Heinrich Himmler

Frau Heydrich has given us a striking picture of Himmler at the turn of the years 1944-5. She was still living in the castle near Prague, but by now she was sheltering many refugee German women and their children from East Prussia, all of them connected in one way or another with the S.S. Himmler visited her unannounced some time after she had written to him for advice on what she should do. He was evasive, as usual, about the situation, and referred vaguely to Hitler’s miracle weapons (Wunderwaffen). When he stroked her son’s blond hair and said with a sigh, ‘Ach, Heider’, she sensed there was nothing to be done but resign herself to her fate. When she spoke to him about the problems of evacuation, all he said was that there were plenty of edible mushrooms in Bavaria. He shook hands with the women at her request, and after he had gone (it was the last time she was to see him), Frau Heydrich organized the evacuation of her household and the refugees in three lorries.

CHAPTER VIII

In this chapter we are specially indebted to Colonel Michael Murphy and Captain Tom Selvester, the British officers who had charge of Himmler, to Josef Kiermaier, Himmler’s bodyguard, and to Dr Werner Best, for the special evidence they have given us concerning the last days of Himmler’s life.

1

‘Let bygones be bygones’, he is reported to have said to Masur.

2

Kersten Memoirs, p. 288.

3

Kersten managed to get a flight from Tempelhof to Copenhagen the following day, 22 April; after this he travelled surface to Stockholm and reported to Gunther on the evening of 23 April.

4

The account of this meeting between Himmler and Bernadotte is taken primarily from Bernadotte’s own account in The Fall of the Curtain.

5

Himmler was so pre-occupied that, according to Bernadotte, he drove his car straight into some barbed wire. He frequently preferred to drive himself rather than be driven, even during these last days of strain.

6

For the various opinions on Himmler’s claim to the succession, see Trevor-Roper, The Last Days of Hitler, pp. 101, 182-3; Semmler, op. cit., p. 178, Alan Bullock, Hitler, pp. 705, 709, and, for Schwerin-Krosigk, Shirer’s End of a Berlin Diary, p. 203.

7

This statement by Winocaur was published for the first time in 1963 in Amateur Agent, by Ewan Butler. Ewan Butler also tells the story (pp. 157 et seq.) of the forged German stamps printed in London and valued at 20 pfennigs; they bore the effigy of Himmler instead of Hitler, and agents were instructed to put them into use in Germany during the last months of the war. American collectors after the war were offering $10,000 for cancelled copies of these stamps. Ewan Butler himself ‘borrowed’ through an agent 150 pages of typescript of Schellenberg’s diary, items for which he posted daily from Germany for safe-keeping in Sweden. The sheets were microfilmed, and Butler translated the diary for the Foreign Office in London. (See pp. 182—3).

8

Hanna Reitsch. See Shirer, End of a Berlin Diary, p. 168-9.

9

In the will he dictated and signed during the small hours of 29 April, Hitler referred expressly to Himmler’s treachery: ‘Before my death I expel from the Party and from all his offices the former Reichsfuhrer S.S. and Reich Minister of the Interior, Heinrich Himmler. In his stead I appoint Gauleiter Karl Hanke as Reichsfuhrer S.S. and Chief of the German Police, and Gauleiter Paul Giesler as Reich Minister of the Interior.’

10

Doenitz and Himmler met during the morning of 30 April to consider the best action to take to prevent Kaufmann, the Gauleiter of Hamburg, from surrendering the city to the British. Doenitz in the end sent his own messages to Kaufmann, considering Himmler’s too pathetic and impractical. Doenitz’s own guarded account of his dealings with Himmler is given in his autobiography, Zehn Jahre und Zwanzig Tage (1958), p. 439 et seq. He refers first of all to a meeting with Himmler on 28 April at Rheinsberg, at which Himmler openly asked him if he would be ‘available’ in case Himmler were appointed Hitler’s successor; Doenitz replied he would be for any legal government out to stop bloodshed. He also claims that he received a signal from Bormann on 30 April which referred to Himmler directly: ‘New treason afoot. According enemy broadcasts Himmler offered capitulation via Sweden. Fuhrer expects you to deal with all traitors fast as lightning and hard as steel. Bormann.’ Doenitz observes that he was in no position to cope with Himmler, who was still surrounded by S.S. men and police. He says that he met Himmler again on 30 April at a police station in Lubeck, because, he says, ‘I wanted to know what he was up to’. Himmler kept him waiting and seemed to behave as if he were already the Fuhrer. But the meeting remained friendly; Himmler denied that he had had any dealings with the Allies. Only after this meeting was concluded did Doenitz learn from Bormann that he was to succeed as Fuhrer.

11

This meeting, according to Doenitz, took place at Ploen at midnight. Himmler arrived with six armed officers. Doenitz claims to have received him with a loaded gun hidden under his papers. Himmler was appalled at the news that he had been displaced.

12

Hanna Reitsch records a conversation she had with Himmler after the news of Hitler’s death in which she claims she challenged him to his face with high treason. Himmler seems to have made no attempt to deny that he had undertaken the negotiations; on the contrary, she says that he stated Hitler was insane and that history would interpret the negotiations as an attempt to save Germany from further bloodshed. See Shirer’s End of a Berlin Diary, pp. 171-2.

13

Degrelle has left his own account of this meeting in his book, Die Verlorene Legion. See also The S.S., pp. 442-3.

14

Best gave his own account of this meeting in conversation with H.F. Himmler’s act of thoughtfulness on behalf of his women secretaries was confirmed to H.F. by Doris Mahner. She also recalls the moment when he said goodbye a few days later. He thanked her, and told her to go back to Bavaria and rest. Soon, he said, they would meet again, and then there would be a great deal of work to do.

15

Schwerin-Krosigk in conversation with H.F.

16

The copy of this note was found in one of Doenitz’s files. According to Prof. Trevor-Roper, it remains uncertain whether the original was actually delivered to Himmler, or whether Doenitz told him of his dismissal personally. (See The Last Days of Hitler, p. 246, note.) Doenitz does not clarify this point in his memoirs, but he claims that had he known about the atrocities in the concentration camps he would never have let Himmler go free. (See pp. 466~8) ‘Now, most clearly’, he writes, ‘I recognized the evil side of National Socialism and so changed my attitude to the form of state created by it.’

17

Arolsen has now become the headquarters of the International Red Cross Tracing Service financed by the Bonn government.

18

For details of this journey we are grateful to Josef Kiermaier, who accompanied Himmler almost up to the time of his arrest by the British. Kiermaier recalls suggesting to Himmler that they fly south while they still had an