The Second World War

Nazi governor of Poland Hans Frank (right) hosts head of SS Heinrich Himmler during a visit to Krakow
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. Himmler collected volunteers from all over Europe, including Danes, Norwegians, Swedes, Dutch, Belgians, French, Spaniards, and, after the invasion, Ukrainians, Latvians, Lithuanians, and Estonians. Himmler attracted the non-Germanic volunteers by declaring a pan-European crusade to defend the traditional values of Old Europe from the "Godless Bolshevik Hordes".
In 1944, Himmler was granted still further power as the result of a bitter rivalry between the Sicherheitsdienst (SD) and the Abwehr, the intelligence arm of the Wehrmacht.
The involvement in the July 20, 1944, plot against Hitler of many of the Abwehr leaders, including its head, Admiral 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.
In late 1944, Himmler became commander of army group Oberrhein (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 he was switched to command an army group facing the Red Army to the East. As Himmler had no practical military experience as a field commander, he was quickly relieved of his field commands and appointed Commander of the Home Army. At the same time, he was appointed as the German Interior Minister and 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.
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Peace negotiations, capture and death


Heinrich Himmler in 1945
By 1945, Himmler's Waffen-SS numbered 800,000 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 Schellenberg2. 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 Russian 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 May 6, 1945 by its leader in a move he hoped would gain him favour with the Allies.
Himmler next turned to the Americans as a defector, contacting the headquarters of 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 General 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 and he 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, Himmler disguised himself as a member of the Gendarmerie 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 and he was arrested on May 22nd. In captivity he 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, "I am Heinrich Himmler!"
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Conspiracy theories
There would be later claims that the man who committed suicide in Bremen was not Himmler but a double. Statements allegedly attributed to ODESSA were said to have asserted 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, birthplace of Alois Hitler, where he was running a reborn SS in exile.
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 apparently based on forged documents smuggled into the (British) National Archives (link to news report).
Most historians discount these claims.
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Historical view
Feared by many, but respected by some of his colleagues3, several historians have argued Himmler was made more by those who worked under him than by his own designs, although others note how he visited the concentration camps much more frequently than his job would have required, urging the SS men to increase atrocities and personally witnessing many mass shootings unlike Hitler, who is not known to have ever visited one of the camps.
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Surviving family
He was survived by his wife Marga and natural daughter Gudrun (Burwitz) (b. 1929), who still resides in Germany and by his illegitimate son Helge (b.1942) and daughter Nanette Doreathea (b.1944) from a relationship with his personal assistant Hedwig Potthast. Catharine Himmler, a second niece of Heinrich Himmler, is married to an Israeli, the son of Holocaust survivors who survived the Warsaw Ghetto [1].