7
See Note 22, p. 211 of the article by Angress and Smith mentioned above.
8
Each state in Germany had, and still has, its own provincial parliament for the conduct of local affairs, to which deputies are appointed from the parties after local elections. The Reichstag represented, and still represents under its new name the Bundestag, the federal parliament, dealing with national policy and legislation. Deputies were elected to the Reichstag (as now to the Bundestag) on the basis of proportional representation, the various parties selecting their own deputies to fill the number of seats due to them after each election.
9
Gebhard Himmler recollects that the motor-cycle was a second-hand Swedish machine of which Himmler was inordinately proud.
10
We drew this conclusion from evidence originally given us by Otto Strasser when he was interviewed by H.F. in connection with our book,
11
See Kurt G. W. Ludecke,
12
See
13
Otto Strasser told the story to H.F. that Himmler came into his office shortly before his marriage and solemnly admitted that he had lost his virginity. Strasser congratulated him. According to Gebhard Himmler, it was Marga’s blonde hair that was her outstanding attraction for Himmler. Himmler’s first meeting with her at Berchtesgaden came about through his clumsiness in pouring melting snow all over her frock when removing his Tyrolean hat with too generous a flourish as he entered the hotel lobby. His apologies led to making her acquaintance, and this in turn to long walks and longer conversations.
14
The initials S.S. also stood for Saal-Schutz, that is, ‘hall protection’. This is a reminder that the original duty of the S.S. was to act as ‘chuckers-out’ at political meetings.
Among the superfluity of personal papers meticulously preserved by Himmler and now held in the Federal Archives, there is an early essay written by Himmler as a very young man and revealing his idea on the economic and ideological aspects of agriculture. The date of this essay cannot be exactly determined, but according to the style and content there can be no doubt that he wrote it while studying at Munich. This impression is confirmed by his brother Gebhard. The essay is naively idealistic and visualizes what Himmler regarded at that time as a model farming community, entirely self-supporting, that is, living on the fruits of the soil and by their own labour, and having no use for money within the community itself. Money would only be required to repay the initial cost of machinery and other capital expenditure, and this would be obtained from the sale of surplus products from the land. When writing at this time Himmler deliberately used archaic terms such as
CHAPTER II
We are grateful to Frau Lina Heydrich, widow of the S.S. leader, for giving us facts concerning her husband’s early career and initial meeting with Himmler.
1
Darre’s conception of inferior races extended to the Latin peoples, Negroes and Asiatics. When the Rome- Berlin axis was widened to include the Japanese, this caused Himmler and the other racialists considerable embarrassment.
2
The text of the code appeared as document PS-2284 at I.M.T.
3
The word
4
In the evidence she gave H.F., Frau Heydrich denies the familiar story that the girl with whom Heydrich was previously in love was with child by him. She also denies that Heydrich had any Jewish blood in his ancestry; even so, the suspicion of it hung over him throughout his career in the Party. See also Chapter IV, note 3.
5
This account of Heydrich’s introduction to the Nazi Party and to Himmler was given us by Lina Heydrich. It is supported by Werner Best in evidence he gave H.F.
6
Frau Heydrich has stressed how extremely poorly paid her husband was, as well as other S.S. leaders. Since neither she nor Heydrich had significant private means, they lived very humbly. Frau Heydrich’s family gave them furniture and linen. They could afford no servants for several years. Frau Heydrich has also given us a number of interesting sidelights on Himmler’s character at this time. He insisted that she address him as Reichsfuhrer, and not as Herr Himmler, which she thought more appropriate for a woman. She found him fussy, and still remembers with some amusement how, when he came to stay at her house, he carefully hung up his face-cloth to dry, and that it had a red rose embroidered upon it. He refused to eat potatoes, rice or spaghetti.
7
The term
8
Nevertheless, Himmler seemed at first to welcome the idea of the return of Roehm, his former commanding officer, and not to see it as a threat to his own position. Roehm and Himmler corresponded while Roehm was in Latin America; during 1930 Himmler wrote to him at least twice, complimenting him on his escape from danger in campaigns against the Indians, and joking about him being an old hand at revolutions. He also urged him to raise money for the S.S. among the wealthy Latin Americans of German descent and said how he looked forward to their future co-operation on Roehm’s return to Germany. The letters are preserved at the Federal Archives at Koblenz.
9
Herr Riss, a friend of Himmler during his student days, told H.F. that when he met Himmler during 1931 and complimented him on becoming a Reichstag deputy, Himmler merely laughed at the ‘talking shop’ and claimed the Nazi deputies were only there to make use of the occasion for their own ends. What he was proud of, he said, was being Reichsfuhrer S.S.
10
See Ludecke, op. cit., p. 433.
11
See Gerald Reitlinger,
