Heinrich Himmler's Role in the Holocaust

Heinrich Himmler, a man with a commanding presence, psychopathological ideas, a vast agglomeration of power, and a close relationship with perhaps the most feared and powerful man in the world’s history, was a man of many layers who knew how to “work the system” to get what he wanted.

Heinrich Himmler was born on October 7, 1900 to a humble Catholic family in Munich, Germany. His father, Joseph Gebhard Himmler, was the headmaster of a school and had once tutored Bavarian princes, and his mother, Anna Maria Himmler was a housewife and took care of Himmler and his two siblings. He went to grammar school in Landshut, Germany, and received a diploma in agriculture from Munich Technical University. In school, he was studious, slightly nerdy, had superior organizational skills, and tended to avoid his Jewish classmates. He originally wanted to be a chicken farmer, but he ended up not enjoying it after a brief apprenticeship. After fighting during World War I, Himmler began to gain interest in the Aryan myths of blonde-haired, blue-eyed supermen, the occult, and anti-Semitism.

Himmler joined the Nazi Party in 1923, after working under the Reich Propaganda Leader of the Nazi Party, Gregor Strasser. He began working to campaign for them and gave speeches all over Germany. He joined the Schutzstaffel (SS) in 1925, which was a group of men who were Adolf Hitler’s personal body guards that carried out his bidding. At this time, there were about 280 members of the SS. He eventually began to move up in the hierarchy of the SS, and collected data on Jews and other “enemies” of the Nazi Party. When Himmler approached Hitler with his ideas of the SS being full of loyal men with German features (blonde hair and blue eyes), Hitler was taken aback ...

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...at Hitler would be dead in the next few days, and, when Hitler heard of this, he declared Himmler a traitor and kicked him out of the Nazi party because he felt betrayed because he had always believed his loyalty and had called him “loyal Heinrich”. When Himmler attempted to escape Germany in disguise, he was captured. Not wanting to be subject to any torture or trial, he committed suicide by biting into a cyanide capsule on May 23, 1945.

Heinrich Himmler’s life was full of anger towards the world because there were some things he just couldn’t control and ended in him choosing his own death over continuing to live on and pay for his crimes against his the world and even his own family. His legacy lives on as the man who did whatever he could to get what he wanted, even if it meant throwing the whole world into turmoil and the deaths of millions of innocent people.