Heinrich Himmler

Hitler (Edition, 1952), p. 220 and Schroeder’s testimony at Nuremberg in N.C.A. II, 922- 4.

12

LM.T. XX, p. 246.

13

Later, in 1936, he was to become head of the uniformed police (O.R.P.O.) and, after the assassination of Heydrich in Prague in 1942, Heydrich’s successor as Reich Protector.

14

This and subsequent accounts of Hoess’s extraordinary career and relationship to Himmler are taken largely from his own autobiography written in prison after the war — Commandant of Auschwitz.

15

See I.M.T. II, p. 361.

16

See I.M.T. documents PS-778; also Trial II, pp. 371 — 2. And compare Shirer, op. cit., p. 272.

17

Himmler worked fast; he became Chief of Political Police in Bavaria in April 1933, then in Hamburg the following October, and in Mecklenburg, Lubeck, Wuertemberg, Baden, Hessen, Thuringen and Amhalt in December. In January 1934, he assumed the same office in Oldenburg, Bremen, Saxony and Prussia. (Taken from the official file listing Himmler’s offices preserved at the Berlin Document Centre.)

CHAPTER III

1

Gebhard Himmler explained to H.F. that the boy Gerhard, who was a year or so older than Gudrun, was never formally adopted by his brother. He was the son of an S.S. officer called von Ahe who had been killed before the war, and he was brought up in Himmler’s household.

2

The estrangement was neither formally recognized nor privately acknowledged, even when Himmler much later set up a second household with his mistress Hedwig, who bore him the two children of whom he became the legal guardian. His love for his wife Marga cooled after a period of years, and his visits to Gmund became less and less frequent, though he was always deeply concerned over the welfare of Gudrun. Himmler and his wife continued to conduct the mere business of marriage throughout the rest of their lives, though Marga tacitly accepted Himmler’s relationship with Hedwig and all affection died between them. Marga’s term of address for her husband in her letters became Mein Lieber Guter, an untranslateable phrase which combines a kind of old-fashioned feminine effusiveness, with possessive sentimentality. As we shall see, Himmler’s relations with Marga’s interfering sister Bertha became very strained. It should be added that on rare occasions Himmler did allow Marga to accompany him on state occasions. For example, he took her to Italy; it is typical of him that, on this occasion, he insisted that all her expenses should be charged to his private account.

3

Himmler’s good relations with Roehm rapidly changed when his former superior officer stood in his way. It should, however, be realized that what finally drove Hitler to discard Roehm, of whom he was genuinely fond, was the implacable opposition to him and the S.A. that had developed among the very people whose support he felt at this stage he most needed — the generals and the industrialists. Hitler’s promise to Eden to reduce the S.A. fitted in well with this policy. These considerations, and not solely the pressure brought to bear on him by Goring and Himmler led to Hitler’s decision to strike down Roehm and destroy the influence of the S.A. For Frick’s affidavit see N.C.A. V, pp. 654-5. See also Reitlinger, S.S. p. 62 for further evidence from Roehm’s legal adviser that Himmler twisted every circumstance he could in order to incriminate Roehm in Hitler’s eyes.

4

Gisevius, the former Gestapo official who joined the resistance movement and whose book, To the Bitter End, is one of the most revealing and colourful sources of information about the Nazi regime, claims to have seen the report on this incident prepared by Daluege on orders from Himmler. Daluege was much more amused than concerned about the hole in the windscreen, which his report claimed was made by a stone thrown up by a passing car. This explanation was also given to H.F. by Bodenschatz, who was present at the ceremony. According to Gisevius, Himmler, ‘white, trembling, excited’, held up the interment while he insisted that forty Communists should be shot at once as a reprisal; later he had two S.A. brigade leaders executed for making an attempt on his life. Frischauer, in his biography of Himmler (p. 64) is inaccurate in claiming that Himmler was travelling to Carinhall in the same car as Hitler after their conference on Roehm in Berlin, and that he was actually wounded in the arm.

5

I.M.T. XX, p. 249.

6

This was Papen’s own view as he expressed it to H.F.

7

I.M.T. XII, p. 278.

8

The oath demanded of the S.S. officers was more exacting: for example, the oath for a Lieutenant-General ran: ‘Being an S.S. Lieutenant-General, I undertake to see to the best of my ability that, with complete disregard of whatever merits his parents or ancestors may have, only such men are to be accepted into the S.S. who comply fully with its high standard. I will see to this even if it means rejecting my own sons or daughters or those of my Sippe. I further undertake to see to it that in every year one quarter of S.S. candidates consists of men who are not sons of S.S. men. I swear to live up to these obligations in loyalty to our Fuhrer Adolf Hitler and to the honour of my ancestors: so help me God.’ The text of this oath is preserved in the Federal Archive at Koblenz. It is significant because it reveals Himmler’s deep distrust of aristocrats exploiting the ‘merits of their ancestors’.

9

Schellenberg’s Memoirs, p. 10.

10

See I.M.T. III, p. 130.

11

A considerable file of correspondence survives in the Federal Archive dealing with the coats-of-arms the S.S. officers were expected to produce for formal emplacement at Wewelsburg. Since for the most part S.S. men were of middle-class origin, they had some difficulty in concocting ‘authentic’ coats-of-arms to satisfy Himmler’s Teutonic snobbery. See below, Chap. IV, Note 12.

12

A letter is preserved in the Federal Archive in which a schoolboy called Fritz Bruggemann wrote in January 1937 directly to Himmler for an authoritative statement as to whether or not Jesus was a Jew. Himmler sent the answer through a member of his staff: ‘Most certainly, dear boy, Jesus was not a Jew.’ Himmler favoured adapting Christian ceremonies and festivals to Teutonic forms — for example, ceremonies for christening and burial stressing the affinity between the individual and the nation. He turned Christmas into a Teutonic feast, and he gave a Teutonic form of candlestick, called a Jul-Leuchter, as his normal Christmas present.

13

Ahnenerbe first appears as an official organization in an order signed by Himmler at Gmund on 9 August 1937. A record of this is held at the archives at Amsterdam.

14

Hoess, the future commandant of Auschwitz, records that Himmler held ‘a grand inspection’ of Dachau in