Heinrich Himmler

Heinrich Himmler is a communist activist living in Munich. He is the current leader of the “New Socialist Party”, a political organization and party advocating for greater centralization and expansion of executive powers, but he is mostly a disgraced politician for his regressive view on German nationalism and antisemetism.

## **Early life**

Heinrich Luitpold Himmler was born in Munich on 7 October 1900 into a conservative middle-class Roman Catholic family. His father was Joseph Gebhard Himmler (17 May 1865 – 29 October 1936), a teacher, and his mother was Anna Maria Himmler (née Heyder; 16 January 1866 – 10 September 1941), a devout Roman Catholic. Heinrich had two brothers: Gebhard Ludwig (29 July 1898 – 22 June 1982) and Ernst Hermann (23 December 1905 – 2 May 1945).

Himmler's first name, Heinrich, was that of his godfather, Prince Heinrich of Bavaria, a member of the royal family of Bavaria, who had been tutored by Gebhard Himmler. He attended a grammar school in Landshut, where his father was deputy principal. While he did well in his schoolwork, he struggled in athletics. He had poor health, suffering from lifelong stomach complaints and other ailments. In his youth he trained daily with weights and exercised to become stronger. Other boys at the school later remembered him as studious and awkward in social situations.

Himmler's diary, which he kept intermittently from the age of 10, shows that he took a keen interest in current events, dueling, and "the serious discussion of religion and sex". In 1915, he began training with the Landshut Cadet Corps. His father used his connections with the royal family to get Himmler accepted as an officer candidate, but his hope of enlistment ended in March 1917 when the war ended. But it was at the end of the war that Himmler began to get involved with leftist politics.

## **Life as a political activist**

As ideological tensions flared up within the German Republic, Himmler found himself increasingly sympathetic towards the syndicalist and unionist cause. In Munich he involved himself with various groups who had the goal to bring the republic down and replace it with a socialist regime in April 1918, but by September he was kicked for getting into squabbles with other members, specifically with his antisemetic remarks at the Jewish members of the group. Bitter, he became apolitical until the start of the revolution, when 3 weeks after Munich was occupied, he officially founded the New Socialist Party which fit his personal principles, mostly consisting of advocating for a centralized autocratic socialist regime with heavy antisemetic undertones. While small at first the movement picked up steam as the war progressed, and originally the group acted as a way to terrorize supposed resistance activity in occupied territories. Regardless of his intent he was able to crush and expose several people who were a part of various resistance organizations which made Himmler popular in Munich.

With the end of the civil war, the New Socialist Party moved away from hunting down rebellious activity after the Social Protection Act was passed and instead moved the organization towards political life. While Himmler’s party was spared from being banned, the often pro-communist and at times anti-syndicalist rhetoric worried many in the TUC and because Himmler was unwilling to try and disguise the NSP as pro-syndicalist as many urged him to do so, it left the NSP without a lot of support, even as he hoped that the “New Socialist Movement”, beliefs and principles based on the party would grow to have influence in the TUC it never occurred.

Instead, Himmler stayed on the fringes of the German political scene, but because of this he became increasingly bitter towards the German government. Still, even by 1935, the New Socialist Movement is small, owing mostly to the fact that the orthodox syndicalist model implemented in the country has succeeded in rebuilding the country and militarizing their economy.