Who is himmler heinrich

He joined the Freikorps , private armies of right wing veterans who were resentful of Germany's loss in World War I. Yet it was reestablished 15 months later along with the SS, which protected Nazi Party leaders throughout Germany. In January Himmler was appointed head of the SS, a small body of men that he would soon transform into the racist and deadly army of the Nazi police state.

By Himmler's SS numbered 52, members of Hitler's "master race. To distinguish his troops, he introduced black SS uniforms that were unlike the SA's brown shirts. As a result, Himmler became chief of the German Police, including the Gestapo, the secret police. Holocaust Administrator Coupling his power with a fanatical belief in the racist Nazi ideology, Himmler then organized and administered Nazi Germany's extermination camps.

During a speech on October 4, , Himmler remarked: "It is one of those things that is easily said. Suicide By Himmler's Waffen-SS, a military branch formed in , numbered , troops, but he had lost all hope for a German victory. Majdanek served time to time as a killing center, used primarily to kill forced Jewish laborers who were too weak to work. The last camp Himmler designated as a killing center was Auschwitz-Birkenau in the spring of Standing as a symbol for the Holocaust and the Nazi camp system, approximately one million Jewish men, women, and children from various European countries perished at Auschwitz.

Under the direction of Himmler, the Nazis murdered nearly 2,, Jews, political prisoners, Roma, a-socials, homosexuals, and others in these killing centers by either asphyxiation with gas or shooting. A photo of bodies discovered in a storeroom at Auschwitz. Death was a common sight throughout Himmler's concentration camp system. After a failed assassination attempt on Hitler in July , Himmler began to formulate a negotiation for a separate peace with the western Allies while Germany continued to fight the Soviet Union.

He even considered using prisoners within the concentration camps as a bargaining chip to initiate the negotiations. The Allies, though, could not consider negotiating with a man who was as implicated in Nazi war crimes as Himmler.

Himmler attempted to escape the Third Reich by dressing in a Secret Field Police uniform and shaving his mustache, equipped with papers assigned to Heinrich Hitzinger. He was captured by Russians on May 20, and then turned over to the British, to whom he confessed his identity. Three days later, on May 23, , Himmler committed suicide by biting on a cyanide capsule that was hidden in his mouth. The body of Heinrich Himmler following his suicide while in British custody.

Seventy five years later, when looking upon the legacy left behind by Himmler, it is a legacy of terror and violence. Himmler managed to use his own position and privileges to put in place his racist views across Europe and the Soviet Union. This article is part of an ongoing series commemorating the 75th anniversary of the end of World War II made possible by Bank of America.

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Himmler was obsessed with racial purity in Germany and encouraged Aryan 'breeding programmes'. The outbreak of World War Two allowed Himmler to pursue another racial goal - the elimination of Jews and other so-called 'sub-humans'. After Germany's invasion of Poland, Himmler was given total control of the annexed parts of the country. Within a year more than one million Poles and , Jews had been forced out to be replaced with German settlers.

By June , when Germany invaded the Soviet Union, Himmler controlled not only the police but the political administration of the occupied territories and, through his control of the SS, the concentration camp system.

In , Hitler appointed Himmler minister for the interior. In this post he oversaw the 'Final Solution' - the attempt to exterminate all the Jewish people in Europe - and administered the system of forced labour. After the failed attempt on Hitler's life in July , Himmler's position was strengthened still further.

But as Germany's defeat became imminent, Himmler made attempts to negotiate with the Allies. Hitler was furious and stripped Himmler of all his offices.