Midtown Blogger/Manhattan Valley Follies: Die Welt: Heinrich Himmler's Diaries, Other Stories

Online-Special: "Himmler - Die Handschrift des Massenmörders"

Heinrich Himmler was one of the most powerful Nazi leaders in Adolf Hitler's inner circle. He was the ruthless organizer of the Holocaust, head of the Waffen-SS, Gestapo and the police - responsible for the concentration camps and the death of millions of people. Himmler's private documents have been lost for decades. Only now hundreds of private letters, notes and photos from the private collection of the man who played the decisive role in the mass extermination of Jews have surfaced.

"Die Welt" obtained copies of the previously unpublished documents that have been kept in the private home of an Israeli Jew for a very long time. Eventually they came into the possession of a private archive and are now stored in a bank vault in Tel Aviv. In addition to the letters Himmler wrote to his wife Margarethe (Marga) from 1927 to five weeks before his suicide in 1945, there are many previously unknown photographs, and the estate of Himmler's foster son and other papers such as recipe books.

According to the German Federal Archive's (Bundesarchiv) expert assessment, there is verifiable proof that the documents are authentic. President Michael Hollmann told "Die Welt": "We are sure about these documents." In the expert opinion of the world's most important institution dealing with the written legacy of the "Third Reich", it says: "There is no reason to doubt the authenticity of the documents in Tel Aviv. "

There is conclusive evidence that traces the material to its origin. The letters are often signed "Dein Heini" ("Your Heini") or "Euer Pappi" ("Your Daddy") and the handwriting matches other known documents of Himmler perfectly. His letters also complement exactly his wife's letters, which are kept in the German Federal Archive for many years.

"A dense body of private documents"

The Berlin historian and Nazi expert Michael Wildt describes the find as "a dense body of private documents. There is nothing like it for any other member of the Nazi leadership." Adolf Hitler and his official deputy Hermann Göring left virtually no personal records. Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels, the fourth leading Nazi, left a huge inventory of handwritten diaries and daily dictations. But they are almost, without exception, material for future propaganda and not really private documents.

The hundreds of pages of private correspondence between Heinrich Himmler and Marga only seem mundane at first glance. Especially in the first years of their relationship, when Himmler was not yet at the top level of the Nazi hierarchy, they wrote many seemingly ordinary love letters. But time and again there were signs of Himmler's immeasurable anti-Semitism and his obsessiveness in these early letters of the years 1927/28. The documents do not change the overall picture of the Nazi reign of terror, but they certainly add countless previously unknown details and help getting a better idea of what type of person the SS leader was, his everyday life and his surroundings.

Himmler was born in October 1900, as the middle son of a Bavarian school teacher. As a soldier Himmler desperately wanted to serve in the frontline battles of the First World War. He never got the chance to do that and compensated this "missed opportunity" with all the more radical commitment to nationalist circles in Bavaria: He joined the Nazi-party as member No. 42,404. During Hitler's Beer Hall Putsch / Munich Putsch in November 1923, Himmler served as a guard at a roadblock in front of the Bavarian War Ministry in Munich. After the coup attempt failed, the agronomist began to spread his right-wing ideas through public speaker. After the re-establishment of the Nazi-party and its subdivisions in the beginning of 1925, he became a member of the paramilitary branch of the NSDAP (SA) but soon moved to the even smaller SS, the paramilitary security organization. He joined as member No. 168.

As a poorly paid full-time party official Himmler met the divorced nurse Margarete Siegroth (née Boden), who ran a small nursing home in Berlin. Through his letters to Marga, it is possible for the first time to understand how their relationship developed until they eventually got married on July 3, 1928. The correspondence contains many previously unknown details about the rise of Himmler as a speaker and Nazi official as well as his appointment to deputy head of the SS from 1927 and the "Reichsführer SS" from 1929.

Eight-part series in "Die Welt" and "Welt am Sonntag"

There are major gaps in the correspondence for the 1930s and the whereabouts of these papers is unknown. However, the diary of Marga sheds some light on the not-so-glamorous private life of the Himmler family. Himmler almost completely kept his family out of the public eye. That is in sharp contrast to Hermann Göring, who married the actress Emmy Sonnemann in 1935 with great pomp and Joseph Goebbels, whose wife Magda was the "First Lady" of Hitler's Germany.

The letters also show how the couple drifted apart. From 1938 on the SS leader had an affair with his private secretary. Contrary to the belief of Himmler's biographers, the letters clearly show that the "Reichsführer SS" remained closely connected to his wife and daughter from 1941 to 1945.

As it became clearer that the "Third Reich" was about to face a disastrous defeat in the Second World War, Himmler still stood firmly by his promise of a "final victory" against the superior opponents. He did this even at the time when he was already trying to secure his survival by confidentially contacting the Western Allies.

But that never happened: Himmler went into hiding shortly before the surrender, took on a false name and became a prisoner of war on May 20, 1945, as a supposedly regular soldier. He revealed himself and committed suicide three days later with a poison capsule just as he was about to be searched for suicide pills. At that point the U.S. soldiers occupying the home of the Himmler family in Gmund am Tegernsee had already opened the safe there and took his private papers with them. Nearly seven decades later the greater part of that material is now accessible to the public for the first time.

"Die Welt" and "Die Welt am Sonntag" will start an eight-part series re-examining the life of Heinrich Himmler on Sunday. We will show many of the recently surfaced private photos and publish excerpts of the most interesting letters. The Israeli director Vanessa Lapa, whose father owns the private archive containing the documents, has based her documentary "Der Anständige" ("The Decent") on the new material about Himmler's private life. "Die Welt" financially supported the production of the documentary. It will premier at the "Berlinale" on the ninth of February.

translated by Thilo Maluch

German version: Verschollene Briefe Heinrich Himmlers aufgetaucht

Online-Special: "Himmler - Die Handschrift des Massenmörders"