Reichsfuhrer-SS, head of the Gestapo and the Waffen-SS, Minister of the
Interior from 1943 to 1945 and organizer of the mass murder of Jews in the
Third Reich, Heinrich Himmler was born in Munich on 7 October 1900. The son of a pious, authoritarian Roman Catholic schoolmaster who had once been tutor to the Bavarian Crown Prince, Himmler was educated at a secondary school in
Landshut. He served as an officer cadet in the Eleventh Bavarian Regiment at the end of World War I, later obtaining a diploma in agriculture from Munich
Technical High School where he studied from 1918 to 1922.
After working briefly as a salesman for a firm of fertilizer manufacturers, the young Himmler joined a para-military, nationalist organization and participated in the Munich Beer-Hall putsch of November 1923 as standard-bearer at the side of Ernst Rohm, Secretary to Gregor Strasser and his deputy district leader in Bavaria, Swabia and the Palatinate, he was also acting propaganda leader of the NSDAP from 1925 to 1930.
After marrying in 1927, Himmler returned to poultry farming for a time but was singularly unsuccessful in the business of raising chickens. In January
1929 he was appointed head of Hitler's personal bodyguard, the black-shirted
Schutzstaffel (SS), at that time a small body of 200 men which was subsequently to become under his leadership an all-embracing empire within the Nazi State.
Elected in 1930 to the Reichstag as Nazi deputy for Weser-Ems, Himmler concentrated on extending SS membership - which reached 52,000 by 1933 - and securing its independence from control by Rohm's SA, to which it was initially subordinated. He organized the Security Service (SD) under Reinhard
Heydrich, originally an ideological intelligence service of the Party, and together the two men ensured that the Nazis consolidated their power over
Bavaria in 1933.
In March 1933 Himmler was appointed Munich Police President and shortly afterwards he became Commander of the political police throughout Bavaria. In
September 1933 he was made Commander of all political police units outside
Prussia and, though formally under Goering , became head of the Prussian
Police and Gestapo on 20 April 1934. The turning-point in Himmler's career was his masterminding of the purge of 30 June 1934 which smashed the power of the SA and paved the way for the emergence of the SS as an independent organization charged with 'safeguarding the . . . embodiment of the National
Dawidowicz, Lucy S.. The war against the Jews, 1933-1945. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1975.
The Holocaust was one of the greatest tragedies the world has ever known. There were many key people who participated in this outrageous genocide however some get more attention then others. Adolf Eichmann is a classic example. Eichmann was a self-proclaimed “Jewish Specialist” and head of the Gestapo Department. Eichmann was responsible for keeping every train rolling right into the stations of the concentration and death camps during the holocaust. Now we will take a look into Eichmann’s childhood, life experiences, and his later actions to see what shaped into a man of hatred towards the Jewish race.
In 1933, Heinrich Himmler, the Chief of Police in Munich at the time, conversed with officials of a abandoned gunpowder factory, later, Himmler traveled to this factory to see if it could hold prisoners. In that same year, the first elimination camp was opened. The building of Dachau, concentration camp, led to the construction of hundreds of other camps used to eliminate the Jews.
"Jewish Uprising in Ghettos and Camps, 1941-1944". United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. United States Holocaust Memorial
Hitler and the Nazi Party's Total Control Over the Lives of German People from 1933-1945
The Nazi Party, and its leader Adolf Hitler, were an unchallenged political group. Following the final deal in January of 1933, Hitler secured the position of chancellorship. From there, he continued working, in order to ensure that the NSDAP would not be challenged politically. Firstly, he used the Reichstag fire to enact the Decree for the Protection of People and State. This took away any civil liberties from the people of Germany, and gave legal basis for the Nazi party to imprison and silence any opposition. This was a key step to ensure the establishment of a totalitarian regime, as it greatly increased the power of the Nazi’s and greatly diminished the power of any opposition, both at the federal and state level. Following this, the Enabling Act was passed in parliament, which gave Hitler the ability to pass laws without the Reichstag. Through
Heinrich Himmler was the Reich Leader of the SS of the Nazi party from 1929 until 1945. Himmler controlled a huge ideological and bureaucratic empire that made him distinct for many, both inside and outside the Third Reich, as the second most influential man in Germany behind Hitler himself, during World War II. Given overall responsibility for the security of the Nazi empire, Himmler was the senior Nazi official responsible for conceiving and overseeing execution of the Final Solution, the Nazi plan to rid Europe of Jews. Himmler was born into a middle-class, Catholic family in Munich, Germany, on October 7, 1900. His father, taught at Ludwig high school gymnasium in Munich. In 1913, Himmler's family relocated to Landshut, a town located about 40 miles northeast of Munich, after Himmler’s father took the job of assistant principal of the Gymnasium in Landshut. An intelligent man with good capacity for organization, young Himmler was passionately patriotic. During World War I, he fantasized of service on the front as an officer, left high school to begin training as an officer. On November 11, 1918, however, before Himmler's training was through, Germany signed the armistice that would end World War I. Crushing Himmler’s dream of serving.
"Perpetrators." A Teacher's Guide to the Holocaust. University of South Florida, 1 Jan. 1997. Web. 19 May 2014. .
After World War II the world began to here accounts of the atrocities and crimes committed by the Nazi’s to the Jews and other enemies of the Nazis. The international community wanted answers and called for the persecution of the criminals that participated in the murder of millions throughout Europe. The SS was responsible for playing a leading role in the Holocaust for the involvement in the death of millions of innocent lives. Throughout, Europe concentration camps were established to detain Jews, political prisoners, POW’s and enemies of the Third Reich. The largest camp during World War II was Auschwitz under the command of SS Lieutenant Colonel Rudolf Hoess; Auschwitz emerged as the site for the largest mass murder in the history of the world. (The, 2005)
Adolf Hitler and his regime had a devastating effect on the twentieth century. Hitler’s third Reich (1933-1934) was supposed to last for 1000 years but only lasted twelve. This evil man legalised the destruction of an entire race of people. He plunged “the world into one of the bloodiest and most destructive wars in history.” (Shirer, 1961)
The Holocaust an event so horrendous that uttering its name makes grown men tremble. The Nazi Party's wrath seemed unstoppable, likewise to a school bully picking its victims without the slightest of remorse. The events of the Holocaust were inhumane and discusting and are incapable of adaquate description through this paper or any for that matter. Eventhough the Holocaust has such an infamous negative connotation, it remains to be one of the most internationally well-known historical topics. The mystery that is Hitler, the mastermind behind the entire plot, is one code that may stay uncrackable for eternity. We are not completely in the dark as to his thoughts toward the "Final Solution" he meticulously devised though.
In the 1932 election, the Nazi Party gained about 40% of the votes for the German Parliament which was the most votes of the election leaving the Nazi Party as the controlling political party (Hitler). Hitler was appointed chancellor of the German government and he used his title to gain absolute power over the nation after the president died in office (Hitler). Later, he took the role of leader and dictator of Germany.
www.holocaustresearchproject.org. 14 March 2014 . "The Einsatzgruppen: Babi Yar." 2014. www.jewishvirtuallibrary.com.
Joseph Stalin became leader of the USSR after Lenin’s death in 1924. Lenin had a government of abstemious communist government. When Stalin came into government he moved to a radical communist society. He moved away from the somewhat capitalist/communist economy of Lenin time to “modernize” the USSR. He wanted to industrialize and modernize USSR. He had overworked his workers, his people were dying, and most of them in slave labor camps. In fact by doing this Stalin had hindered the USSR and put them even farther back in time.
"Gestapo Torture of Jews in Warsaw Prisons Reported, List of Guilty Nazis Published." . The Global Jewish News Source , 19 October 1942. Web. 10 Dec 2013. .