Heinrich Himmler

**Heinrich Luitpold Himmler** (; October 7, 1900 – May 23, 1945) was a German high-ranking Nazi politician. He led the Schutzstaffel (SS) and the Gestapo before and during World War II.

Himmler played a central role in planning the Holocaust and making it happen. (So did his deputy, Reinhard Heydrich.) Himmler created and controlled the Nazi concentration camps, where millions of people died.

For his central role in the Holocaust, Himmler has been described as an "architect" of genocide, terror, and the Final Solution.

Of the top leaders in the Nazi Party, Himmler was one of the youngest. Most of them had fought in World War I but he was still in training to be an officer when the war ended. He was involved in the 1923 Beer Hall Putsch; the 1934 Night of the Long Knives (where he and Heydrich organized the murder of SA leader Ernst Röhm); and Kristallnacht/Night Of The Broken Glass (1938).

## Organizing the Holocaust

Under Himmler's direction, the SS-Totenkopfverbände (Death's Head Battalions) organized and managed the Holocaust. This included administering Germany’s regime of concentration camps and extermination camps.

### The camp system

Between 1933-1945, the Nazis established a network of thousands of camps throughout Nazi Germany and Nazi-occupied territories. Himmler had authority over all of them. Millions of people died in these camps.

Unlike Hitler, Himmler visited some of the camps, including Auschwitz, Dachau, Mauthausen, andSachsenhausen. In fact, he personally opened the first concentration camp at Dachau on the 22nd of March, 1933.

Under Himmler's authority, the Nazis built gas chambers in death camps like Auschwitz so they could kill people more efficiently. According to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum:> Millions of people were imprisoned, mistreated, and murdered in the various types of Nazi camps. Under SS management, the Germans and their collaborators murdered 2.7 million Jews in the killing centers alone. Only a small fraction of those imprisoned in Nazi camps survived**.**

### Victims of the camps

Through its Security Service (_Sicherheitsdienst_, or SD), Himmler's SS hunted down anyone they thought were _Untermensch_ (sub-human). This included (among others):

- Jews
- Roma and Sinti people
- Communists and anarchists
- LGBT people
- Slavs and Soviet prisoners of war
- Black people
- People with disabilities
- People of certain religions, like Jehovah's Witnesses
- People who opposed the Nazi regime (or were suspected of opposing it)

Under Himmler's leadership, these people were deported to concentration camps or extermination camps, where millions of them died.

### Posen speech

On 4 October 1943, Himmler spoke of the extermination of the Jewish people during a secret SS meeting in the city of Poznań (Posen). The following are parts from an audio recording of the speech:

> I also want to mention a very difficult subject before you here, completely openly. It should be discussed amongst us, and yet, nevertheless, we will never speak about it in public. I am talking about the Jewish evacuation: the extermination of the Jewish people. It is one of those things that is easily said. "The Jewish people are being exterminated," every Party member will tell you: "Perfectly clear, it’s part of our plans, we’re eliminating the Jews, exterminating them, ha!, a small matter."

## Death

As the war ended, Himmler tried to negotiate with the Allies, hoping to avoid prosecution by surrendering. The Allies refused, and Himmler was captured by the British Army.

Before he could be tried at Nuremberg, Himmler committed suicide by swallowing a potassium cyanide capsule. He died on 23 May 1945 at the age of 44. The location of his grave is unknown.

## Portrayals

Himmler has been portrayed in various works of fiction. In the 1989 Steven Spielberg movie _Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade_, Himmler was portrayed by Ronald Lacey. In the TV series _The Man in the High Castle_, he appeared along with Reinhard Heydrich (who was actually assassinated in 1942).  He was also portrayed for comic effect as "Mr. Bimmler" by Michael Palin in the _Monty Python's Flying Circus_ sketch "Mr. Hilter," in which Himmler, Hitler and Joachim von Ribbentrop are in hiding in a boarding house in Minehead, Somerset and going by thin aliases, plotting to restore the Third Reich by getting Hitler elected to the British Parliament.

## Related pages

- Genocide
- Nazi Germany
- The Holocaust
- The Final Solution
- Nazi extermination camps
- Nazi concentration camps

## Other websites

- List of Himmler speeches  A very detailed list of Himmler speeches including online sources and material in the U.S. National Archives.
- audio recording  of the Poznan speech
- _Die Schutzstaffel als antibolschewistische Kampforganisation_ An essay by Himmler
- About Heinrich Himmler

## Infobox (officeholder)

- **name**: Heinrich Himmler
- **image**: Heinrich Himmler (3x4 cropped).jpg
- **honorific prefix**: _Reichsleiter_
- **caption**: Himmler in 1942
- **office**: 4th _Reichsführer-SS_
- **deputy**: Reinhard Heydrich (de facto)
- **term start**: 6 January 1929
- **term end**: 29 April 1945
- **predecessor**: Erhard Heiden
- **successor**: Karl Hanke
- **office1**: Police forces of Nazi Germany, Chief of the German Police
- **term start1**: 17 June 1936
- **term end1**: 29 April 1945
- **predecessor1**: _Office established_
- **successor1**: Karl Hanke
- **office3**: Federal Ministry of the Interior (Germany), _Reichsminister_ of the Interior
- **chancellor3**: Adolf Hitler
- **term start3**: 24 August 1943
- **term end3**: 29 April 1945
- **predecessor3**: Wilhelm Frick
- **successor3**: Paul Giesler
- **office4**: General Plenipotentiary for Administration of the Reich
- **appointed4**: Adolf Hitler
- **term start4**: 20 August 1943
- **term end4**: 29 April 1945
- **predecessor4**: Wilhelm Frick
- **successor4**: _Office abolished_
- **title5**: Additional positions
- **suboffice5**: Commander of Army Group Vistula
- **subterm5**: January–March 1945
- **suboffice6**: Commander of the Replacement Army
- **subterm6**: 1944–1945
- **suboffice7**: Commander of Army Group Oberrhein (Germany), Army Group Upper Rhine
- **subterm7**: 1944–1945
- **suboffice8**: Acting Director of the Reich Security Main Office
- **subterm8**: 1942–1943
- **suboffice9**: Reich Commissioner for the Consolidation of German Nationhood, Reich Commissioner
for the Consolidation of German Nationhood
- **subterm9**: 1939–1945
- **suboffice10**: Member of the Prussian State Council
- **subterm10**: 1933–1945
- **suboffice11**: _Reichsleiter_ of the Nazi Party
- **subterm11**: 1933–1945
- **suboffice12**: Member of the Reichstag (Nazi Germany), Greater German Reichstag
- **subterm12**: 1933–1945
- **suboffice13**: Member of the Reichstag (Weimar Republic), Reichstag
- **subterm13**: 1930–1933
- **birth name**: Heinrich Luitpold Himmler
- **birth place**: Munich, German Empire, Germany
- **death place**: Lüneburg, Nazi Germany, Germany
- **death cause**: cyanide poisoning  (suicide)
- **party**: Nazi Party (1923–1945)
- **otherparty**: Bavarian People's Party  (1919–1923)
- **children**: 3, including Gudrun Burwitz, Gudrun
- **partner**: Hedwig Potthast (1939–1944)
- **education**: Technical University of Munich
- **signature**: Himmler Signature 2.svg
- **serviceyears**: 1917–1918 (Army)
1925–1945 (SS)
- **unit**: 11th Bavarian Infantry Regiment
- **commands**: Army Group Upper Rhine
 Army Group Vistula
Replacement ArmyReplacement (Home) Army
- **battles**: World War II