Heinrich Himmler

Schellenberg explained that very tentative negotiations should be conducted ‘through the political sector of the Secret Service’. Himmler, he said, must appoint an agent who had real authority behind him, and meanwhile himself work on Hitler to remove Ribbentrop and appoint a more tractable Foreign Minister. Then they looked at a map of Europe and agreed that, with certain exceptions, Germany might well have to relinquish the greater part of the territory she had occupied since September 1939 in order to retain full rights within all those areas that could be rightfully regarded as German. According to Schellenberg, when they parted in the small hours of the morning, ‘Himmler had given me full authority to act… and had given me his word of honour that by Christmas Ribbentrop would no longer be at his post.’

Schellenberg’s calculations, however, were made without sufficient regard for Himmler’s extraordinary caution. He played as little part as possible in the machinations of the other leaders, and quietly resisted the open intrigues of such men as Goebbels. He preferred, as always, the secret road to power, the back way up. He was, however, according to Schellenberg, ‘very discreetly striving to create a new leadership for the Reich, naturally with Hitler’s approval. This policy was to ensure that all those who held leading posts in the Reich ministries, in industry, commerce and trade, in science and culture… should be members of the S.S.’ Meanwhile he sank himself in work, absorbed himself in details, the clerk in high office hidden behind a pyramid of files. The result was that at the end of the year he refused to take advantage of the notorious memorandum on the mental instability of Ribbentrop compiled by Martin Luther, an under-secretary at the Foreign Office, who had formerly been Ribbentrop’s confidant, but partly through the intrigues of Schellenberg had turned violently against him.

The time chosen by Luther to produce his report was indeed an unfortunate one; Himmler fell back into one of his moods of indecision because at that particular moment he believed Hitler’s confidence in him had been shaken. In the struggle for power in Rumania, Hitler on Ribbentrop’s advice had chosen to support Antonescu, whereas Himmler and Heydrich had favoured Horia Sima, Leader of the Iron Guard who, encouraged by Heydrich, had been responsible for an unsuccessful putsch against Antonescu in January 1941 at a time when Hitler wanted to strengthen his relations with Rumania before the coming invasion of Russia. By agreement with Antonescu, Sima had been kept a prisoner by the S.D., who managed to let him escape. Mueller did not dare to inform Himmler of the escape for a fortnight, and it was some while before the fugitive was captured. Hitler was led by Ribbentrop to believe that Himmler had known of the escape all along and was attempting through him to stir up further trouble in Rumania. If there was one thing Himmler could not bear it was the criticism or ill- will of the Fuhrer; in any case Himmler disliked Luther, who tended to be loud-mouthed and over-familiar. While Wolff stood on one side of him warning him against Luther, Schellenberg, with his plan to depose Ribbentrop firmly in mind, stood on the other urging him not to reach a hasty decision. Himmler as usual postponed making up his mind but, as he always did when he was in any doubt, he finally took the line that offered the least risk to himself. Luther was arrested and interrogated, and Ribbentrop’s face was saved.

Himmler had lacked the courage to act against Ribbentrop. He feared Hitler’s admiration for the man he regarded as second only to Bismarck, exceeded the Fuhrer’s confidence in himself. Schellenberg’s carefully contrived advantage was therefore discarded, and Himmler fell temporarily out of favour. In a private letter to his wife dated 16 January 1943, Bormann comments at some length on Himmler, who, he says, is ‘deeply offended… He feels unjustly treated by the Chief’. Bormann claims that he tried to calm Himmler, whose criticism of the treatment he had received was ‘very bitter, and at times acid’. Himmler, he thought, was suffering from ‘nervous strain.’ Later Schellenberg, to his disgust, found that Himmler wanted to discuss the whole matter openly with Ribbentrop showing, as Schellenberg put it, ‘a cowardly lack of decision’. He agreed, however, that any future attempts to negotiate peace must be conducted through a neutral country. ‘I don’t wish to know all these details’, he added. ‘That’s your responsibility.’ Throughout this period Himmler impressed on Schellenberg that he should keep in contact with Langbehn, and it seems clear that at some stage Langbehn was being used as an agent by Schellenberg to make contact with Allied representatives in Switzerland. For instance, in December Hassell noted in his diary, ‘Langbehn has had some talks with an English official in Zurich (12 December) and an American official (Hopper) in Stockholm, with the approval of the S.D.’ The talks, as always, were inconclusive because the Allies required the unconditional surrender of Germany and the complete overthrow of the Nazi regime.

Meanwhile Kersten, who still had Finnish nationality, had moved with his family to Stockholm at the end of September 1943, where he was introduced to an American, Abram Stevens Hewitt, who was visiting Sweden as a special envoy from Roosevelt. Kersten soon found that Hewitt, who had become his patient, shared his view that the war should be brought to an end as soon as possible through peace negotiations, more especially as the threat from Russia was becoming so strong. Kersten offered to discuss the matter with Himmler, and on 24 October sent him a letter through the Finnish diplomatic bag.

Kersten began his letter by saying it concerned ‘proposals which might have the greatest significance for Germany, for Europe, even for the entire world. What I offer is the possibility of an honourable peace.’ He then went on to describe Hewitt’s influential position with the American Government and the proposals for peace talks that Hewitt considered possible, but depending on conditions which were very drastic and included the abolition of Hitler’s dictatorship and the Nazi Party and the appearance of the leading Nazis before a court to answer for their war crimes. ‘I beg you not to throw this letter into your wastepaper basket, Herr Reichsfuhrer,’ he wrote, ‘but receive it with the humanity which resides in the heart of Heinrich Himmler.’ He suggested that Schellenberg be sent to Stockholm to meet Hewitt. In every paragraph he appealed to Himmler’s vanity, and concluded with the challenge: ‘Fate and history itself have placed it in your hands to bring an end to this terrible war.’

Kersten was also involved in encouraging the Finnish Government to retire from the war, in which they had become the unwilling allies of Nazi Germany because of their struggle with Russia. After a short period in Helsinki, Kersten returned to Stockholm, where he anxiously waited for some reply from Himmler. Schellenberg arrived in Stockholm on 9 November and met Hewitt with whom, according to Kersten, he got on well.²¹ But, as usual, nothing happened when Himmler was pressed to take action.

Kersten met Himmler on 4 December at Hochwaldt, his headquarters in East Prussia. He pressed him for a decision. ‘Don’t torment me’, he reports Himmler as saying, ‘give me time. I can’t get rid of the Fuhrer, to whom I owe everything.’

Kersten played every trick he knew to inflate Himmler’s vanity as ‘a great Germanic leader’.

‘In Stockholm Mr Hewitt is waiting for your decision’, he said, ‘so that he can take it to Roosevelt.’

Himmler found the conditions for the peace talks ‘hair-raising’. He could not conceive of a Germany without the Nazi regime.

‘How can I take the responsibility,’ he said, ‘when faced with the leaders of the Party?’

‘You will have no responsibility towards them’, Kersten pointed out. ‘They will have ceased to exist.’

Himmler seemed most perturbed about the suggestion that there must be a court to try those responsible for war crimes, since he knew that the annihilation of the Jews was necessarily regarded by the Allies as the worst of the many crimes the Nazis had committed. This was not a crime at all, Himmler argued to Kersten, since it was decreed by law.

‘The Fuhrer ordered the annihilation of the Jews in Breslau in 1941. The Fuhrer’s orders are the supreme law in Germany. I’ve never acted on my own initiative; I’ve only carried out the Fuhrer’s orders. So neither I nor the S.S. can accept any responsibility.’

The removal of Hitler he regarded as ‘cutting the ground from under my own feet’; the withdrawal of the German Army was an invitation to Russia or America to dominate Europe.

In the end he avoided making any decision by saying he was too tired to think. He agreed, however, that the war should be stopped, but that the conditions suggested by Hewitt were very hard.

‘Your proposals aren’t unacceptable to me,’ he said, according to Kersten, ‘except for the one about responsibility for alleged war crimes.’

In subsequent discussions on 9 and 13 December, Kersten claims that he went on pressing Himmler to make up his mind. He argued that Hitler was a sick man whose orders were bringing Europe nearer and nearer disaster. Eventually Himmler agreed to send Schellenberg to Stockholm to bring Hewitt secretly into Germany to discuss the negotiations with him.

But by the time Schellenberg eventually reached Stockholm, the time-limit for discussions set by Hewitt had elapsed; he had gone back to America. A remote chance to bring about peace had been thrown away; how far deliberately, how far through Himmler’s chronic procrastination it is now impossible to determine.

During 1943 Himmler began to extend his military ambitions. The fall of Stalingrad followed by reverses in North Africa led Hitler to revoke his ban on the expansion of the Waffen S.S. His total