Heinrich Himmler: The Sinister Life of the Head of the SS and Gestapo (Summary)

About Heinrich Fraenkel

Heinrich Fraenkel was born in Poznan, Poland, on September 28, 1987. He did not fight in the First World War but was captured during the war and was put in a POW camp. This was where he developed his English language to a good standard.

He lived most of his life in the UK, where he worked with Roger Manvell to author biographies about Hitler and his inner circle. He died at an old age of 88 on May 25, 1986.

Part 1: Early Years and Joining the Nazi Party

Heinrich Himmler was born in Munich, the birthplace of the Nazi, on October 7, 1900, to Professor Gebhard and Anna Himmler. By the time the First World War broke out in 1914, Himmler was too young to fight in the war. Unlike the rosy story he told after the rise of Nazism, he led men into battle. Meanwhile, surviving army records showed the contrary.

Himmler, as a young man, wasn’t involved with women romantically; nonetheless, he found strength in uprisings and met Ernst Rohm, the chief upriser, in 1922. Through Rohm, Himmler participated in the Beer Hall Putsch of 1923 alongside Hitler, where they tried to seize power in the city. After the putsch and Hitler refounded the party, he rejoined the Nazi party and worked with the Strassers alongside young Goebbels.

Himmler rose sharply within the Nazi party ranks to become the Reichsführer SS in 1929; meanwhile, in 1928, he married Margaret Concerzowo, of Polish origin.

Part 2: Building the SS and Meeting Reinhard Heydrich

Himmler, under the strong influence of Dr. Walther Darre, started building the SS in a strict nomadic manner. Himmler’s rule was that all SS men must be racially pure, along with their wives, and his office had to issue a purification certificate accordingly. In 1931, Himmler met Heydrich, whom the former was impressed with and hired on the spot. Himmler made Heydrich the chief of the security service of the SS that was just created especially for Heydrich.

After Hitler’s ascension to power, Himmler, with the help of Heydrich, accumulated power extensively. Himmler became the chief of the police in all states of Germany, with the sole exception of Prussia. It would be in April 1934 that Himmler would take control of all police alongside the Gestapo, with Heydrich as his deputy.

Part 3: Night of the Long Knives

For most of his life, Himmler led a frugal existence and was never envious of the luxurious lifestyles of other high-ranking Nazis. An example of Goring.

By 1934, Himmler was feeling threatened by the influence Rohm had on Hitler and thought that it should be he who should possess such influence. This was the primary reason he became fully involved during the Night of the Long Knives. He provided Hitler with damning evidence against Rohm and hurried Hitler to take action on his old camaraderie. Rohm and other SA leaders were murdered, and Himmler secured freedom for his SS as a reward for his tidy participation during the Rohm purge.

Before the war, Himmler’s power-grabbing efforts reached their peak in February 1936, when he secured the Gestapo’s removal from German law jurisdiction.

A series of conferences that Himmler held with the army before the war revealed that he boasted to high-ranking Wehrmacht officers that his SS men were superior to those of the army in every respect. And he promised to continue with that standard as long as he lived.

In Hitler’s foreign policy leading up to the outbreak of World War II, Himmler played a limited role. However, Himmler planned the Wehrmacht deception leading to the invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939. The deception operation was named after Himmler himself and was supposed to convince the world that it was the Poles who attacked Germany first, not the other way around.

Part 4: Heydrich-Himmler Relationship and Dr. Kersten

Immediately after Germany invaded Poland, Himmler and Heydrich’s work relationship intensified, while Heydrich simultaneously sought to distance himself from Himmler’s influence. He would only be successful after Hitler appointed him as the acting protector of Bohemia and Moravia.

To further improve procreation within the SS, Himmler made favorable policies and substantial investments to encourage his men during the war. Himmler himself took that value to heart when he had a son and a daughter outside his marriage to Hedwig Potthast, who survived the war.

In March 1939, Himmler met Dr. Felix Kersten, a Dutch masseuse. Kersten will treat Himmler’s troubled stomach throughout the war years. This man had considerable influence on Himmler during his work with the Reichführer SS.

Part 5: Auschwitz and Relationship With Bormann’s Relationship

This chapter explained Himmler’s obsession with the extermination of the Jews. What he did was rid the Jews of their valuable properties first before sending them to labor camps or extermination camps. The worst of the extermination camps was Auschwitz, located in Poland, with a horrible record of 1.1 million deaths.

Himmler’s nervousness grew so much that as the war turned against Germany beginning in 1943, he opened a negotiation with the Allies through Switzerland. He used Walter Shellenberg for this purpose. Although this still doesn’t stop the Reichsführer SS from working tirelessly to fish out Hitler’s perceived enemy within and outside the greater German Reich.

During this time, Bormann had become Hitler’s gatekeeper, and rivalry emerged between him and Himmler, like every other high-ranking Nazi.

Part 6: Dr. Kersten Became Himmler’s Friend

The relationship between Himmler and Dr. Felix Kersten evolved from the time they met in 1939 to 1945. Initially, both men had a doctor-patient relationship before evolving into a friend-like one. Himmler’s stomach nervousness grew with the escalation of the war, which meant he now depended on Dr. Kersten’s treatment even more, and they became intimate. And the Reichsführer SS started pouring out his mind honestly to this doctor, telling him his private matters, such as his woman outside of his marriage, and later the extermination of the Jews. It was therefore all this information used by Kersten later to extract sizable prisoners in concentration camps from Himmler.

Part 7: July 20 Plot and Himmler the Commander

Some senior officers in the Wehrmacht tried their hand at assassinating Hitler on July 20, 1945, in the hope that if it succeeded, the horrible war would end and millions of Germans would be saved. The assassination failed. After Hitler recovered from the attempt, he appointed Himmler to avenge him; he hanged and humiliated the conspirators.

By January 1945, the Western Allies and the Red Army had reached the frontiers of Germany, and Hitler appointed Himmler commander-in-chief of the Reserve Army and Army Group Vistula. His mission was to defend Germany from the advancing enemy. Himmler failed horribly and lost his generalship on March 20 to Field Marshal Heinz Guderian, who was more capable.

As Himmler saw he had failed in many capacities, he tried an act of salvation by releasing Jews and other camp prisoners for Count Bernadotte. He did this under the strong influence of Dr. Felix Kersten and of Walter Schellenberg.

The last time the Reichsführer SS saw the Führer was on his birthday, April 20, a dull event at which most senior Nazis were present and most departed without a proper goodbye to each other.

Part 8: Hitler Shot Himself, and Himmler Bit Cyanide

Himmler’s deal with Count Bernadotte first reached Hitler in February 1945, who then forbade any further contact with the Allies. Still, hoping to save himself, Himmler pushed negotiations forward and released more Jews for the Swiss. Upon learning this from the BBC, Hitler, furious, ordered Himmler’s arrest and stripped him of all party and state offices.

On April 30, all hope was lost; Hitler shot himself dead alongside his newlywed wife, but before then, he had written his political statement, where he chose Grand Admiral Dönitz as his successor. Donitz denied Himmler any role in his new government, and he went on the run.

While trying to cross the border in disguise, Himmler was captured by the British. Despite carrying a fake ID, his identity was confirmed. As his captors searched him, he bit a cyanide capsule before they found the poison.