Heinrich Himmler

aircraft at their disposal; then at least, said Kiermaier, they could see their womenfolk before the end came. Himmler turned this suggestion down on the grounds that in times as adverse as these, no man should indulge his personal desires.

19

Information on the following events from Colonel Michael Murphy and Captain Tom Selvester.

20

The following account is taken from the B.B.C. broadcast by Sergeant-Major Austin in a programme introduced by Chester Wilmot from Luneberg on May 24 1945, shortly after Himmler’s death.

21

Colonel Murphy writes that as part of the effort to keep Himmler alive he ‘shouted for a needle and cotton, which arrived with remarkable speed. I pierced the tongue and with the cotton threaded through held the tongue out.’ There seems no doubt that, since the normal action of cyanide produces a quick death, Himmler’s long death agony was caused by the interference with the penetration of the poison into his system. After Himmler’s death, Colonel Murphy says that it was some twenty-four hours before the Russians sent their representatives to view the body and agree, ‘grudgingly’, that ‘it might be Himmler’. Only after this examination was Himmler’s body buried. Gebhard Himmler, who was in the south, was not brought in to identify the body, as Frischauer claims in his book, p. 257. Gebhard Himmler, in conversation with H.F., has confirmed this.

Colonel Murphy has some interesting comments to make on the poison capsule. Himmler, he said, had not eaten in his presence, ‘and there is no doubt in my mind that from the time I met him to the time of his death the capsule was in his mouth. So far as I can remember from the one taken from his clothes, this was of thin metal — strong enough to withstand careful mastication and liquids, especially if the other side of the mouth was used, but not strong enough to withstand a decision to break it. I think the time of death was midnight May 23—4, but I cannot be sure. Himmler was sure of himself and arrogant to the end. He was quite convinced that he would be taken to see Montgomery and was surprised at the firm treatment I gave him in getting rid of the bodyguards and searching him. I should have received a German General with more courtesy’!

Additional Notes

¹ We are grateful to Karl Kaufmann, the former Gauleiter of Hamburg, for giving us an account of his own observation of Himmler’s arrest. During the morning of 23 May, Kaufmann, along with Brandt and other prisoners stood at the barbed-wire fence of Camp 031 at Kolkhagen, near Nienburg on the river Weser. They were watching lorries from Fellingbosdel Camp (Luneberg Heath) driving up. Among those who got out was Himmler, minus his moustache and with a patch over one eye. He stood in the right wing of the group, wearing boots, field grey trousers and some sort of civilian jacket. He did not recognize Kaufmann and the others, but they saw him suddenly disappear behind a nearby rhododendron bush, where he removed the eye-patch. He reappeared almost instantly putting on his glasses; he was immediately recognizable. This was the time he decided to give himself up, in Kaufmann’s opinion. A few minutes later there was quite a commotion; extra guards with tommy-guns and machine guns appeared; extra sentries were posted at the gate. Soon the cause of the excitement was being passed through the grapevine of the camp. The British soldiers seemed overjoyed that Himmler was among their prisoners.

² We are indebted to Count Schwerin v. Krosigk for some additional facts he recalled when reading the first impression of this book. On the evening of 1 May, at Himmler’s urgent request, the Count went to see him at his H.Q. between Plon and Eutin. Himmler had learned that next day Schwerin was to be appointed Foreign Secretary; and he earnestly tried to convince him that at no time was that office more important than just then. By joining the Western Allies they would have a splendid chance of expanding their eastern borders as far as the Urals; they had, in fact, never been so near to that most desirable aim of German foreign policy. Himmler seemed utterly unable to grasp realities; he was convinced that his own future as ‘the second man in the Donitz administration’ was assured. ‘All I want’, he added, ‘is a brief chat with Montgomery and Eisenhower. It should be easy enough to convince them that I and my S.S. are an indispensable Ordnungsfaktor [guarantee of law and order] in the struggle against Bolshevism.’

Selected Book-List

This bibliography contains only those books which are of special interest for the study of Himmler; only those general histories of the Third Reich which are important in the understanding of Himmler are included. Of the published official records, we have drawn specially on The Trial of the Major War Criminals: Proceedings, Vols. I-XXIII; Documents in Evidence, Vols. XXIV-XLII (Nuremberg, 1947 — 9). The Proceedings were also published by H.M.S.O. in London in twenty-two volumes, and this is the edition quoted and referred to in this book. Translations into English of some of the documents used in evidence were published by the U.S. Government Printing Office under the title Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression in eight main volumes and two supplementary volumes. When quoting from the British edition of the Proceedings we use the abbreviation I.M.T.; when quoting from Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression, we abbreviate as N.C.A.

(i) HISTORICAL AND GENERAL STUDIES

BARTZ, KARL: Downfall of the German Secret Service. (London: Kimber, 1956.)

BAYLE, FRANCOIS: Croix gammee ou caducee. (Freiburg, 1950.) — Psychologie et ethique du national-socialisme. (Paris, A 1953.)

COHEN, ELIE A.: Human Behaviour in the Concentration Camp. (New York: Norton, 1953.)

CRANKSHAW, EDWARD: The Gestapo, Instrument of Tyranny. (London: Putnam, 1956.)

CYPRIAN, T. and SAWICKI, J.: Nazi Rule in Poland 1939 — 45. (Warsaw: Polonia, 1961.)

DARRE, WALTHER: Neuadel aus Blut und Boden. (Munich:Eher Verlag, 1934.)

DATNER, S., GUMKOWSKI, J. and LESZCZYNSKI, K.: Genocide 1939—45. (Warsaw: Wydawnictwo Zachodnie, 1962.)

DULLES, ALLEN: Germany’s Underground. (New York: Macmillan, 1947.)

EISENBACH, A.: Operation Reinhard (Mass Extermination in Poland). (Poznan: 1962.)

Experimental Operations on Prisoners of Ravensbruck Concentration Camp. (Warsaw: 1960.)

FITZ GIBBON, CONSTANTINE: The Shirt of Nessus. (London: Cassell, 1956.)

German Crimes in Poland, Compiled by the Central Commission for Inter- Investigation of German Crimes in Poland. (Warsaw: 1946.)

KOGON, EUGEN: The Theory and Practice of Hell. (London, Secker and Warburg, 1951.)

MITSCHERLICH, A. and MIELKE, F.: Doctors of Infamy. (New York: 1949.)

— The Death Doctors. (London: Elek, 1962.)

PECHEL, RUDOLF: Deutscher Widerstand. (Zurich: Rentsch, 1947.)

POLONIA PUBLISHING HOUSE: Poland under Nazi Occupation. (Warsaw, 1961.)

— We Have Not Forgotten. (Warsaw, 1961.)

RECKTENWALD, JOHAN Woran hat Hitler Gelitten. (Munich: Reinhardt, 1903.)

REITLINGER, GERALD: The Final Solution. (London: Valentine Mitchell, 1953.)