and Shirer, op. cit., pp. 958-64.

  7

  Himmler was frequently forced to discipline the greed for land of these new German settlers, uprooted from their homes and anxious to win the most they could out of their new circumstances.

  8

  See Cohen, op. cit. pp. 106-8. The figure of 60,000 was Brack’s own estimate for Germany. The Czechoslovak War Crimes Commission estimated some 275,000 mental patients and old people exterminated. For the details of procedure in Germany, see The Death Doctors, p. 236 et seq.

  9

  See Shirer’s Berlin Diary, pp. 569 et seq.

  10

  See The Death Doctors, p. 265.

  11

  Himmler’s famous edict exhorting S.S. men to procreate before leaving for the front was issued in printed form on 28 October 1939. ‘Let us never forget that victory by our swords and the blood shed by our soldiers make no sense at all unless they are succeeded by the victory of our children and the occupation of new earth’, said Himmler. Throughout the war, Himmler was deeply concerned about the sex relations of his S.S. men. Documents held at the Federal Archive at Koblenz show that in 1942 he would only permit sexual relations between S.S. men and Polish women provided the women were officially assigned to a brothel and that there was no question of procreation or emotional entanglement. This is stated in a secret order signed by Himmler and dated 30 June 1942. On 7 March the following year, he signed a further top secret order given by the Führer himself that any S.S. man caught in homosexual activities with another S.S. man would be liable to the death penalty. On the other hand, an increase in the number of illegitimate children of the right stock was favoured; there could not be too many of them. But orphaned children of racially undesirable parents were, by an order signed by Himmler on 1 June 1943, to be taught ‘obedience, diligence and unconditional submission to their German masters’, and given only sufficient low-grade education to make them useful as unskilled labour. Himmler also developed very early on a horror of venereal disease developing among his men, primarily because it might bring on impotence. Everything was done to encourage men with the disease to submit themselves for early treatment.

  12

  Himmler did not consider designs for his own Reichsführer S.S. seal until the beginning of 1944, when drawings were submitted to him for both a large and a small seal combining the Reich eagle, the S.S. death’s head, oakleaves and gothic lettering. See above Chapter III, Note 11.

  13

  The files concerning Lebensborn held at Arolsen, now the centre of the International Red Cross Tracing Service for Lost Persons, show that these homes were a constant source of trouble, gossip and scandal, The women, for example, complained officially that their excess milk was siphoned off and that this might spoil the shape of their breasts and make them less desirable. There was trouble over the chocolate allocations, about the medical care, about the way the women were addressed (Frau was the rule), about artificial insemination, about gratuities for especially prolific mothers, and endless fuss about illicit relations and racial impurity. (Compare Chapter III, Note 18). Underlying everything was Himmler’s sentimental attachment to blond children. On one occasion he excused a man who had blocked his way on the road because his car was full of beautiful, fair-haired progeny.

  14

  In order to regularize as far as possible his fatherhood of Hedwig’s children, Himmler in a legal document dated 12 September 1944 acknowledged himself their father and became co-guardian with Hedwig of the boy Helge, then aged two, and the baby girl, Nanette Dorothea. Nanette’s birth certificate, dated 20 July, names Himmler as the father, and adds that he had already appeared before an S.S. judge on 25 June to claim official recognition of his paternity.

  15

  Schellenberg is exaggerating when he claims that Himmler actually lived with Hedwig. Rather, he set her and her children up in their own establishment and visited them just as he continued to visit his wife and daughter in Gmund. Nor need he have gone short of money with which to maintain these households. It was only his own meticu
lous honesty in matters of finance that prevented him from using expense-accounts, let alone accumulating ill-gotten wealth like the other Nazi leaders. He lived strictly within his official income.

  16

  For the text of this speech at Metz, see N.C.A. IV, pp. 553-8.

  17

  Many of these were used in evidence during the Doctors’ Trial, and are quoted in The Death Doctors, from which our own quotations are derived.

  18

  See Ribbentrop Memoirs, pp. 81-2.

  19

  See I.M.T. VI, p. 179.

  20

  N.C.A. V, p. 341.

  21

  See I.M.T. IV, pp, 29 and 36. For Wolff, compare Frischauer op. cit. p. 149.

  22

  See below Chap. V, p. 150, and Chap. VI, p. 184.

  23

  See The Final Solution, pp. 21-2, 76-9, and the Dutch edition of Kersten’s Memoirs, Klerk en Beul (1947), pp. 197-8.

  24

  See Manvell and Fraenkel, Göring, p. 244.

  25

  See Russell, The Trial of Adolf Eichmann, p. 205.

  26

  I.M.T. III, p. 278.

  27

  See Hoess’s Memoirs, written in captivity after the war.

  28

  See Cohen, op. cit., p. 114.

  29

  For our account of this last phase of Heydrich’s life we have relied mainly on Wighton’s biography and Schellenberg’s Memoirs.

  CHAPTER V

  1

  These instructions, as far as we know, have not previously been published. They exist as a three-page typescript, marked secret, with marginal corrections in Himmler’s hand, and they are held now at the Federal Archives. The pedantic instructions exactly match Himmler’s style; he details, for example, the exact distance at which the execution squads should stand from the prisoner, and whether or not his eyes should be bandaged or his face turned to the wall.

  2

  I.M.T. XVII, pp. 19-20.

  3

  See Reitlinger’s The S.S., p. 263. Official S.S. statistics showed that between June and November 1942, 136, 700 prisoners had been taken into the camps, and that 70,610 had died, 28,846 had been ‘transferred out’ (i.e., gassed), 9,267 executed, and 4,711 released.

  4

  See N.C.A. III, pp. 467-9.

  5

  A vivid description of this repulsive hoard is given by Reitlinger in The Final Solution, p. 453.

  6

  Files of correspondence and memoranda held in the Instituut in Amsterdam, for example, set down the hard deals which the S.S. were negotiating for the sale of Jewish liberties, the minimum price of which was eventually increased from 50,000 to 100,000 Swiss francs.

  7

  For the text of this speech, see N.C.A. IV, pp. 558-78.

  8

  Various terms were used to camouflage genocide. These included Aussiedlung (desettlement), Abbeförderung (removal), and Auflockerung (loosening-up). Such terms were in keeping with the fiction that ghettoes such as that at Theresienstadt had the status of an ‘Alters-Ghetto’, that is, a place of pleasant retirement for elderly Jews, and so called in order to give a favourable impression. Himmler was very angry when he heard that the true nature of the ghetto at Theresienstadt had leaked out.

  9

  This story has been most eloquently told by John Hersey in his book, The Wall. A full account of the revolt appears in The Final Solution, p. 274 et seq.

  10

  The bare notes for this speech have, however, been preserved. See I.M.T. documents, PS 910, and The Final Solution, p. 256.

  11

  I.M.T. document, PS 1061.

  12

  See The Final Solution, p. 490. For comparison, it may be of interest to note that in a speech fourteen months later, on 25 May 1944, Himmler quoted to an audience of legal men, including the principal judges, the numbers in the concentration camps as 50,000 Germans and 300,000 aliens.

  13

  The facts for this brief survey of the fate of the Jews in various parts of Europe over which Germany exercised control is derived from The Final Solution.

  14

  In conversation with R.M. in Stockholm, Frau Irmgard Kersten recalled how she accompanied her husband and Himmler to Italy on this occasion; this was the only time she had any direct dealings with Himmler, whom she always tried to avoid. After lunch one day in Rome, Himmler made a special point of talking to her about the need to be rid of the Jews and the Jehovah Witnesses, and even delayed his departure on an official journey to continue the lecture he gave her. He evidently felt the need to make an ally of Kersten’s German wife of whom he saw so little.

  15

  Hoess’s Memoirs, p. 148.

  16

  The Jehovah Witnesses, apart from their pacificism, exacted some response in Himmler’s nature. He openly admired their fanaticism, their sobriety and their desire for hard work. It irritated him profoundly that such good people should refuse to co-operate.

  17

  Himmler never used his special train as a centre for self-indulgence after the manner of Goring. The surviving record of the food taken aboard on 12 December 1942 is extremely modest: it’s cost amounted to 20 marks, 75 pfennigs.

  18

  In a recent book which makes a study of Hitler’s medical record, it is only fair to point out that the document seen by Kersten testifying to Hitler’s alleged syphilis is not mentioned. See Dr Johann Rechtenwald, Woran hat Hitler gelitten. Indeed, it now seems certain that Hitler was not suffering from the after-effects of syphilis but, as has often been stated, from Parkinson’s disease (paralysis agitans).

  19

  Another intimate adviser was, of course, the former S.S. General, Karl Wolff, who acted as Himmler’s liaison officer at Hitler’s headquarters until 1943, when he was appointed Military Governor of Northern Italy. Prior to his recent sentence he was held in custody at Stadelheim prison in Munich, and there H.F. was allowed to interview him on several occasions. He is a man of some charm and humour, and Himmler always addressed him affectionately as Wölfchen.

  20

  Officially, Mueller has for some time been regarded as dead, but an excavation of his grave during 1963 has revealed that it contained the remains of three men, all younger than Mueller at the time of their deaths. This deception seems only to confirm the original suspicion that he has escaped to Russia.

  21

  Schellenberg in his Memoirs (pp. 395 and 432) writes as if he responded quite independently of Himmler to an invitation from Kersten to visit Stockholm and discuss peace proposals with Hewitt. When Kersten reported his discussions to Himmler, he was, says Schellenberg, ‘aghast’. Later, however, he encouraged Schellenberg to maintain contact with Hewitt.

  22

  Hitler’s and Himmler’s racial prejudices lost the Germans, until it was too late, the opportunity to draw on Russian reinforcements alleged to amount to some 800,000 men of the Cossack élite regiments. Led by the Ukrainian General, Vlassov, their price would have been equality with the German soldiers and independence for the Ukraine. Hitler failed to develop the Ukraine into an anti-Stalinist, pro-German stronghold. See also Chapter VII, p. 203.

  23

  Himmler’s new position in fact gave him few additional powers to those he already held; his control over Frick had always been tight. Bormann, according to that acute observer of Nazi character and intrigue, Albert Speer, ‘did not take long to stalemate Himmler as Minister of the Interior’. If the regional police came under Himmler, the civilian authorities, the local Gauleiters, were responsible to Bormann. This was the source of Bormann’s power in the nation itself, just as his position as Hitler’s personal secretary was the root of his power at the Führer’s headquarters.

  24

  Dornberger’s initial encounters with Himmler are described in his book, V.2, pp. 172 et seq.

  25

  We are grateful not only to Dr Otto John but to the former S.S. General Wolff for giv
ing us evidence on the Langbehn-Popitz attempt to approach Himmler. Both agree there was only one meeting between Popitz and Himmler, not two as has been frequently alleged. Wolff confirms that Langbehn stayed talking with him while Popitz went in to see Himmler. Otto John told H.F. that Popitz explained to him that he began the interview with Himmler by voicing his anxiety about Göring’s indolence, and then vaguely hinted that, for the sake of the fatherland, even the leadership at the top required shaking up.

  26

  Another very important group of high-minded members of the resistance who had links with the Abwehr — Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Joseph Müller and Hans von Dohnanyi — had been arrested in April 1943.

  Additional Note

  We have received useful information about Himmler from Doris Mähner, who at the age of twenty-two joined Himmler’s secretarial staff in 1943, her particular recommendation being that she, like Himmler, was Bavarian. She was well treated, but paid only 300 marks a month. She was expected to live on Himmler’s special train for days and nights on end. He dictated to her fluently in his broad Bavarian accent, but irritated her by plucking at his left eyebrow with his left hand. As a man she found him utterly unimpressive, but he was always very considerate, giving the girls who worked for him small presents on their birthdays and at Christmas. He had a careful system of reminders to keep him up to the mark. Similarly, his correspondence, which was voluminous, was carefully docketed to ensure he received the replies he asked for. Frl. Mähner noticed his love for Hedwig; he kept her photograph hidden in his desk and often looked at it while he was working. The girls joked about his obsession concerning blond men and women; Frl. Mähner often watched him studying the photographs of prospective S.S. brides before making a decision as to their suitability for his men.