The Eagle Has Landed (1976) - IMDb IMDb 17 January 2017 8:05 PM, UTC NEWS There was an error trying to load your rating for this title. Some parts of this page won't work property. Please reload or try later. X Beta I'm Watching This! Keep track of everything you watch; tell your friends. Error The Eagle Has Landed ( 1976 ) PG | A German plot to kidnap Winston Churchill unfolds at the height of World War II. Director: From $2.99 (SD) on Amazon Video ON DISC a list of 25 titles created 18 Sep 2011 a list of 29 titles created 06 Feb 2012 a list of 24 titles created 12 Mar 2012 a list of 41 titles created 01 Jan 2014 a list of 26 titles created 2 weeks ago Title: The Eagle Has Landed (1976) 6.9/10 Want to share IMDb's rating on your own site? Use the HTML below.

You must be a registered user to use the IMDb rating plugin. Allied agents stage a daring raid on a castle where the Nazis are holding an American General prisoner... but that's not all that's really going on. Director: Brian G. Hutton A British team is sent to cross occupied Greek territory and destroy the massive German gun emplacement that commands a key sea channel. Director: J. Lee Thompson Operation Market Garden, September 1944: The Allies attempt to capture several strategically important bridges in the Netherlands in the hope of breaking the German lines. However, mismanagement and poor planning result in its failure. Director: Richard Attenborough As the Allied armies close in, the Germans decide to blow up the last Rhine bridge, trapping their own men on the wrong side. But will it happen? Director: John Guillermin In 1940, the British Royal Air Force fights a desperate battle to prevent the Luftwaffe from gaining air superiority over the English Channel as a prelude to a possible Axis invasion of the UK. Director: Guy Hamilton A dramatization of Nazi Germany's final Western Front counterattack of World War II. Director: Ken Annakin A group of U.S.

soldiers sneaks across enemy lines to get their hands on a secret stash of Nazi treasure. Director: Brian G. Hutton During World War II, a rebellious U.S. Army Major is assigned a dozen convicted murderers to train and lead them into a mass assassination mission of German officers. Director: Robert Aldrich Directors: Ken Annakin, Andrew Marton, and 3 more credits » Stars: John Wayne, Robert Ryan, Richard Burton A dramatization of the battle that was widely heralded as a turning point of the Pacific Theatre of World War II. Director: Jack Smight During World War II, several oddly assorted military experts are teamed in a mission to raid and destroy a bridge vital to enemy strategy. Director: Guy Hamilton Outnumbered British soldiers do battle with Zulu warriors at Rorke's Drift. Director: Cy Endfield Edit Storyline Oberst Steiner, a German parachute unit commander, is sent to England on a covert mission to kidnap Prime Minister Winston Churchill and bring him to Berlin. The seemingly impossible assignment becomes more and more feasible as the mission grows nearer with Steiner and his men arriving in England to a very real possibility of success.

Written by Anthony Hughes <husnock31@hotmail.com> The best seller is now a major motion picture. See more » Genres: 25 December 1976 (Finland) See more » Also Known As: Der Adler ist gelandet See more » Filming Locations: (DVD) Sound Mix: Mono (35 mm prints)| 70 mm 6-Track (70 mm prints)| 4-Track Stereo (some 35 mm prints) (London premiere print) Color: Did You Know? Trivia In a 1976 interview with Photoplay Film Magazine, Michael Caine (Kurt Steiner) claimed that his main reason for accepting this role was that he had turned down Where Eagles Dare (1968) and did not want to turn down another World War II film with "Eagle" in its title. See more » Goofs At the church, Steiner wears a black leather jacket. That particular jacket was only given to Luftwaffe Pilots, not Luftwaffe paratroopers, regardless of Officer status. In reality he would have worn the same jacket as Captain Von Neustadt does late in the movie..

See more » Quotes [first lines] Narrator : [WWII News Story] September 12, 1943, German paratroopers snatched Mussolini from his mountaintop prison in Italy. (Atlanta, Georgia) – See all my reviews OK, to respond to the "review" from Richard WA. The movie is of course based on Jack Higgins' bestseller of the same name and like many debut books, is by far the best book he wrote - being written over a period of years as Higgins worked as a schoolteacher. It is meticulously researched and a fine read. Now the film. First, Of course an historically illiterate US teen would barely comprehend that history existed pre World War II or understand that the USA doesn't have a monopoly of the eagle as a national symbol. I read the book back in the mid-70's and never even thought about moon landings. For war movies/books, "eagles" are forever associated with Germany & that the USA also uses an eagle as a national symbol is purely coincidental. Richard WA can relax in the knowledge that few outside his peer group experienced his confusion.

Second, By telling the story from the German perspective, we get a new appreciation of the German fighting man's view. Just as "Das Boot" gave us an insight into the German mind, so too does this. A similar experience can be had watching the WWII POW camp movie "The McKenzie Break" where German POW's try to escape from a British camp - quite interesting really. But I guess if you're only interested in rooting for the Red, White and Blue, this is not your thing. Third, The accents are brilliantly done. It was decided for the movie that the comical Hollywood "German" accent would not be used. The "Ve haff vays of making you tork you schweinhund" is nowhere to be seen, instead the German characters use perfect accentless English to great effect. Fourth, Sutherland's Irish character, Devlin, is not a Nazi sympathiser. He agrees to support the operation because the Germans offer to pay him a fortune to do so. Money for the cause etc. Fifth, The pre-operation phase of the movie is actually too short - as the producers wanted more of an action flick than the book delivers.

In the book, the planning of the operation is analysed to infinite detail, down to the uniform details and relative attributes of allied versus German parachutes. I guess if your experience is computer games, then exposure to any kind of pre-operation detail is not something you're used to. Sixth, A newcomer in WWII Britain would certainly raise suspicion and Sutherland's character certainly does do that - not really a flaw of the book/movie but an operational problem that the Germans just had to accept given the timeframes involved. Seventh, Jenny Agutter's character is completely unbelievable. Try to ignore that part of the movie - thankfully she's there for purely aesthetic purposes. Eighth, The 5th columnist who already lives in the English village is actually a South African survivor of the British concentration camps - as explained in the movie. Perhaps Richard WA thought they were a German invention or more likely he's never heard of the Boer War and sleepwalked through that part of the movie. Ninth, The "battle" scene is deliberately short to emphasise the gulf in class between German paratroops and National Guards. When the Germans are confronted by real soldiers, they're defeated in short order.

Larry Hagman's character is a poor caricature and serves only to supply a comic element that's not needed - something the movie suffers from as if the producer was scared to make the movie too gritty. Richard WA's last point is most revealing. Why should Germans fight for Germany when everyone knew that they were going to lose and were on the wrong side anyway. Who ever heard of a brave German soldier fighting to the end anyway? Despite what many think, Americans don't have an monopoly on patriotism either - I doubt if he ever wonders why Steve McQueen never settled for a comfortable life in a German POW camp! Tenth, Yeah, the tunnel is something of a contrived device...it's not in the book BTW. Eleventh, The reason for not spiriting "Churchill" away after the attempt to kidnap him was precisely because the British wanted Germany to think he was there and not in Tehran! The whole point of a decoy is that it's visible and attracts the attention while the real principal is concealed. In summery, the Eagle has Landed is a solid attempt to film a great book. I doubt, given the plot, that a universally appealing movie could've been made but the greatest movies ever are not universally appealing.

Movies you love as children are not regarded in the same way in adulthood. The Eagle has Landed is in many ways like "The Day of the Jackal". Most of the action goes on inside the principals' heads. Deception, mental thought processes and subterfuge don't make good cinema. However the movie has some very good points: Great locations. Great actors doing good jobs (Jenny Agutter excepted) especially Donald Pleasance doing the best ever spine-chilling portrayal of Himmler. Good twist at the end. Challenging portrayal of "the enemy". I recommend it - it's not "A Bridge Too far" but it's pretty good. 120 of 148 people found this review helpful. Was this review helpful to you?

Yes The Eagle Has Landed (1976) The Eagle Has Landed (1976) DIRECTOR: John Sturges CAST: Michael Caine, Donald Sutherland, Robert Duvall, Jenny Agutter, Donald Pleasence, Larry Hagman, Jean Marsh, Treat Williams, Anthony Quayle, Siegfried Rauch, Joachim Hansen, Michael Byrne, Maurice Roeves, Wolf K�hler The Eagle Has Landed is not your typical war movie. Those expecting something along the lines of Saving Private Ryan should look elsewhere. Based on a novel by espionage and international intrigue writer Jack Higgins, it details the fictional plot of a group of German paratroopers led by the veteran Colonel Kurt Steiner (Michael Caine) to kidnap or kill Winston Churchill and force the Allies to negotiate a peace settlement. To this end, Steiner and the mastermind of the top-secret assignment, Colonel Max Radl (nicely played by Robert Duvall) enlist the aid of an Irish Republican Army fighter named Liam Devlin (Donald Sutherland), and a British collaborator, Joanna Grey (a typically frosty Jean Marsh).

The mission is pushed in a hush-hush fashion by SS Chief Heinrich Himmler (a perfectly cast Donald Pleasence), who intends it as a birthday present for Hitler. Steiner and his men are taught Polish and given Polish uniforms, intending to infiltrate the small English town where Joanna Grey has informed Himmler and German Intelligence Chief Admiral Canaris (Anthony Quayle) that Churchill will be spending a weekend on vacation. They are to pose as Polish soldiers until Churchill�s arrival, and then abduct or assassinate him. Of course, since this team of secret agents are the main characters of the film, steps must be taken to make them reasonably sympathetic to the audience. We learn that Devlin left the IRA after it began targeting women and children, and that Steiner has a choice between this risky mission or court-martial for trying to help a Jewish woman escape during the razing of the Warsaw Ghetto. He and his men are portrayed as pure soldiers without politics. Admiral Canaris, a historical figure, is accurately portrayed as anti-Nazi, complaining bitterly about Hitler and his hiearchy to his fictional subordinate Radl.

(Canaris was eventually arrested and executed for his involvement in several plots against Hitler.) Radl is a more subtle and controlled man, who carries out his orders without complaint and keeps his real opinions to himself, though we suspect his true sympathies lie more with the Fatherland and the common German soldier than with the F�hrer or Nazism. Certainly both the book and the movie deserve credit for going out of their way to point out the distinction between the true Nazis and the apolitical military men in the German Armed Forces. The Eagle Has Landed, while somewhat based in reality and not without its moments of seriousness, is best described as escapist entertainment, and as such it is reasonably successful. It is not really intended as a dark, serious meditation on the futility of war, although it does occasionally try to make that point. It is meant as entertainment, and while it starts a little slowly and hits a few too many other dull spots throughout, it often provides plenty of entertainment. The biggest handicap by far is the dull romance between Devlin and a young girl he meets in the village (Jenny Agutter), which almost brings the movie to a halt.

Things pick up well when a local American unit catches on to the situation, especially a hilarious Larry Hagman as an ambitious but bumbling officer, by far the movie�s most entertaining character, and Treat Williams in a more serious but pretty decent performance as his more sensible subordinate. The acting, like the movie overall, is a mixed bag. Michael Caine, who makes no effort to disguise his British accent, is a little hard to take as a German, but he gives a fine portrayal of a tough but fair military man and an honorable officer whose only loyalty is to his men, not to Hitler or Nazism. Donald Sutherland is passable as the roguish Devlin, but I think someone else might have been better-suited to the role. With her icy demeanor, Jean Marsh is more effective as Joanna Grey, and Robert Duvall is actually very good as the stoic and dignified Colonel Radl, sporting a surprisingly believable German accent. The most impressive of the supporting characters, however, is the always eerie Donald Pleasence, in a perfect casting choice as Heinrich Himmler.

Besides looking by far the most like him of anyone I have seen in the role, Pleasence plays him low-key and restrained, basically a dorky glorified pencil-pusher with a quirky and almost shy sense of humor, and an underlying sense that there is something just a little off-kilter about this man, a subtle feeling of something more sinister lurking behind his placid face. From all I have read of Himmler, Pleasence�s behavior is extremely accurate. He, Duvall, and Hagman�s comic relief are in my opinion the best things about the movie, but at times I can�t help thinking that Duvall and Pleasence at least belong in a better one. Siegfried Rauch and Michael Byrne are credible as faithful subordinates to Steiner and Radl, and Joachim Hansen is more menacing in his cameo as SS General Stroop, crusher of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, than Jon Voight was in his much larger role as Stroop in the Uprising miniseries, and his argument with Steiner over the treatment of the Jews briefly reminds the audience of the more serious events taking place in the background.

Maurice Roeves, who played Rudolf Hess in Inside the Third Reich and the British Colonel Munro in The Last of the Mohicans, has a small role as a British officer, and Wolf K�hler appears briefly as an SS officer. The Eagle Has Landed is no war masterpiece, nor does it claim to be, it is a fun, quirky little movie, often both corny and entertaining, and if that description appeals to you, then I would suggest checking it out. Donald Pleasence play Himmler - YouTube Donald Pleasence play Himmler Want to watch this again later? Sign in to add this video to a playlist. Need to report the video? Sign in to report inappropriate content. The interactive transcript could not be loaded. Loading... Rating is available when the video has been rented. This feature is not available right now. Please try again later. Published on Dec 19, 2013 Peculiar performance from the movie 'The Eagle Has Landed' (1976).

Category The Eagle Has Landed | Variety Print December 31, 1976 | 11:00PM PT In November 1943 Winston Churchill is due to spend a weekend at a country house in Norfolk - and the Germans propose to kidnap him there. Under orders from Heinrich Himmler (Donald Pleasence), purportedly coming from Hitler himself, a Nazi colonel (RobertDuvall) organizes the smuggling into Britain of the English-hating Irishman Donald Sutherland and the parachuting of a 16-man task force of Germans under the command of another colonel (Michael Caine). In November 1943 Winston Churchill is due to spend a weekend at a country house in Norfolk – and the Germans propose to kidnap him there. Under orders from Heinrich Himmler (Donald Pleasence), purportedly coming from Hitler himself, a Nazi colonel (RobertDuvall) organizes the smuggling into Britain of the English-hating Irishman Donald Sutherland and the parachuting of a 16-man task force of Germans under the command of another colonel (Michael Caine). The events take place in the small village of Studley Constable.

Most performances [in this adaptation of the Jack Higgins’ novel] are first rate with Sutherland exuding great credibility as the Irishman, and Caine thoroughly convincing as the Nazi commander. Pleasence gives a standout lifelike interpretation of Himmler. The Eagle Has Landed Heinrich Himmler - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Your continued donations keep Wikipedia running! Heinrich Himmler May 23 , 1945 11:14 p.m.

(31a Ülzenerstraße Lüneburg , Germany ) Party Political positions Reichsführer-SS (RF-SS) (Reich Leader of the SS ) in the NSDAP (1929-1945) Reichs- und Preussischer Minister des Innern (Reich & Prussian Minister of the Interior) of Germany (August 1943-1945) Chef der Deutschen Polizei (ChdDtP) (Chief of German police) (June 1936-1945) Chef der Heeresrüstung und Befehlshaber des Ersatzheeres (Ch H Rüst u.BdE) (Chief of Army Equipment and Commander of the Replacement Army) of Germany (July 1944-1945) Reichskommissar für die Festigung des Deutschen Volkstums (RKFDV) (Reich Commissioner for the Strengthening of Germanism) in the NSDAP (October 1939-1945) Verein " Lebensborn e.V." (President of the Society "Fountain of Life") of the NSDAP (September

 1936-1945) Verein "Das Ahnenerbe Forschungs-und Lehrgemeinschaft" (President of "The Ancestral Heritage Research & Teaching Society") of the NSDAP Beauftragter der NSDAP für alle Volkstumsfragen (Nazi Party Commissioner for All Racial Matters) Generalbevollmächtigter für die Verwaltung ( Plenipotentiary General for Administration) of Germany (August 1943-1945) ( October 7 , 1900 – May 23 , 1945 ) was the commander of the German Schutzstaffel ( SS ) and one of the most powerful men in Nazi Germany .

As Reichsführer-SS he controlled the SS and the Gestapo . Himmler became a leading organizer of the Holocaust . As founder and officer-in-charge of the Nazi concentration camps and the Einsatzgruppen death squads , Himmler held final command responsibility for implementing the industrial-scale extermination of between 6 and 12 million people. This was aimed particularly at Jews , but also against those of many other nationalities, races and conditions Nazi ideology considered to be suitable for killing, or Sonderbehandlung ("special treatment") as gas chamber murder was euphemistically known within the SS. Contents [ edit ] Early life Heinrich Himmler was born in Munich to a Bavarian middle-class family. His father was Joseph Gebhard Himmler , a secondary-school teacher and principal. His mother was Anna Maria Himmler (maiden name Heyder), a devout Roman Catholic and attentive mother. Heinrich had an older brother, Gebhard Ludwig Himmler (b. July 29 , 1898 ), and a younger brother, Ernst Hermann Himmler (b. December 23 , 1905 ). [1] Himmler's childhood was quite normal.

One could even suggest he was privileged. His father and mother were strict but actively involved in the rearing of their three children. Heinrich was named after his godparent , Prince Heinrich of Wittelsbach of the royal family of Bavaria , who was tutored by Gebhard Himmler [2] . This could possibly shed insight on Himmler's lifelong obsession with rank and status. In 1910 , Himmler began attending elite Gymnasia secondary schools in Munich and Landshut , where studies revolved around classic literature . While he struggled in athletics, he was quite bright and did well in his schoolwork. Also, at the behest of his father, Heinrich kept a fairly extensive diary from age 10 until the age of 24. He also had various extracurricular activities he enjoyed: chess , harpsichord , stamp collecting and gardening . During Himmler's youth, and into adulthood, he was never quite at ease in his interactions with the opposite sex. [3] In 1914 World War I began, and Himmler's diaries from the time show that he was extremely interested in news pertaining to it.

He began imploring his father to utilize his royal connections to land him a position as an officer candidate. His parents objected yet acquiesced, allowing him to train upon graduation from secondary school in 1918 with the 11th Bavarian Regiment. Since he was not athletic, he struggled throughout this military training. Later in that same year, the war ended with Germany's defeat. The Treaty of Versailles , which Germany signed limiting its military numbers, scuppered his aspirations of becoming a professional army officer, and he was discharged. He never saw battle. In 1919 to 1922 Himmler studied agronomy at Munich Technische Hochschule after a short-lived apprenticeship on a farm and subsequent illness [4] . Himmler at this time was pursuing a chaste lifestyle when he became interested in a young girl who was the daughter of the owner of a place where he would eat. In his diary he compares his initial encounter with her as being akin to finding himself a sister. Later he experienced rejection when he let his true feelings be known to her. This is only a detail worth mentioning in order to demonstrate his awkwardness with women throughout life.

Himmler viewed women through the scope of their role as it pertains to the needs of men, as this following diary excerpt demonstrates: "A proper man loves a woman on three levels: as a dear child who is to be chided, perhaps even punished on account of her unreasonableness, and who is protected and taken care of because one loves her. Then as wife and as a loyal, understanding comrade who fights through life with one, who stands faithfully at one's side without hemming in or chaining the man and his spirit. And as a goddess whose feet one must kiss, who gives one strength through her feminine wisdom and childlike, pure sanctity that does not weaken in the hardest struggles and in the ideal hours gives one heavenly peace." [5] Himmler also underwent religious turmoil during his studies at Munich Technische Hochschule. In his diaries he claimed to be a devout Catholic, and wrote that he would never turn away from the church.

Yet he was a member of a fraternity which he felt to be at odds with the tenets of the church, other biographers uncovered Himmler's theology was that of Ariosophy , his own religious dogma of racial superiority of the hypothetical "Aryan race" and Germanic neopaganism partly from his interests in folklore and mythology of the ancient Teutonic tribes of Northern Europe. Himmler turned into a disbeliever in Christian doctrine as he was also very critical of sermons given by priests, but felt that the teachings of the church were of the utmost importance and valued by the "Aryans" that he felt a "supreme deity" chose the German people to rule the world. Himmler often embodied the very meaning of paradox. During this time Himmler became obsessed with the idea of becoming a soldier. He wrote that if Germany did not find itself at war soon, he would go to another country to seek battle. In November of 1923 , Himmler took part in Hitler's Beer Hall Putsch under Ernst Röhm . In 1926 he met his wife in a hotel lobby while escaping a storm.

Margarete Siegroth (née Boden) was blonde-haired and blue-eyed, seven years older than Himmler, divorced , and Protestant . She was physically the epitome of the Nordic ideal, though not exceptionally attractive. On July 3 , 1928 , the two were married and had their only child, daughter Gudrun, on August 8 , 1929 . Himmler adored his daughter, and called her Püppi (dolly). Margarete later adopted a son, in whom Himmler showed no interest. The marriage of Heinrich and Margarete was difficult, and they separated in 1940 without seeking a divorce. Heinrich was far too engulfed in militaristic ideology by this time to serve as a competent husband. Himmler started to become friendly with a staff secretary, Hedwig Potthast, who left her job in 1941 and became his mistress. He fathered two illegitimate children with her - a son, Helge ( 1942 ), and a daughter, Nanette Dorothea ( 1944 ).

[ edit ] Rise in the SS Heinrich Himmler as reichsführer-SS with rank of an SA-oberführer. [ edit ] Early SS (1927 ~ 1934) Himmler joined the SS in 1925, and by 1927 had been appointed deputy reichsführer-SS , a role he began to take very seriously. He grew up a child rapist. He enjoyed raping poor German children. His Jewish slave Tituba said "I keep all of his money while he goes out and rapes the children. He and Hitler once met and had a rape party telling the little jews that if they let them have sex with them they wouldnt die and neither would their families. (They were the first to die) Upon the resignation of SS Commander Erhard Heiden , Himmler was appointed as the new Reichsführer-SS in January 1929. At the time when Himmler was appointed leader of the SS, it had only 280 members, and was considered a mere battalion of the much larger SA .

Himmler himself was only considered to be an SA-Oberführer, but after 1929 he simply referred to himself as the "Reichsführer-SS". By 1933, when the Nazi Party rose to power in Germany, Himmler's SS numbered 52,000 members, and the organization had developed strict membership requirements ensuring all members were of Adolf Hitler 's " Aryan Herrenvolk " ("Aryan master race"). Now a Gruppenführer in the SA, Himmler, along with his deputy Reinhard Heydrich , he next began a massive effort to separate the SS from SA control; he introduced black SS uniforms (designed by Hugo Boss ) to replace the SA brown shirts in the fall of 1933. Shortly thereafter, he was promoted to SS- Obergruppenführer und Reichsführer-SS and became an equal of the senior SA commanders, who by this time loathed the SS and the power it held. Heinrich Himmler (left) together with, from left to right: Reinhard Heydrich , Karl Wolff and an unidentified assistant at the Obersalzberg , May 1939.

Himmler and another of Hitler's right-hand men, Hermann Göring , agreed that the SA and its leader Ernst Röhm were beginning to pose a real threat to the German Army and the Nazi leadership of Germany. Röhm had strong socialist views and believed that, although Hitler had successfully gained power in Germany, the "real" revolution had not yet begun, leaving some Nazi leaders believing Röhm was intent on using the SA to administer a coup . With some persuasion from Himmler and Göring, Hitler began to feel threatened by this prospect and agreed that Röhm had to die. He delegated the task of Röhm's demise to Himmler and Göring who, along with Reinhard Heydrich , Kurt Daluege and Walter Schellenberg , ordered the execution of Röhm (carried out by Theodor Eicke ) and numerous other senior SA officials, as well as some of Hitler's personal enemies (like Gregor Strasser and Kurt von Schleicher ) on June 30 , 1934 , in what became known as "The Night of the Long Knives ".

The next day, Himmler's title of Reichsführer-SS became a rank to which he was appointed, and the SS became an independent organization of the Nazi Party. [ edit ] Consolidation of power In 1936 Himmler gained further authority as all of Germany's uniformed law enforcement agencies were amalgamated into the new Ordnungspolizei , whose main office became a headquarters branch of the SS as Himmler was accorded the title Chief of the German Police. Himmler, however, was never able to gain operational control over the uniformed police. The actual powers granted to him with the appointment were those previously exercised in police matters by the ministry of the interior, and not even all of those. It was only in 1943, when Himmler was appointed Minister of the Interior, that the transfer of ministerial power was complete. Indeed, his full title was Reichsfuhrer SS and Chief of the German Police in the Ministry of the Interior (abbreviated as RFSSuCdDPidMI), which clearly indicates the limits of his brief, and though Himmler tended to omit the idMI in correspondence, his powers remained as they were.

Germany's political police forces came under Himmler's authority in 1934, when he organised them into the Gestapo as well as Germany's entire concentration camps complex. Once war began, though, new internment camps not formally classified as concentration camps would be established, over which Himmler and the SS would not exercise control. In 1943, following the outbreak of popular word-of-mouth criticism of the regime as a result of the Stalingrad disaster, the party apparatus, professing disappointment with the Gestapo's performance in deterring such criticism, established the so-called Politische Staffeln as its own political policing organ, destroying the Gestapo's nominal monopoly in this field. With his 1936 appointment, Himmler also gained ministerial authority over Germany's non-political detective forces, known as Kripo , which he attempted to combine with the Gestapo into the Sicherheitspolizei , placed under the command of Reinhard Heydrich , and thus gain operational control over Germany's entire detective force. But the merger remained a dead letter within the Reich , with Kripo remaining firmly under the control of the civilian administration and later the party apparatus as the latter annexed the civilian administration.

However, in occupied territories not incorporated into the Reich proper it mostly proved effective. Following the outbreak of World War II , Himmler formed the Reichssicherheitshauptamt (Reich Security Main Office) wherein Gestapo, Kripo and the SD became departments. Attempts in 1940 to use the new RSHA structure to gain control over Kripo by giving RSHA regional officers command authority over Kripo offices in their jurisdictions were rebuffed. The SS was also developing its military branch, known as the SS-Verfügungstruppe , which would later become known as the Waffen-SS . [ edit ] Himmler's war on the Jews SS Chief Heinrich Himmler (front right, facing prisoner) on a personal visit to the Dachau Concentration Camp in 1936. After the Night of the Long Knives, the SS- Totenkopfverbände was given the task of organizing and administering Germany's regime of concentration camps and, after 1941, the extermination camps in occupied Poland .

The SS, through its intelligence arm, the Sicherheitsdienst (SD), was charged with finding Jews , Gypsies , shamans , homosexuals , communists and those persons of any other cultural, racial , political or religious affiliation deemed by the Nazis to be either Untermenschen (sub-human) or in opposition to the regime, and placing them in concentration camps. Himmler opened the first of these camps near Dachau (see picture) on 22 March 1933 . He became one of the main architects of the Holocaust , using elements of mysticism and a fanatical belief in the racist Nazi ideology to justify the mass murder and genocide of millions of victims. [ edit ] Posen speech On 4 October 1943 , Himmler referred explicitly to the extermination of the Jewish people during a secret SS meeting in the city of Posen . The following are excerpts from a transcription of an audio recording that exists 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 is 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.… woah woah please please, stop the language! [ edit ] The Second World War Nazi Governor of Poland Hans Frank (right) hosts SS head Heinrich Himmler during a visit to Kraków . Before the invasion of Russia in 1941, Himmler began preparing his SS for a war of extermination against the forces of " Judeo-Bolshevism ". Himmler, always glad to make parallels between Nazi Germany and the Middle Ages , compared the invasion to the Crusades .

He collected volunteers from all over Europe, including Danes , Norwegians , Swedes , Dutch , Belgians , French , Spaniards , and, after the invasion, Ukrainians , Latvians , Lithuanians , and Estonians , attracting the non-Germanic volunteers by declaring a pan-European crusade to defend the traditional values of Old Europe from the "Godless Bolshevik Hordes". In truth the "volunteers" from the occupied Soviet territories were mostly collaborator policemen pressed en-masse into the Waffen SS once their territories of origin were overrun by the Red Army . As long as they were employed against Soviet troops, they performed fanatically, expecting no mercy if captured. When employed against the Western Allies, they tended to eagerly surrender. Waffen SS recruitment in Western and Nordic Europe was abysmally unsuccessful. In 1942, Reinhard Heydrich , Himmler's right hand man, was killed in Prague after an attack by Czech special forces. Himmler immediately carried out a reprisal, killing the entire male population in the village of Lidice where the soldiers had escaped. In 1943, Himmler was appointed German Interior Minister .

This was very much a Pyrrhic victory . Himmler sought to use his new office to reverse the party apparatus' annexation of the civil service, and in the process fulfill his long cherished dream of gaining real power over the non-Gestapo police. This hopeless aspiration was easily frustrated by Martin Bormann , Hitler's secretary and party chancellor. It also incurred some displeasure from Hitler himself, whose long-standing disdain for the traditional Civil Service was one of the foundations of Nazi administrative thinking. Himmler made things much worse still when following his appointment as head of the Ersatzheer (Replacement Army) (see below) he tried to use his authority in both military and police matters by "bestowing" automatic SS membership on all policemen and then "transferring" them to the Waffen SS. With Himmler about to hang himself Bormann could not give him the rope fast enough, initially acquiesing in the lunacy, until furious protests broke out, then destroying the scheme with a vengeance leaving Himmler much discredited, and his and the SS' relations with the police badly compromised.

The involvement in the July 20, 1944, plot against Hitler of leaders of the Abwehr (German military intelligence), including its head, Admiral Wilhelm Canaris , prompted Hitler to disband the Abwehr and make the SD the sole intelligence service of the Third Reich . This increased Himmler's already considerable personal power. It also soon emerged that General Friedrich Fromm , Commander-in-Chief of the Replacement Army was implicated in the conspiracy. Fromm's removal, coupled with Hitler's great suspicion of the army led the way to Himmler's appointment as Fromm's successor, a position he predictibly abused to enormously expand the Waffen SS even further to the detriment of the rapidly deteriorating Wehrmacht . Unfortunately for Himmler, the investigation soon revealed the involvement of many SS Officers in the conspiracy, including some senior ones, which played into the hands of Bormann's power struggle against the SS, as very few party cadre officers were implicated.

In late 1944, Himmler became Commander-in-Chief of army group Upper Rhine , which was fighting the oncoming United States 7th Army and French 1st Army in the Alsace region on the west bank of the Rhine. Himmler held this post until early 1945 when, after the Wehrmacht's failure to halt the Red Army 's Vistula-Oder offensive , Hitler placed Himmler in command of the newly formed Army Group Vistula . As Himmler had no practical military experience as a field commander, this choice proved catastrophic and he was quickly relieved of his field commands, to be replaced by General Gotthard Heinrici . As the war was drawing to a German defeat, Himmler was considered by many to be a candidate to succeed Hitler as the Führer of Germany. However, it became known after the war that Hitler never really considered Himmler as a successor, even before his betrayal, believing that the authority that was his as head of the SS had caused him to be so hated that he would be rejected by the Party.

[ edit ] Peace negotiations, capture, and death Heinrich Himmler in 1945. In the winter of 1944-45, Himmler's Waffen-SS numbered 910,000 members, with the Allgemeine-SS (at least on paper) hosting a membership of nearly two million. However, by the spring of 1945 Himmler had lost faith in German victory, probably partially due to his discussions with his masseur Felix Kersten and Walter Schellenberg 2 . He came to the realization that if the Nazi regime was to have any chance of survival, it would need to seek peace with Britain and the United States. Toward this end, he contacted Count Folke Bernadotte of Sweden at Lübeck , near the Danish border, and began negotiations to surrender in the West. Himmler hoped the British and Americans would fight their Soviet allies with the remains of the Wehrmacht. When Hitler discovered this, Himmler was declared a traitor and stripped of all his titles and ranks the day before Hitler committed suicide .

At the time of Himmler's denunciation, he held the positions of Reich Leader-SS, Chief of the German Police, Reich Commissioner of German Nationhood, Reich Minister of the Interior, Supreme Commander of the Volkssturm , and Supreme Commander of the Home Army. Unfortunately for Himmler, his negotiations with Count Bernadotte failed. Since he could not return to Berlin , he joined Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz , who by then was commanding all German forces in the West, in nearby Plön . Somehow, Hitler's orders concerning him never reached Dönitz. After Hitler's death, Himmler joined the short-lived Flensburg Government headed by Dönitz but was dismissed on 6 May 1945 by its leader in a move Dönitz hoped would gain him favour with the Allies. Himmler next turned to the Americans as a defector , contacting the headquarters of General Dwight Eisenhower and proclaiming he would surrender all of Germany to the Allies if he was spared from prosecution as a Nazi leader. In an example of Himmler's mental state at this point, he sent a personal application to Eisenhower stating he wished to apply for the position of "Minister of Police" in the post-war government of Germany.

He also reportedly mused on how to handle his first meeting with the SHAEF commander and whether to give the Nazi salute or shake hands with him. Eisenhower refused to have anything to do with Himmler, who was subsequently declared a major war criminal . The dead self-poisoned Himmler after capture by Allied troops, 1945. Unwanted by his former colleagues and hunted by the Allies, Himmler wandered for several days around Flensburg near the Danish border, capital of the Dönitz government. Attempting to evade arrest , he disguised himself as a sergeant-major of the Secret Military Police, using the name Heinrich Hitzinger, shaving his moustache and donning an eye patch over his left eye [6] , in the hope that he could return to Bavaria. He had equipped himself with a full set of false documents, but someone whose papers were wholly in order was so unusual that it aroused the suspicions of a British Army unit in Bremen , Germany. Himmler was arrested on May 22, and in captivity, was soon recognized.

Himmler was scheduled to stand trial with other German leaders as a major war criminal at Nuremberg , but committed suicide in Lüneburg by swallowing a potassium cyanide capsule before interrogation could begin. His last words were "Ich bin Heinrich Himmler!" ("I am Heinrich Himmler!"). Shortly afterwards, Himmler's body was secretly buried in an unmarked grave on the Lüneburg Heath . The precise location of Himmler's grave remains unknown. [ edit ] Conspiracy theories There would be later claims that the man who committed suicide in Lüneburg was not Himmler but a double .

Statements allegedly attributed to ODESSA were said to have asserted that Himmler escaped to the tiny and rustic farming village of Strones in the Waldviertel, a hilly forested area in the northwest part of Lower Austria just north of Vienna , the birthplace of Alois Hitler , where he was running a reborn SS in exile .[ citation needed ] A recently-published book by American author, Joseph Bellinger, Himmler's Death, offers another " conspiracy theory " alternative to Himmler's death, stating that Heinrich Himmler was assassinated by his British interrogators in May 1945 along with other high-ranking officers of the SS and Werewolf Resistance Organization . Bellinger's book was first published in Germany by Arndt Verlag, Kiel . A similar book, Himmler's Secret War, by Martin Allen makes similar claims: it is, however, based on forged documents smuggled into the (British) National Archives . [7] David Irving also claimed Himmler was beaten and killed by the British interrogators. He also claimed his nose was broken by the beating.

Most historians discount these claims.[ citation needed ] [ edit ] Historical views Historians are divided on the psychology, motives and influences that drove Himmler. Some see him as a willing dupe of Hitler, fully under his influence and seeing himself essentially as a tool, carrying Hitler's views to their logical conclusion, in some cases (such as in the views propounded by David Irving ) possibly without Hitler's direct orders or agreement. A key issue in understanding Himmler is to what extent he was a primary instigator and developer of anti-Semitism and racial murder in Nazi Germany in his own right, and not totally within Hitler's control, or was simply the executor of Hitler's direct orders. A related issue is the extent to which anti-semitism and racism were primary motives for him, over and above self-aggrandisement, accumulation of power and influence. Himmler to some extent answered this himself saying if Hitler were to tell him to shoot his mother, he would do it and 'be proud of the Führer's confidence'. It was this unconditional loyalty that was the driving force behind Himmler's unlikely career. Most commentators agree that commitment to Hitler's murderous racism made Himmler the mastermind of ethnic cleansing and the Holocaust.

According to the Jewish Virtual Library , Himmler's decisive innovation was to transform the race question from "a negative concept based on matter-of-course anti-Semitism" into "an organizational task for building up the SS ... It was Himmler's master stroke that he succeeded in indoctrinating the SS with an apocalyptic "idealism" beyond all guilt and responsibility, which rationalized mass murder as a form of martyrdom and harshness towards oneself." 1 The famous wartime cartoonist Victor Weisz saw Himmler as a terrible octopus, wielding oppressed nations in each of his 8 arms. 2 . Wolfgang Sauer, historian at Berkeley felt that "although he was pedantic, dogmatic, and dull, Himmler emerged under Hitler as second in actual power. His strength lay in a combination of unusual shrewdness, burning ambition, and servile loyalty to Hitler." 3 . In an extract in the Norman Brook War Cabinet Diaries 4 , Winston Churchill took a view towards Himmler widely shared during the war, advocating his assassination.

According to Brook, responding to a suggestion that the Nazi leaders be executed, "this prompted Churchill to ask if they should negotiate with Himmler 'and bump him off later', once peace terms had been agreed. The suggestion to cut a deal for a German surrender with Himmler and then assassinate him with support from the Home Office. 'Quite entitled to do so,' the minutes record it (eg, Churchill) as commenting." 5 A main focus of recent work on Himmler has been the extent to which he competed for, and craved, Hitler's attention and respect, along with other Nazi leaders. The events of the last days of the war, when he abandoned Hitler and began separate negotiations with the Allies, are obviously significant in this respect. Himmler appears to have had a completely distorted view of how he was perceived by the Allies; he intended to meet with US and British leaders and have discussions "as gentlemen". He tried to buy off their vengeance by last-minute reprieves for Jews and important prisoners. According to British soldiers who arrested Himmler, he was genuinely shocked when treated as a prisoner.

[ edit ] In fiction In Douglas Niles 's and Michael Dobson 's alternative history novel Fox on the Rhine ( ISBN 0-8125-7466-4 ), in which Hitler is killed in the attempted Bomb Plot of 20 July, 1944 , Himmler assumes command of the Third Reich by a series of assassinations of the conspirators planning to form a new government and, most prominently, of Hermann Göring , who was appointed the official new Führer. Thus, Himmler, as the highest-ranking official remaining, takes up the position as leader of Nazi Germany, which enables him to execute "Operation Carousel" — a new offensive against the Allies. Himmler also features in Fox At The Front ( ISBN 0-641-67696-4 ), the sequel to Fox On The Rhine. Himmler is played by Donald Pleasance in the movie The Eagle Has Landed , which is based on a novel by Jack Higgins ( ISBN 0-425-17718-1 ).

He is also featured in several other Jack Higgins novels, including The Eagle Has Flown, the sequel to The Eagle Has Landed. He also appears in Return to Castle Wolfenstein as an SS chief overseeing the resurrection of Heinrich I and the occult during Operation Resurrection. He and his team were successful in the ordeal, but Heinrich I and his dark knights were quickly defeated by Agent Blazkowicz. He watched in horror that "This American, he has ruined everything" before he was told that he needed to go back to Berlin to report to Hitler. In the Colonization alternative history/sci-fi novel series by Harry Turtledove , Himmler is the Führer of the Greater German Reich in the 1960's , following the death of Hitler in the 1950's of a seemingly natural heart attack. Himmler dies of a stroke while working at his desk in 1965. He was succeeded shortly thereafter by Ernst Kaltenbrunner , who proceeded to adopt Himmler's plan of invading Race-occupied Poland, with catastrophic consequences.

In Turtledove's stand-alone novel, In the Presence of Mine Enemies , in which Germany won World War II and which is set in 2010, Himmler had succeeded Hitler as Führer at an unspecified date, and remained so until his death in 1985--though some say he died in 1983 and the Reich was secretly ruled by a junta until a successor could be agreed upon.

Question: Who played Heinrich Himmler in the 1976 film ‘The Eagle Has Landed’?
Answer: Donald Pleasance