- 2 days ago
For educational purposes
Part 2 looks at Heinrich Himmler, the most powerful man in the Third Reich after Hitler.
The SS expanded rapidly under Himmler's efficient leadership and soon cast a black shadow over Germany.
Himmler chose the castle of Wewelburg in Westphalia as the centre of the SS cult, and invented a glorious historical past and a pseudo-religion.
Eyewitness accounts include :
- SS doctor Ernst Günther Schreck.
- Former concentration camp inmate Max Hollweg. - Former German army officer Bernd Freytag von Loringhoven.
- Himmler's personal staff member Gabriele Winckler.
- Florentine Rost van Tonningen who was a friend of Himmler's and the wife of an SS officer.
Part 2 looks at Heinrich Himmler, the most powerful man in the Third Reich after Hitler.
The SS expanded rapidly under Himmler's efficient leadership and soon cast a black shadow over Germany.
Himmler chose the castle of Wewelburg in Westphalia as the centre of the SS cult, and invented a glorious historical past and a pseudo-religion.
Eyewitness accounts include :
- SS doctor Ernst Günther Schreck.
- Former concentration camp inmate Max Hollweg. - Former German army officer Bernd Freytag von Loringhoven.
- Himmler's personal staff member Gabriele Winckler.
- Florentine Rost van Tonningen who was a friend of Himmler's and the wife of an SS officer.
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LearningTranscript
00:28Transcription by CastingWords
00:30On the 20th of April, 1945, the Second World War was almost over.
00:34The Soviet army closed in on Hitler's bunker in the centre of Berlin.
00:38His most trusted deputy slipped away to a secret rendezvous.
00:44In a villa north of Berlin, Heinrich Himmler committed high treason behind his leader's back.
00:50To save his own skin, he met an envoy from the Jewish World Congress.
00:55Himmler, the very man who'd orchestrated the massacre of the Jews,
00:59now secretly proposed an end to the Holocaust as part of a peace deal with the West.
01:06Heinrich Himmler was chief of the notorious SS, one of the most murderous organisations in history.
01:12His men were bound by oath to torture and kill without question.
01:25Himmler was an unlikely mass murderer.
01:30Himmler actually appeared quite shy, not at all self-confident or military or in any way brutal.
01:39He could change in a flash to someone very different.
01:44One minute he was this nice jovial man who you could talk to.
01:49And the next, he was a bloodthirsty tyrant who tortured other human beings.
01:55This man of violent contradictions led the Nazi crusade that drove many of his compatriots
02:00to commit some of the most bestial war crimes ever known.
02:05They knew what they were doing.
02:07Everyone in Germany has known the Ten Commandments for hundreds of years.
02:10Everyone has a conscience and you'd have to kill it dead to join something like that.
02:15Himmler was born in Munich in 1900, in the heyday of imperial Germany.
02:22The Himmlers were a pious middle-class family.
02:26Heinrich had a respectable childhood.
02:29He revered his father, a schoolteacher and devout Catholic,
02:33who had tutored the crown prince of Bavaria.
02:36There was no sign of fascism or anti-Semitism in the conservative Himmler family.
02:44He was the son of a Bavarian teacher and was greatly influenced by his parental home
02:49and there was always something pedantic and schoolmasterly about him.
02:55Intensely patriotic, the adolescent Himmler longed to serve as an officer
03:00for the German imperial forces during the First World War.
03:03His family backed this ambition.
03:07I love warfare, he wrote in his diary.
03:10But by the time he was old enough, Germany was defeated.
03:15Missing out on the war tormented him for the rest of his life.
03:22Defeat in the First World War shook the foundations of German society to the core.
03:27Under a new centre-left government, the Weimar Republic,
03:31Germany faced civil war as left-fought right.
03:36While studying agriculture in Munich,
03:39Himmler joined the right-wing militia of the Freikorps.
03:41They were armed, violent and anti-Semitic.
03:47His reading list for 1922 included many anti-Jewish tracts.
03:56In the failed coup of 1923,
03:59it was none other than Himmler who carried the flag for the Nazis on the streets of Munich.
04:06After the coup was crushed,
04:08Himmler spent several years trying to make it as a chicken farmer,
04:11but he remained a fanatical supporter of Hitler.
04:17Hitler was closely protected by his bodyguard,
04:20the Schutzstaffel, or SS.
04:22In 1929, he made Himmler its chief.
04:26Himmler completely devoted himself to Hitler.
04:30For him, that was it.
04:31He had taken an oath of allegiance.
04:33My honour lies in loyalty.
04:38Himmler saw the SS as an order of German knights.
04:42This new cast of farmer warriors
04:44would secure the future of the master race.
04:47They would fight to reclaim and defend
04:49the sacred soil of the fatherland.
04:55Himmler saw himself, above all, as a farmer.
04:59And he believed, if you ruin a farmer,
05:01you ruin the land.
05:03Then you become dependent on others.
05:06And that is the downfall of a nation.
05:12The one-time farmer idealised country life
05:15as the destiny of the German people,
05:18untouched by urban decadence or racial impurity.
05:21He dreamt the SS would recolonise what he called
05:25the ancient Germanic settlement areas
05:27to the east of the fatherland.
05:52In 1934, Himmler and the SS
05:55made their big breakthrough to power.
05:58That summer, in a wave of killings,
06:00they swept aside the SA,
06:02their main rivals for power in the Nazi state.
06:05Armed and above the law,
06:07Himmler's SS soon controlled the concentration camps
06:10and the Gestapo, the Nazi secret police.
06:13In three years,
06:15he transformed the small unit of bodyguards
06:17into a fearsome organ of terror,
06:19over 50,000 strong.
06:23He was the leader of Hitler's personal guard,
06:27which had started off as really small,
06:29just a few men.
06:31Then it suddenly expanded
06:32and burst out of its confines.
06:36Many Germans aspired to be SS men.
06:40Till 1935,
06:42Himmler himself handpicked recruits to his new elite.
06:46They had to be perfect physical specimens,
06:49preferably blonde and blue-eyed.
06:52They also had to be unconditionally devoted to Hitler,
06:56Germany's leader since 1933.
06:59Himmler boasted to SS comrades
07:01that he'd even shoot his own mother if Hitler ordered it.
07:05He saw the SS as a Germanic or Aryan killer elite.
07:11Members of the Aryan race
07:13were those who looked straight ahead, you see.
07:14Guts, stamina, self-discipline.
07:17My grandfather used to say,
07:18keep a smile on your face until you breathe your last.
07:22He tried to ensure that his men
07:24were regularly indoctrinated
07:25with Nazi theories of Aryan supremacy.
07:30He wanted this racism
07:32to be the organising principle
07:33of the Nazi killer state,
07:35with the SS as its executioner.
07:38We are the race that must rule the world.
07:43That's what they said to us.
07:44And all other races
07:46must be subordinated to the Aryan race.
07:49They are no more than slaves.
07:51We rule the whole world.
07:54Franciscan novice Gerion Goldmann
07:57joined the SS security forces
07:58to escape frontline military service.
08:01He was shocked by what he found.
08:05Not a word about religion.
08:08Nothing.
08:09Their religion was simply the Aryan race,
08:13which was what they took as their creed.
08:16Himmler turned a Westphalian castle
08:18into the centre of this new pseudo-religion.
08:22Obsessed with the occult,
08:23he believed Weyvelsburg
08:24was a sacred Germanic site
08:26and made it the centre
08:27of a bizarre SS cult.
08:29He imagined the 12 most senior
08:31SS commanders would meet here,
08:33just like the knights of the round table.
08:36Himmler believed his new SS faith
08:39would replace Christianity.
08:45Himmler's aim was to establish the Weyvelsburg
08:48as the headquarters of the SS,
08:51with everything that stood for the SS.
08:56If an SS man got married,
08:58he could go there and receive his SS ring.
09:02If he later fell in battle,
09:04the SS ring was to be brought back
09:06to the Weyvelsburg and kept there.
09:14Only senior SS men could wear the ring,
09:17which bore ancient Germanic symbols on the outside
09:20and on the inside, Himmler's signature.
09:23It was also inscribed with the SS's most sinister symbol,
09:28the Death's Head.
09:31Weyvelsburg was one of Himmler's consuming passions.
09:38He oversaw the entire project.
09:42Outside its walls,
09:43a concentration camp was built,
09:45supplying cheap labour for his lavish SS castle.
09:51SS ritual coexisted with SS terror.
10:00In the cult room above the mausoleum,
10:05the columned room,
10:06we sanded down the marble floors by hand.
10:20The SS imprisoned Max Holweg
10:22for refusing to serve in the armed forces.
10:25He then experienced their expertise in torture.
10:36Malnutrition, maltreatment,
10:39punishment that harked back to the Middle Ages.
10:51Your hands were tied behind your back,
10:55lifted up until your shoulder joints dislocated.
10:58And if your body stretched so that the ends of your feet
11:01touched the ground,
11:03then you would be lifted higher again.
11:12Himmler was Lord of Weyvelsburg.
11:18He paid one mark a year for it,
11:21a peppercorn rent.
11:23But he lavished 13 million marks on rebuilding it.
11:29Its design and reconstruction
11:31was carried on by a team of SS experts.
11:35The adjoining village would be flattened.
11:39At the heart of the castle,
11:41the SS elite would have their own realm of the dead.
11:44A stone crypt with walls five feet thick,
11:47where the most senior SS comrades,
11:49the Obergruppenführer,
11:51would be cremated and buried.
12:21Himmler would use the SS.
12:22to try and realize his master's dreams of world domination.
12:29Opposed to Christianity,
12:31Himmler forbade all SS men from having a Christian wedding.
12:40You didn't need a pastor or a priest.
12:42You could do it yourself.
12:46An SS wedding was carried out at home,
12:49with lovely music,
12:51a few close friends,
12:53and the whole family.
12:55Many SS men broke these rules
12:58and remained Christians.
12:59Himmler persisted.
13:01A committed pagan,
13:02he cultivated astrologists and clairvoyants.
13:05Even Albert Speer,
13:07a fellow Nazi,
13:08described him as half schoolmaster,
13:10half crank.
13:12A vegetarian keen on homeopathy,
13:15Himmler recommended his forces to follow suit
13:17and eat leeks for breakfast.
13:19To many SS men,
13:21these were crazy pipe dreams.
13:24His hope was that after the war,
13:27he probably knew that it wouldn't be possible during the war,
13:29he could turn all his troops into vegetarians,
13:33feed them an alcohol-free,
13:34nicotine-free diet.
13:36That was his vision for the future,
13:38and he believed that this would be the best way
13:40to continue to breed a superior German race.
13:45Himmler's demand for undying loyalty from his troops
13:48was far more successful.
13:50It's what made them such formidable warriors.
13:54The combat troops of his Waffen-SS
13:56were widely hated and feared.
14:00If they took heavy losses,
14:02they'd still fight on.
14:04They'd obey orders,
14:05even if it meant committing war crimes.
14:07Like Himmler,
14:08many of them believed some lives
14:10were worth a lot more than others.
14:13Of the other people in Wohlfahrt live,
14:16of they were wrecked for hunger,
14:18that's interested me just so much,
14:21as we as Sklaven for our culture need.
14:24Otherwise I don't care about it.
14:26If at the back of the Panzergraven
14:2910.000 russies of women
14:32are in the army,
14:34or not,
14:35that's interested me just so much,
14:37as the Panzergraven for Germany
14:39is finished.
14:41Himmler's utter contempt
14:42for Slavs and Jews
14:44contrasted savagely
14:45with his love of the master race.
14:48He urged all racially pure Germans
14:50to have as many children as they could,
14:53while inferior races
14:54should wither away and die out.
14:58Once he had the power
15:00to translate his racism into action,
15:02he made sure the SS
15:03didn't spare non-Aryan children.
15:07By contrast,
15:08he saw Aryan babies
15:10as the best guarantee
15:11of the SS's future.
15:14In December 1935,
15:17he created a sinister new organisation,
15:20the Lebensborn,
15:21or Spring of Life.
15:22It provided homes
15:24where unmarried German mothers
15:25could give birth
15:26to pure Aryan children.
15:29He made it SS policy
15:31that any foreign children
15:32believed to be racially pure
15:34were imported into Germany.
15:36In 1941,
15:38he commanded that any strong,
15:39healthy, blonde orphans
15:41found in Poland
15:41were to be sent to the Reich
15:43for Germanisation.
15:48The children were separated
15:50into 10 or 12 different racial groups.
15:53I, thank goodness,
15:55belonged to the
15:55ultra-Aryan group,
15:57Group 1A.
15:59These children
16:00were only allowed
16:01to be adopted
16:02by Nazi party members
16:03who had a university degree.
16:05to be adopted.
16:07So,
16:07let's make the eyes
16:08very big open
16:09and look at me.
16:11Yes.
16:13Georg Weber,
16:14eyes color 2A.
16:15Human beings
16:16were measured and catalogued.
16:18Eye color and skull shape
16:19determined racial value.
16:22Similarly,
16:23there were strict tests
16:24of health and race
16:25for SS men
16:26and their fiancés.
16:54Himmler hoped
16:56these SS marriages
16:57would help create
16:58the next generation
16:59of the master race,
17:00consolidating the rule
17:01of the Third Reich.
17:03He ordered SS bachelors
17:05to get married fast.
17:07He encouraged SS promiscuity
17:09and premarital sex.
17:12When Himmler sat next to me
17:14on my wedding day,
17:15he asked whether
17:16I already had a child.
17:19No, no, come along,
17:20I said,
17:21for I was a respectable girl.
17:25SS men were ordered
17:26to have at least
17:27four children,
17:28preferably sons,
17:29in or out of wedlock.
17:32Home leave was often given
17:34to stimulate procreation.
17:38Childless SS men
17:39were paid less.
17:41Himmler encouraged them
17:42to make as many women
17:43pregnant as possible,
17:44as long as they were
17:45of German stock.
17:50Then suddenly,
17:52the adjutant came
17:53and said,
17:53now I'm going to say
17:55something that is
17:56for your ears.
17:56only.
17:57You must not speak
17:59of it outside.
18:00This is an order
18:02of the day
18:02from Himmler
18:03to the SS.
18:05Then he read it out
18:06to us.
18:07So many young German men
18:09have died
18:09in the Polish campaign
18:11and they must be
18:12replaced.
18:14And in Germany,
18:15swarms of suitable girls
18:16are waiting
18:17for the soldiers,
18:18girls who would
18:19gladly sleep with them
18:20to give the Führer
18:22new children.
18:25He said that
18:26straight out.
18:30Himmler considered
18:31this order
18:32to be promiscuous,
18:33perfectly logical.
18:35For many SS men,
18:37it was immoral
18:37and offensive.
18:39The soldiers
18:40sat there in silence.
18:42You could tell
18:43how angry they were.
18:45Hitler forced him
18:46to revoke the order,
18:48but Himmler
18:48was an incurable
18:49fantasist.
18:52In his quest
18:53for Nazi heroes,
18:55the SS chief
18:55ransacked
18:56German history.
19:01In Kvetlingberg
19:03Cathedral,
19:03he performed
19:04a strange ritual
19:05in the crypt
19:05to commemorate
19:06the thousandth anniversary
19:08of the death
19:08of the Saxon king
19:09Heinrich.
19:23King Heinrich
19:24had created
19:25the first-ever
19:26German kingdom.
19:40Himmler believed
19:41that Heinrich's
19:41spirit spoke to him
19:42and that he had
19:43a deep bond
19:44with the dead king.
19:46He felt that
19:47he was the
19:48reincarnation
19:48of Heinrich I.
19:50He was the Aryan
19:51type he presumed
19:52Heinrich to be,
19:54and in his mind
19:55believed he was
19:56his descendant.
20:00Himmler was determined
20:01to rewrite history
20:02in support
20:03of his racial theories.
20:05In 1935,
20:07he created
20:08a special SS department,
20:09the Ahnenerbe,
20:10or Ancestral Heritage Group.
20:12Their task
20:13was to find
20:14historical proof
20:15of the destiny
20:16of the master race.
20:19In their search
20:20for Aryan forebears,
20:21they looked
20:22for Atlantis
20:23in Venezuela.
20:27They even searched
20:29for Aryan ancestors
20:30in Tibet.
20:34Leading professors
20:35joined the SS
20:36to carry out research
20:38for the Ahnenerbe.
20:41Himmler had their finds
20:43sent off
20:43to SS-run museums.
20:46He also ordered excavations
20:48in Lüneburg,
20:50home to ancient
20:50Germanic tribes.
20:53He oversaw
20:54the dig himself.
20:55He wanted the SS
20:56to pursue archaeological
20:58finds as systematically
20:59as they harmed
21:00enemies of the state.
21:26Himmler believed
21:28ancient history
21:29would help prove
21:29the superiority
21:30of the master race.
21:33But the Ahnenerbe
21:34often couldn't provide him
21:36with the evidence
21:36he required.
21:38He gave the order
21:40to find the remains
21:41of Heinrich
21:42at all costs.
21:43They just had
21:45to be somewhere.
21:46When the SS
21:47couldn't find
21:48the king's remains,
21:49they picked a stand-in.
21:54But they weren't
21:56to be found.
21:57And so,
21:58out of the catacombs
21:59of the crypt,
22:00they unearthed
22:00the bones of noble women
22:01who were buried there.
22:03And a year later,
22:04proclaimed them
22:05to be Heinrich's remains.
22:09Hitler was unimpressed
22:11by many of Himmler's
22:12pagan fantasies.
22:13He permitted them
22:14because he knew
22:15how vital the SS
22:16was to Nazi rule.
22:18For his part,
22:19Himmler believed
22:20Hitler was the greatest
22:21genius ever.
22:22Gripped by the Fuhrer's charisma,
22:24Himmler worshipped him
22:25as the Nazi saviour,
22:27spiritually predestined
22:28to change the world.
22:33Himmler had a penchant
22:35for the esoteric.
22:36And if you have
22:37such leanings,
22:38then you are more
22:39susceptible to personalities
22:40with strong magnetism.
22:44And especially Himmler,
22:45at the beginning,
22:46when he built up
22:48the police state.
22:50He had a strong
22:51fixation for Hitler.
22:58From the start,
23:00Himmler's police state
23:01was predicated on terror.
23:05The Nazis had already
23:07pioneered the use
23:08of concentration camps
23:09for political prisoners.
23:13Himmler planned to make
23:14the camps the centerpiece
23:15of his police state,
23:16combining systematic murder
23:18with arbitrary brutality.
23:22He put his own SS
23:23death's head units
23:25in charge of the camps
23:26to brutalize and murder
23:27Hitler's opponents.
23:32Hitler once in my presence
23:33turned the conversation
23:34at table to Himmler
23:35and the concentration camps.
23:38But that was quite typical.
23:41You see, the impression
23:42had to be created
23:43that they were labor camps.
23:45And Hitler mentioned
23:45that Himmler employed
23:46an ingenious system.
23:49For example,
23:50he made a notorious arsonist
23:51responsible for the fire watch.
23:53And of course, Himmler said,
23:55you can be certain,
23:56Mein Führer,
23:57that no fire will break out there.
24:03So you really got the feeling
24:04that it was a well-organized
24:06labor camp,
24:07cleverly run
24:08from a psychological perspective.
24:14Himmler invited
24:15an eight-year-old girl
24:16to his first new SS camp
24:18at Dachau.
24:21We saw the herb garden,
24:23the pear trees
24:24and the pictures
24:24that the prisoners painted.
24:26Wonderful.
24:28Afterwards,
24:29we had a very good lunch.
24:34The young diarist
24:36was Gudrun Himmler,
24:37his daughter.
24:39After the war,
24:40she would describe her father
24:42as a loving human being.
24:44Her mother, Marga,
24:45seems to have enjoyed
24:46a happy marriage
24:47to the SS chief,
24:48despite Himmler's
24:49later infidelity.
24:53She always sat there
24:54very still,
24:55but it was always
24:56somehow positive.
24:57She had a definite presence,
25:00even if she didn't say anything.
25:03And Gudrun was so little
25:04at the time.
25:06When he was there
25:07and Gudrun was with him,
25:09he was terribly nice to her.
25:14What Gudrun didn't see
25:15were the perverse experiments
25:17being carried out
25:18in the name of science.
25:20Himmler took a particular interest
25:22in the murderous work
25:23carried out in block five.
25:26He had a friend and protégé
25:28in Dr. Sigmund Rasha.
25:30Himmler encouraged him
25:32to use humans
25:32as fodder for his research.
25:35One experiment on hypothermia
25:37involved complete immersion
25:39in ice-cold water.
25:40Dr. Rasha said,
25:43so in you get you, scoundrel.
25:45And I got in.
25:48Jesse Schibeck
25:49was one of many prisoners
25:50exposed to extreme hypothermia.
25:53Only a few survived.
25:57All at once I felt cold
25:59and pain in my knee
26:00and terrible pains
26:02all over my hands.
26:04And then I lost consciousness.
26:11In a letter to Russia,
26:12Himmler requested
26:13further experiments
26:14and asked to be kept up to date.
26:18Rasha obliged.
26:19He carried out lethal experiments
26:21to test pilots' ability
26:22to fly at high altitude.
26:25There were further casualties.
26:27In the air pressure experiments alone,
26:29over 80 people were killed.
26:35Himmler was completely indifferent
26:37to their fate.
26:40In Poland in September 1939,
26:43SS combat troops
26:45fought alongside the soldiers
26:46of the regular German army.
26:52Behind the lines,
26:53other SS units liquidated
26:55the Nazis' political opponents.
27:00Hitler took great pride
27:02in the military exploits
27:03of the SS.
27:04One of its commanding officers,
27:06Sepp Dietrich,
27:07here seen with Himmler,
27:08was regarded as a Nazi hero.
27:11Many regular German soldiers
27:13suspected the SS leader's
27:15long-term plans.
27:19I felt that I felt there was
27:22that I felt there was something
27:22almost repulsive about him.
27:25He was always very pasty-faced,
27:28made an unhealthy impression
27:30and was nervous in his movements.
27:35He covered it up by being
27:36very self-assertive.
27:41But nevertheless,
27:42I somehow had an instinctive feeling.
27:45Behind this man,
27:46there is something horrifying.
27:52Behind the lines in Poland,
27:54Himmler's intentions soon became clear.
27:56The SS mission was persecution,
27:59ethnic cleansing,
28:00and murder.
28:04Within a year,
28:05Himmler's men had terrorized
28:07and uprooted a million Poles
28:08and 300,000 Jews.
28:12But Hitler soon wanted to pursue
28:15his racial ideology
28:16to its murderous conclusion.
28:18He knew that in this,
28:20Himmler and his right-hand man,
28:22Reinhard Heydrich,
28:23would obey him without question.
28:25By 1941,
28:27Himmler had developed the SS
28:28into a perfect instrument
28:30of mass murder.
28:31It now numbered nearly
28:32a quarter of a million men
28:33and was still growing fast.
28:36Himmler was a man
28:40with tremendous energy
28:41and enormous drive.
28:48That's why he was able
28:49to be such a fatefully
28:50perfect organizer.
28:55With the invasion
28:56of the Soviet Union
28:57in June 1941,
28:59a new phase began.
29:01The Eastern Front
29:02was the scene
29:03of an SS war of extermination.
29:07Behind the front lines
29:08were the SS Einsatzgruppen,
29:10or task forces,
29:11whose mission was
29:12to subjugate all Slavs
29:13and annihilate all Jews.
29:16Their victims often
29:17suspected nothing.
29:21When the war began,
29:22we wanted to flee,
29:23but my grandfather said,
29:25what if the Germans do come?
29:27I know them
29:27from the First World War.
29:29They are very cultured people.
29:32What could be better
29:33than German culture?
29:42The SS often forced
29:44their victims
29:44to dig their own graves.
29:50Within six months,
29:52the Einsatzgruppen
29:53murdered at least
29:54half a million people.
29:56In August 1941,
29:58Himmler visited
29:59the front line
29:59at Minsk, Russia.
30:02Unlike Hitler,
30:04he personally witnessed
30:05the SS murdering Jews
30:06several times.
30:09That day,
30:10he ordered
30:11SS Einsatzgruppe B
30:12to carry out
30:13a mass shooting
30:14as soon as possible.
30:18The SS men
30:19duly obeyed.
30:25Outside the city gates,
30:27a hundred prisoners
30:28were led to a freshly
30:29dug trench.
30:30They were ordered
30:31to climb down
30:32and lie in it,
30:33face down.
30:34Then the SS
30:35opened fire.
30:38After the war,
30:39Himmler's adjutant,
30:40Karl Wolf,
30:41described the scene.
30:44Dann blieb
30:46natürlich nicht aus,
30:48dass der Reichsführer
30:49da reingeguckt hat,
30:51dass hier von
30:52diesen Schüssen,
30:53Kopfschüssen,
30:55also Gehirnmassen
30:56rausspritzen
30:57in hohem Bogen
30:58und den Reichsführer
31:00an seinen Mantel
31:01spritzten.
31:06Er hat so gezittert,
31:08nicht wahr?
31:09Er hat sich
31:09natürlich wahnsinnig
31:10geekelt.
31:11Und wie er das
31:12das sah,
31:13dann begann er
31:14zu wanken
31:15und zu taumeln.
31:18Sickened
31:18by what he saw,
31:20Himmler nearly fainted.
31:21His personal physician
31:22was summoned.
31:26The impression
31:27that my father
31:27got when Himmler
31:29came back
31:29from the firing
31:30squads
31:30was that he
31:31found it dreadful
31:32and repulsive
31:33and he felt sick.
31:39Himmler's own
31:40revulsion mirrored
31:41that of many
31:42SS men,
31:43wearied by
31:43mass slaughter.
31:48So,
31:49another way
31:50had to be found
31:51to better realise
31:52the Fuhrer's goal
31:53of exterminating
31:54human beings.
31:55Shooting
31:56was no good.
31:57An alternative
31:58method
31:58had to be found.
32:01A more efficient
32:02agent of death
32:03was soon farmed.
32:05Gas.
32:06First the Nazis
32:07used carbon monoxide
32:08and later
32:09a prussic acid gas,
32:11Zyklon B.
32:12This new form
32:14of industrialised
32:15murder
32:15was far more
32:16efficient
32:16and less labour
32:17intensive
32:18than shootings.
32:19In the death camps
32:20the SS now used
32:22gas to carry out
32:23what the Nazis
32:23euphemistically called
32:24the final solution,
32:26the elimination
32:27of all Jews.
32:30And they were all
32:31asked how old,
32:32wie alt, wie alt,
32:33and I just remembered
32:34and I said achtzin.
32:38And there was my mother
32:40and she said
32:42vier und vierzig.
32:45So she went there
32:47and I went here.
32:50I was pushed back.
32:52So this is the last
32:54I saw of my mother.
32:56She just wasn't
32:57selected for life.
33:01At Auschwitz
33:02between one
33:03and two million Jews
33:04were gassed to death.
33:07Himmler himself
33:08had suggested it
33:09as an ideal site
33:10for a death camp.
33:14On the 17th of July
33:161942,
33:17soon after Auschwitz
33:18was built,
33:19Himmler paid a visit
33:20following a trip
33:21to the front lines
33:22in the east.
33:24449 Dutch Jews
33:26were ordered to get
33:27undressed
33:27and take a shower.
33:30Deception was a key
33:31component of the
33:32SS death machine.
33:34Himmler watched
33:35through a viewing window.
33:40The people went in.
33:42They were still laughing
33:44and they asked
33:45where they were
33:46and we had to keep quiet
33:48and say nothing
33:48about what was going
33:49to happen to them.
33:51If we told them,
33:53then they suffered
33:54even more.
33:55They started screaming
33:57and crying.
33:59Himmler saw the gas chambers
34:01as the perfect answer
34:02to the so-called
34:03Jewish question.
34:52In August 1943,
34:56Hitler rewarded Himmler by appointing him Minister of the Interior Himmler was
35:04now the second most powerful man in the Third Reich yet he remained quiet and
35:11unassuming once it so happened that Himmler escorted me to dinner you see
35:20every man was assigned a female partner at table the table arrangements had
35:24always been made beforehand and that was the first time I actually really met
35:31Himmler personally in a private capacity and my first impression was that he was
35:36actually quite an inconspicuous and insignificant man more a senior
35:41schoolmaster type as Hitler's Empire grew Himmler run out of Aryan recruits and
35:50was forced to relax selection policy for SS combat troops
36:09throughout the war Himmler sought to replenish Germanic stock by every means at
36:14his disposal in late 1941 he ordered the mass kidnap of racially pure Polish
36:20children SS men duly obliged combing occupied territories for suitable
36:25candidates off the box the hall woke up cried tired was put on the table then
36:33there were lots of people and two dogs a Lloyd for decky was three when the SS
36:39press came for him I'm gonna fit like you know me mothers had to carry their children for around
36:44three kilometers they were snatched from their arms and distributed between the
36:49trains in the wagons of the sugar and on the wagons it said polish children to feed the right
36:56so and the wrong in spike children from Poland Russia and Ukraine was stolen and imported over 200,000
37:06were adopted by German families loyal to the Nazis many never found out who their real parents were
37:13for 12 years a Lloyd for decky's mother had no news of her son a German couple had adopted him
37:20the
37:21Bindenbergs were Nazi party members with contacts at the highest level one day a Lloyd met an important
37:27visitor at his new home I'm once Himmler was there and he stroked my hand I was blonde and looked
37:36very
37:37angelic he said national comrade or party comrade I can no longer remember exactly what he said you
37:43have a beautiful boy what's your name then I said Alfred my name was originally Alois and then he
37:51stroked my hair and then said come here and sit on my lap and so I sat there yes he
37:57said one day you
37:57will be a good SS officer Himmler himself procreated outside marriage with his secretary and mistress
38:05Hedwig Pothast nicknamed Hessian or bunny there is only one surviving photo of the couple together she
38:14bore Himmler two children the art the way that bunny behaved within the very intimate circle in
38:25which she was known was actually a distinct relief for Himmler he had a certain kind of romantic streak
38:37which he was able to fulfill through her Himmler wanted to divorce his wife Maga but his mistress
38:46discouraged the idea despite his long affair he managed to maintain an affectionate relationship
38:53with Maga seen here after the end of the war with his daughter Gudrun Himmler planned to allow
38:59polygamy for worthy Germanic men fellow Nazi Martin Bormann backs the plan together with Himmler our father
39:13favored the idea that they should be given permission to take a second wife a dynamic become or have a
39:20polygamous marriage after the war to meet in order to replenish the awful loss of life from the war more
39:28quickly because she knew how to fish children by mid-1944 defeat threatened bombing of German cities
39:43intensified forced to retreat on all fronts the Third Reich also faced internal dissent Hitler had long
39:52suspected that some elements in the regular army were opposed to him in July 1944
39:57German dissidents including army officers tried to assassinate him the SS led the campaign of
40:04revenge against the conspirators but secretly Himmler was already looking for a way out he put
40:11out feelers to the West reports to this effect soon landed on the desk of Winston Churchill the British
40:20leader rejected out of hand any possibility of negotiating with the SS chief for me I personally
40:29found it incomprehensible that Himmler could seemingly move in a world that was beyond reality how could he
40:37imagine that after all the atrocities he was responsible for and after this terrible trail of
40:42blood that lay behind him how could he imagine that one of the allied forces would negotiate with him
40:55to the east the mass murder continued the Hungarian Jews were among Himmler's last victims
41:12in Western Europe the SS was supervising the construction of the Nazis new secret weapon
41:23they dreamt it would lay waste to British cities and demoralize the allies it was another futile hope
41:33by late 1944 Himmler was drumming up support for the new volkssturm or people's army a last-ditch Nazi home
41:42guard
42:00the volkssturm was not an intimidating force young boys and old men would be forced to fight against overwhelming odds
42:09some of the Nazis last crimes were against their own
42:14people but now Himmler was given a full military role at the front defying all military advice Hitler made
42:21him commander-in-chief of the rag-tag upper Rhine army at last the SS chief could play the part
42:28of the humble
42:29soldier he was constantly surrounded by senior Waffen SS officers on all possible occasions and by that time
42:37they had received the highest ranking distinctions so their chests were simply glistening with medals
42:42whilst he stood there with nothing more than the golden party insignia outside after a shattering defeat by the
42:51Soviets Himmler was made commander-in-chief of army group Vistola but by mid-January 1945 this too was overrun
42:59by the
42:59Red Army in a supreme irony Himmler had been defeated by Slavs from the east it was just a matter
43:07of time before Berlin fell
43:10crushed Himmler now gave up the fight while his troops fought on in vain he seldom visited his battle headquarters
43:18claiming to have the flu suddenly he was ill all the time he was no longer at his command post
43:25but withdrew to the SS
43:27military hospital in Hohenlücken and took refuge in illness while rivals in the SS sought to dislodge him Himmler
43:35spent his days with his mistress and their children he no longer cared when he was finally stripped of his
43:42military command as his power dissolved his only concern was to find a means of escape evidence of
43:49his crimes was rapidly mounting on the 11th of April 1945 US troops liberated the Buchenwald concentration camp
43:58near Weimar their cameras documented the SS crimes German citizens were shown being led through the camp in
44:05and shame Himmler now found out that he was second on the Allies list of wanted war criminals right after
44:13the Fuhrer himself Hitler made his last public appearance inspecting raw young troops near his
44:20bunker he then sank into a mood of suicidal gloom after his last visit to the bunker Himmler said that
44:31everyone had gone mad then came the meeting in which the SS leader a fantasist till the end placed such
44:40hope it was arranged by his Swedish physician Felix Kerstin Himmler found himself face to face with a
44:48Jewish spokesman Norbert Mazur some asking model must be for the first time Himmler had to confront a
44:59representative of the Jewish World Congress and he was very nervous about how the first 10 seconds of
45:05that famous meeting would transpire and see in the kundin start feeling that Mazur was dumbfounded by what
45:13Himmler had to tell him to save Germany from total defeat the SS leader proposed a new alliance between
45:20Nazi Germany and the Western Allies against the Soviets in a cynical bid to win the trust of the
45:28Western Allies he offered to liberate Jews from the camps he promised Mazur the release of 15,000 women
45:36prisoners including some 2,000 Jews from Ravensbrück the Red Cross soon drove them to freedom he also
45:45tried to bargain over the lives of Hungarian Jews many were released but only thanks to pressure from the
45:51west on the Hungarian government that was a great political operation where we were able to save the
46:00lives of three to four hundred thousand people in the camps that was the most important operation that
46:07we were able to carry out as the Allies advanced Himmler's SS tried desperately to hide any trace of the
46:15mass murders camps were dismantled and evacuated many more Jews died in forced SS marches him the now
46:23made another last-ditch attempt to negotiate with the West his final peace offer was widely publicized in his
46:41bunker Hitler was informed of Himmler's treachery furious he stripped Himmler of all his offices of state I
46:49developed a bar that the world collapsed as Hitler's most loyal follower Himmler on whom he had depended so
46:56much had now as he put it betrayed him the following day Hitler committed suicide but Himmler continued to
47:11resist the inevitable dressed as a sergeant and disguised with an eye patch he tried to mix in with the
47:18defeated troops together with his adjutants he was arrested at a British checkpoint still unrecognized he
47:26was sent for interrogation shortly afterwards he declared his true identity but he was one step ahead
47:33of his captors his adjutants were brought before the cameras they had no idea Himmler was already dead
47:43during a body search Heinrich Himmler had finally taken a way out the only one left through his head away
47:54and clamping down on the doctor's fingers crushed the file of poison which had been carried in his mouth
48:00for hours the British quickly buried Heinrich Himmler he lies in an unmarked grave near Lunenberg where
48:07shortly afterwards the Allies accepted Germany's formal surrender it was an ignominious end for the man who
48:16had craved to die as a German warrior hero regarded as the elite of the SS those of the death's
48:27head
48:28battalions were completely subservient to Hitler and so became willing tools for his genocide we
48:34discover how they were purged of compassion and independent thought after the break
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