home Cosmetics Valentina Sklyarenko Hitler's entourage. The fates of the children of Nazi leaders

Valentina Sklyarenko Hitler's entourage. The fates of the children of Nazi leaders

Companions or accomplices of the Fuhrer?

Heinrich Himmler, Joseph Goebbels, Hermann Goering, Rudolf Hess, Martin Bormann, Heinrich Müller - all these Nazi leaders formed the inner circle of Adolf Hitler. During the Third Reich they were called the elite of Nazi Germany, after its collapse - henchmen and accomplices of the Fuhrer, but never - comrades-in-arms. Although, it would seem that it is the last definition, implying “like-minded people,” “comrades in struggle,” “companions,” that could best correspond to their relationship. Moreover, all of them not only shared Hitler’s views, carried out his any plans and instructions, but also, literally, deified their idol and were even ready to give their lives for him. They all saw in him a leader proposing a new structure for the German state, a tribune capable of leading the people, the only person who could lead the national revival of Germany.

One evidence of such an enthusiastic perception of Hitler is the enthusiastic tirade of Rudolf Hess: “We believe that the Führer was sent to us by Providence to overcome our deepest need. By supporting Hitler, we are fulfilling the will of the one who sent us the Fuhrer. We Germans will stand under the banner of the Fuhrer and let what will be!”

In addition to this desire for the national revival of the country after the humiliating Treaty of Versailles, Hitler and his team had much more in common. Almost all future Nazi leaders have life path something happened that formed in them various complexes - most often of inferiority or imperfection. First of all, this concerned physical disabilities. Thus, Himmler was visually impaired, which is why they did not want to take him (as well as Hitler) into the army, and Goebbels, as a result of an illness suffered in childhood, had a limp on his right leg, and therefore constantly heard the humiliating ridicule of his comrades behind his back. who called him the “little mouse doctor.” Another reason evoking feeling inferiority, was their origin: most of the Fuhrer’s entourage did not belong to the ruling elite of society, but dreamed of joining it. Take Martin Bormann, the son of a sergeant of a cavalry regiment, who inherited rudeness, uncouthness and bad manners from his father, or Joseph Goebbels, born in large family master in the production of gas lamps, or Heinrich Müller, who came from a modest family of a manager and began his career as an apprentice at a Bavarian aircraft factory. The future Nazi bosses also did not shine with high culture and education, with the possible exception of Rudolf Hess and Joseph Goebbels.

Another unifying feature for most people from Hitler’s circle was a critical, skeptical attitude towards Christianity, a desire to create a new religion, and a penchant for mysticism.

But what is most striking is that none of these figures could serve as the standard of a “purebred Aryan,” compliance with which in Nazi Germany was the main criterion of a person’s racial usefulness. Firstly, almost all of the Nazi bosses had Jews among their relatives, close or distant. Secondly, their appearance lacked the typical Aryan parameters, such as strong, tall, blue-eyed blonds with golden skin, a long skull and thin lips. Seeing among the creators of the “racial theory” a discrepancy between the standards of the “breed” and reality, contemporaries awarded them mocking nicknames: the ugly dwarf Dr. Goebbels was called a “shrunken German” and a “lanky-legged monkey”, the dark-skinned Hess was called the Egyptian and Black Bertha, and the overweight Goering was called "flying hog"

If we believe the words of the famous German Christian mystic, seer and theosophist of the 17th century, Jacob Boehme, that “the body bears the imprint of the internal forces that move it,” then their appearance eloquently testified to spiritual degradation. Noting this, the French historian Jacques Delarue wrote: “... murderers bear the stigma of bestiality. And most of the Nazi leaders illustrate this rule: Röhm had the head of a murderer, Bormann’s face could only inspire horror, Kaltenbrunner and Heydrich had the faces of murderers. As for Himmler, his face was smooth but hopelessly banal."

At the same time, initially they were all little different from those around them. The criminal essence began to appear on their faces, like disfiguring features in the portrait of Dorian Gray, gradually, as their personalities degraded. This phenomenon was rightly noted by the historian B. L. Khavkin, who wrote: “If you look at the biographies of the leaders of German National Socialism, you can come to paradoxical conclusions: ordinary, at first glance, people mutated, turned into monsters capable of committing any crime . A typical example of the “banality of evil” for the Third Reich was Reichsführer SS Heinrich Himmler.”

A convincing example of this kind of pathological transformation of personality is Hermann Goering. To confirm this, we refer to the opinion of another Nazi leader, General Heinz Guderian. In his memoirs, he wrote that this “rude man, with a completely shapeless physique,” “showed great energy in the early days of his activities and laid the foundations of the modern German air force.” And then he noted that, having ascended to the pinnacle of power, Goering succumbed to the temptations of the newly acquired power: “... he developed the habits of a feudal ruler, began collecting orders, precious stones, various antiques, built the famous Caringal palace and turned to culinary pleasures, and achieved notable success in this area. One day, deep in the contemplation of ancient paintings in a castle in East Prussia, he exclaimed: “Magnificent!” I am now a Renaissance man. I love luxury!“ He always dressed pretentiously. In “Karingal” and on the hunt, he imitated the clothes of the ancient Germans; he appeared for service in a uniform not provided for by any regulations: in red yuft boots with gilded spurs - shoes completely unthinkable for a pilot. He came to his report to Hitler in untucked trousers and black patent leather shoes. He always smelled of perfume. His face was painted, his fingers were decorated with massive rings with large precious stones, which he loved to show everyone."

Hitler, being a good psychologist and expert on people, had a good idea of who he was dealing with. Having a not very high opinion of his immediate environment, especially in Lately, he realized that ultimately he could only rely on himself: “I have no time to waste. My successors won't have as much energy. They will be too weak to make life-changing decisions.” And he turned out to be right. His “comrades in struggle” were with him as long as he led them “from success to success,” and almost everyone, with rare exceptions (R. Hess, J. Goebbels), distanced themselves from him on the eve of the collapse of the Third Reich . This can be illustrated by the words of the author of the book “Brown Dictators”, the famous Russian publicist L.B. Chernaya: “The more hopeless the situation in Germany became, the more fiercely its elite squabbled. Goering said that if Hitler had listened to him, he would have overthrown Bormann and gradually deprived Himmler of power, although this is more difficult, because “Himmler has all the police at his disposal.” Goebbels, on the contrary, wrote that it was time to remove Goering: “Fools hung with orders and vain, perfumed veils cannot engage in waging war...”

It seems that this unpleasant picture, showing the “relationships” of Nazi leaders on the eve of Germany’s surrender in World War II, is more similar to the “showdown” of accomplices in a gang than to the resolution of personnel issues by military and political comrades. Moreover, the very concept of “accomplice” means participation in a criminal plan or act. And as it was established on Nuremberg trials, in unleashing the bloodiest and cruelest war of the 20th century, in the death of tens of millions of people, it was not only Hitler who was guilty, but also his entire entourage, who became accomplices in a monstrous crime against humanity.

The book about people from Hitler's inner circle can rightfully be considered a thriller telling about the bloody deeds of his criminal accomplices. The authors tried to reveal in it not only the real essence of the people who helped the Fuhrer create Nazism, but also explore some little known facts about them.

Heinrich Himmler: the double life of the “architect of the Holocaust”

From agronomists to executioners

“Himmler is the designer of the monstrous machine of administrative massacre“For the service of which not thousands and tens of thousands of selected killers were required and used, but the entire people.”

Hannah Arendt

Heinrich Luitpold Himmler is one of the most sinister figures among the main political and military figures of the Third Reich. Reichsführer SS, Minister of the Interior Hitler's Germany, he was responsible for the most brutal and bloody crimes committed by the Nazi regime. Whatever they called this little nondescript man in pince-nez, whose appearance created a deceptive impression of peacefulness, modesty and simplicity - “second after Hitler”, “shadow of the Fuhrer”, “faithful Heinrich”, “bureaucrat of terror”, “murderer at the desk” .

This external duality coincided with the internal one - as it turned out, the second person in the Nazi state had a double life. Loyalty in her coexisted with betrayal, modesty and simplicity - with exorbitant ambitions, peacefulness - with the cruelty of a sadist. But it was quite difficult to understand this at first glance. It is no coincidence that the famous German-American philosopher of Jewish origin, political theorist and historian Hannah Arendt wrote: “...The organizer of the “death conveyor” was “more normal” than any of the first Fuhrers of the Nazi movement, he was a layman, and not a degenerate intellectual like Goebbels, not a charlatan like Rosenberg, not a sex maniac like Streicher, not a hysterical fanatic like Hitler, and not an adventurer like Goering.”

His contemporaries knew better than anyone how he was and how he wanted to appear. Their characteristics were often striking in their “killer” accuracy. Thus, Gregor Strasser, Himmler’s former boss, creatively called him a “half-dead shrew,” and Reich Minister of Armaments Albert Speer considered him “classical mediocrity,” “half a schoolteacher, half an eccentric fool.” Literally the same words were used to describe him by Count Bernadotte, the former Commissioner of the League of Nations in Danzig Burghardt and the chief of intelligence of the RSHA (counterintelligence) Schellenberg: “an unremarkable pedant,” “a schoolteacher or official,” “a modest accountant or a small businessman.” And the head of the Foreign Policy Directorate of the National Socialist Party of Germany (NSDAP), Alfred Rosenberg, recalled: “I could never look Heinrich Himmler straight in the eye. They always blinked and hid behind the glasses. Now, when they look at me point-blank from the photograph, I see one thing in them: deceit.”

Himmler's appearance did not correspond in any way to the ideal example of a “true Aryan” and “superman”. Rather, he was a caricature of his own racial laws, norms and ideals. Some party comrades openly laughed at the claims of the physically frail Reichsführer to claim the role of one hundred percent German, a Nordic warrior, a worthy heir to Odin and Siegfried, crushing enemies with sword and club. Moreover, his ordinary non-Aryan appearance was matched by a completely ordinary, at least until 1933, biography.

The future head of the “security detachments” (SS) was born in 1900 in Munich, into a respectable burgher family of a classical gymnasium director and a theology teacher. He received his name in honor of Prince Heinrich from the royal Bavarian family of Wittelsbach, whose tutor was his father, Gebhardt Himmler. The upbringing in the family was strict: children were forced to keep diaries, which were then carefully reviewed by their father.

IN school years Himmler was nothing special, although he studied well, was pious and exemplary, but contact with his schoolmates was difficult for him. Small in stature, bird-chested, short-sighted, he suffered because he could not participate on equal terms in sports games peers. And they often mocked the weakling and the bespectacled man. Apparently, even then, a feeling of inferiority and a still-hidden desire for revenge for his inferiority arose in Henry. And soon he found a way to take revenge on his more successful comrades. One day after class, literature teacher Schroeder told him: “Heinrich, you probably know that your classmates are laughing at you. They call you a stinking bobcat and say that you wet your bed at night... It's only fair that you tell me what they say about teachers and their parents. Do you agree?" The boy replied: “Yes.” So, having become a sex worker at school, Heinrich took the first, but by no means the last, step on the path of betrayal. A chain of large and small betrayals will accompany him throughout his life.

From a young age, he dreamed of becoming an officer, and then a commander of the great and victorious German army. The father did not object to such a calling. But the medical commission declared the young man unfit for military service. His father managed to get him into a school for ensigns in Freising. However, he never got to the front and did not have time to take part in hostilities: the First World War ended.

In 1919, Himmler joined the Freikorps, a volunteer corps to fight the revolutionary movement. He dreamed of taking part in the suppression of the Bavarian Soviet Republic, but he was too late: it was destroyed without him. WITH military service I had to leave with the rank of ensign, and begin a peaceful life without a specialty, without a vocation and without convictions. The only thing he managed to master well was contempt for the “reds,” liberal intellectuals, the rich, and especially the aristocrats. Perhaps because he secretly envied them, feeling his insignificance. In his diary for January 29, 1922 there is the following entry: “Man - what a pitiful creature this is! I'm a talker and a talker. I don't have enough energy. I can't do anything." Even then, Henry secretly hated Jews. At this time, he was visited by thoughts of emigration. A little-known fact: Himmler even began to learn Russian, wanting to go somewhere to the east. He also looked towards Turkey and even Peru, dreaming of taking up agriculture there. But Father Gebhardt reasoned reasonably: to become a specialist in this industry, there is no need to travel so far. And his son, obedient to his will, entered the agricultural department of the Higher Technical School at the University of Munich. He received a diploma in agronomy and could have spent the rest of his days doing what he loved - growing medicinal plants or raising chickens - if not for politics. Heinrich plunged headlong into its whirlpool, visiting a dozen nationalist, monarchical and sports-militaristic organizations: from the Society for Breeding Pets, the German Agricultural Society and the Association of Friends of the Humanitarian Gymnasium to the Free Path shooting society, the Old Bavarian Rifle Union, the Society of Munich War Veterans Higher Technical School and the Munich section of the Alpine Society.

One of the first to attract Himmler's attention was the nationalist, racist movement "Völkische" ("People's"). Its ideologist was the Austrian poet and occultist Guido von List. The movement used the ideas of his teachings of Ariosophy, combining them with the foundations of Pan-Germanism, nationalist romanticism and social Darwinism. As you know, the esoteric part of the ancient Germanic pagan religion involved the transfer of secret knowledge to its adherents. The Ariosophists combined populist German nationalism and racism with occult ideas. Their main goal was to predict and justify the coming era of the German world order.

In the mid-20s of the 20th century, Himmler joined the nationalist, racist “Artman Union” (from the old German art– land and man– person) – an active promoter of the idea of expanding living space for Germany, which lost the war. The Artmans had no doubts about where to look for these new spaces: of course, to conquer and then Germanize the east of Europe. Henry thought so too. The “Union” preached the cult of “blood and soil”, the racial superiority of the Aryans, which became the main myth of the Nazi ideology. One of the Artman apostles was Richard Walter Darre. According to his theory, it is Nordic race is the true creator of all European culture. This kind of chauvinistic teachings certainly influenced the leaders of the Nazi elite, including Himmler.

The future Reichsführer SS also visited the Patriotic Union of Peasant Landowners. There, Himmler, delirious with the idea of a “crystal pure Germanic race,” turned to the ideal of a medieval Germanic community that was to be reborn as a result of “the renewal and purification of the entire Germanic race and rejecting ‘other racial shades’.” Subsequently, the entire civilized world will be horrified by the methods by which he and his minions will bring these ideas to life.

Fascinated by paganism and the occult, Himmler firmly believed in a mystical, telepathic connection that supposedly existed between him and the medieval king of the Saxon dynasty, Henry I the Birdcatcher, whose spirit allegedly protected him. Himmler highly valued the organization of his knighthood, thanks to which this sovereign was able to found new cities, expel the Danes, defeat the Hungarians, and conquer the Wends and Slavs. The king’s war against the latter was of particular importance for Himmler - it was as if he was already looking into the future of the Third Reich.

In the first years of his appearance on the political arena, he became an authority among the local “parteigenossen” future head He did not use the SS, as evidenced by the unflattering nickname they gave him, Himmler the Dung. However, he became closer and closer to the Nazis and, under the influence of their ideas, from a young, insecure and easily vulnerable young agronomist began to rapidly turn into a tough and ambitious politician. At this time, he met Horst Wessel, the son of a pastor, who, before becoming a stormtrooper and author of the Nazi Party anthem, earned his livelihood through pimping and fraud. In 1924 he was even convicted for this. It should be noted that young Henry, shortly before they met, also had troubles with the police and justice. Here is what a participant in the French Resistance, writer Jacques Delarue, writes about this in his book “History of the Gestapo”: “At the beginning of 1919, he [Himmler] lived in a dubious hotel in the Moabit quarter at Acherstrasse 45, together with a prostitute, the girl Frieda Wagner, born in Munichenberg on September 18, 1893; she was seven years older than him. There is a police report, drawn up on April 2, 1919, by Commissioner Franz Stirmann from police post 456 on Schlissenger Strasse, about complaints from the neighbors of the couple, dissatisfied with their incessant noisy quarrels. Young Himmler, as the protocol stated, lived on the income earned by his partner through prostitution. Himmler himself partially admitted this. At the beginning of 1920, he suddenly disappears at the moment when Frieda Wagner is found murdered. A search was launched for him, and on July 4, 1920, he was arrested in Munich, and on September 8, he appeared before the Berlin-Brandenburg Criminal Court on charges of murder. Himmler fiercely defended himself, and due to the lack of evidence, since his flight served only as indirect evidence, the court, unfortunately, was forced to acquit him.”

Himmler received his first “political position” - secretary at the headquarters of one of the founders and leaders of the NSDAP, Gregor Strasser - in 1924. Soon he himself joined the Nazi Party. Heinrich liked the propaganda work, and Strasser liked his diligence and devotion. The tight-fisted boss paid his subordinate a ridiculous salary - 200 marks a month and at the same time was sure that “Haney will do everything.” And he will really try to do everything, including not forgetting to “settle” with Strasser for his dismissal. This retribution will be prohibitively cruel: on the “night of the long knives” he will be arrested and shot right in his prison cell on June 30, 1934. At the same time, his suicide will be officially announced.

During these same years, another important meeting would take place in Himmler’s life: in January 1922, he would meet the leader and leader of the Nazi stormtroopers (SA), Ernst Röhm. Captain Röhm was a legendary figure - a drunkard, a homosexual, a brutal “soldier of fortune”, with numerous awards on his chest, with a face covered with battle wounds. It is difficult to say what brought the respectable burgher son of Himmler closer to such a person. But again he was ready to do anything for his older comrade. They not only carried out joint SS and SA actions, but also often spent time together in their free time. By the spring of 1934, Himmler's first priority was an alliance with Goering, when he took his side in the conflict between the Reichswehr and the SA. In this regard, the need arose to eliminate Rem. And Himmler followed a path that was familiar to him from his school days. He informed the commander of the territorial district of the SS Center, Baron von Eberstein, about the preparation of a coup by Röhm's stormtroopers, and later conveyed this alarming information to Hitler. Then he sent him two more false reports: the first - about Rohm’s plans to start an armed uprising in Berlin on June 30 at 16.00; the second is about the outrages of stormtroopers in Munich. And, finally, it was Himmler who directly supervised the reprisal against the “senior comrade” and his subordinates.

The future Reichsführer SS personally met Hitler for the first time only in March 1925. Some historians believe that they were introduced by Nazi activist and poet Horst Wessel. And the Frenchman J. Delarue claims that in February 1925, “Himmler himself wrote him [Hitler] a letter to tell him how the patriots hoped for him in their desire to help Germany get out of chaos and take the place it deserves,” and he invited him to himself. During the meeting, “Hitler was pleased with the respectful manners and discipline young man", and Henry, with his opportunist instinct, felt that he had found a new idol for himself. Already in August of the same year, he received the post of Gauleiter of Bavaria for propaganda, and in 1927 he became Deputy Reichsführer of the SS. Such rapid advancement up the career ladder, according to Delarue, was largely explained not so much by Henry’s abilities as by his character traits. “By his temperament,” writes the historian, “Himmler was literally destined for the role of a brilliant second, faithful and necessary servant. Ambition pushed him forward, but his penchant for secrecy forced him to choose second roles. Unlike many Nazis, especially veterans, who were constantly looking for an opportunity to eliminate Hitler, Himmler never attempted to seize power into his own hands. As Dr. Gebhardt, one of the Nazi doctors who knew Himmler best because they had known each other since childhood, said of him, he was “the typical second man who took upon himself the execution of the most disgusting and cruel orders by analogy with the saying: Mohammed smiles, and the caliph executes."

In 1928, the Nazi leader had one last chance to return to his peaceful calling as an agronomist. He married the daughter of a landowner from West Prussia, Margaret von Boden, acquired a plot of land and founded a poultry farm, where he began raising chickens. Initially, the stock breed steadily improved. The secret of this was simple: Heinrich managed to select excellent roosters - noisy, warlike, brave and strong. When, in the battle for the hen, one rooster pecked another, the defeated one went under the knife. It is quite possible that here, on the chicken farm, plans for breeding a “pure human race” were born in Himmler’s head, which later resulted in the idea of “Lebensborn” - a nursery for breeding elite specimens of the human breed. But ultimately, his next experience of joining agriculture failed, but monstrous experiments on people from now on became the main and only occupation. So the failed agronomist “retrained” as a professional executioner.

An essay on the life of Heinrich Himmler completes the biographical trilogy we have written about Hitler's main assistants in the creation and management of the Third Reich. General desire understanding the nature of this regime and the individuals who created it has become more acute in the last five years, now that both Germany and the whole world have largely recovered from the shock inflicted on our humanistic feelings by the Nazis, who paralyzed or suppressed the ability to think clearly during and after the war. While the German people became the society that allowed Hitler to become head of state and establish a modern form of tyranny that eventually spread throughout virtually all of Europe, others European forces and the United States also had to look to its conscience to understand the extent to which it had condoned the consolidation of Hitler's rule.

Our goal in writing these biographies, as well as the book The July Plot, explores the resistance movement in Germany, its strengths and weak sides, was to reveal as much as possible the real essence of the people who helped create Nazism, and to explore all the known facts about them. We contrast our work with the sensationalist interpretation that defines Hitler, Goering, Goebbels and Himmler simply as “monsters,” a term widely used by the popular press to distance itself from these hated men and thereby reassure readers. But the fact remains: these “monsters” and their colleagues lived and acted in German and European societies for quite a long time. They were loved or disliked, despised or feared, accepted or shunned in the same way as other politicians, diplomats and soldiers. Nazi leaders cannot simply be thrown out of human society because it is more pleasant or convenient to view them outside of humanity. The thousands of men and women who worked with them mostly admired them or readily cooperated, while the influential Europeans and Americans who actively supported them or tolerated them as a rather grim inevitability in European politics that no other force could resist not far from those who joyfully greeted them on the streets.

The Nazi Party, as Alan Bullock points out in his excellent biography of Hitler, had no political philosophy; she treated power as something to be won by any means that could be improvised, no matter what moral categories were at stake. It was Hitler's complete lack of principle in dealing with the political leaders of other countries that allowed him to exploit their weaknesses and contemptuously deceive them, knowing about their adherence to the system of diplomatic values. This lack of conscience is certainly unusual in many human activities. Indeed, remarkable unscrupulousness was the main distinguishing feature of the character of Hitler, who aroused universal admiration and sympathy from 1933 to 1938, both in Germany and abroad.

The nature of the regime and the public reaction to it stems directly from the characters of the people who created it. While this is true to a certain extent of any regime, none was created as quickly and thoughtlessly as Hitler's Third Reich. Both the police and the administration were concocted largely as a result of the personal whims of various leaders or intuitive decisions made at random, influenced by the mood of the moment or the urgent need to outwit the enemy. The suffering of the Germans and other peoples was in large part the result of the personal psychology of Hitler and the three men whose lives we have attempted to reconstruct and interpret.

In each case, we have tried to approach the task of writing these biographies as open-mindedly as possible. We have described the evolution of Goebbels, Goering and Himmler, starting from childhood and adolescence; we showed how they came to join the Nazi Party and discussed some of the contributions they made to it during its formative years. It is unlikely that there could have been three other people so different in their temperament and social origin, and the roles they played in supporting Hitler during his years of power were also dissimilar. It was a serious and at times harrowing experience to step back from the beaten path of German history from 1923 to 1945 and interpret it as imagined, and to a large extent created by these people, each of whom, at different stages, created in their imagination their own personal an empire within an even larger empire built by Hitler.

We argue that 12 years of Nazi rule in Europe warn us of the future as clearly as the explosions of atomic bombs over Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The Nazis themselves forced us to use violence against them when their provocations became too outrageous to tolerate. But too many people remember what they had to endure then, and long after these memories to make sure that the warning was not perceived superficially by the world. For this reason alone, it seems necessary to us to tell the story of the lives of these people without prejudice and false emphasis, in order to show as accurately as possible what made these leaders great country behave this way, and most importantly, what do they have in common with us, with those who so readily declare their disgust for them.

The experience of Heinrich Frankel, who tried to discuss the character and actions - or more often the inaction - of Himmler in Germany with the men and women who had to work with him, is instructive. In preparing this biography, like the biographies of Goebbels and Goering, we went wherever we could in search of first-hand evidence. We were also greatly helped by Himmler's daughter Gudrun and her brother Gebhard, who retained tender memories of their father. They still find it very difficult to reconcile the image of the man they knew so intimately with the universal image of Himmler, who inspires fear and widespread hatred. Our task was to achieve this combination of images, to try to understand why this simple, modest man became a mass murderer, convinced of the absolute rightness of his actions.

Himmler's contribution to the theory and practice of Nazism was that of a conscientious pedant who yearned to become a soldier all his life and eventually became a policeman. His short career field commander at the end of the war it ended in complete disaster, although he himself did not think so, and therefore they had to force him to leave. But, strictly speaking, Himmler's career as Hitler's chief of police was a triumphant success, and it can be argued that Nazism found its fullest and most practical expression in the repressive activities of Himmler's secret forces. During the war, the work of the SS and Gestapo became the most reliable weapons in the arsenal of Hitler's tyranny. This work extended into the field of mass extermination to fulfill the delusive dream of racial purity that both Himmler and his master were obsessed with, and it gradually made the system unmanageable. The system was destroyed at the moment when it was engaged in the destruction of others under the leadership of Himmler. Death simply choked on its own gluttony.

In the absurd grouping of rival ambitions which gradually surrounded and isolated Hitler during the last manic period of his reign, Himmler's power was the most secret, Goering's the most magnificent, Goebbels's the most narcissistic. Goebbels's vociferous contribution to power was that of a permanent manager who wanted to be recognized as dictator of German civil life while Hitler controlled the war effort. His strong, selfish nature required constant public appearances and constant flattery; he loved being at the center of the whirlpool of events. And above all, he wanted both Hitler and the German people to recognize him as the second man of the Third Reich, the indispensable ruler of the state.

For Goering, the defeat of the Luftwaffe meant the end of his personal glory as the most popular and colorful figure of the Nazi regime - the cheerful ace pilot. Alternately elated and depressed due to his drug addiction, he also needed the satisfaction of collecting the endless number of government jobs his master gave him; he felt such awe in front of him that in the end it began to border on panic. Depressed by the defeat of the Luftwaffe, Göring found solace in his collection of art, donated, bought, but mostly looted, and by the end of the war its value had reached £30 million. Despite the loss of Hitler's favor, Goering remained the Fuhrer's nominal successor until the end of the war; his power declined after 1943 in the eyes of everyone but himself as he became more and more self-indulgent and less involved in the conduct of the war or the management of the economy.

Himmler, an idealist without ideals, at first the most timid and most pedantic man in the entire Nazi leadership, constantly insecure and, nevertheless, always militant and power-hungry, could only secretly concentrate final control over Germany in his hands. From his point of view, it was his personal tragedy: so adoring of power, he was completely unable to use it when he finally acquired it. This became a heavy burden on his soul and a source of constant anxiety. While his very name struck terror into the hearts of millions of people, he himself suffered from timidity and was completely speechless when Hitler reprimanded or reprimanded him. He has gathered around himself his own autocracy and has lost all ability to take initiative in the face of stronger or more persistent individuals than himself, especially those on whom he later became dependent, such as Heydrich, Schellenberg or Felix Kersten, his masseur is the only one who could relieve his suffering from chronic abdominal cramps, which increased his anxiety and despair. Nevertheless, it was Himmler in whose hands the main trump cards of Nazi Germany were concentrated, and many considered him as Hitler’s successor in the event of the latter’s death.

The more one learns about the characters and behavior of these people, the more extraordinary it seems that just decades ago, under the command of Hitler, they could have become masters of Europe, and a great part of the world would have been given to them. However, we all know what really happened. It seems to us that it is better now to view these dark days of history as a warning. In our new world there are many newly independent states and countries with a longer history that do not have enough self-discipline to resist people like the Nazi leaders should they reappear or come to power. It is not always easy to recognize such people until it is too late. This was certainly the case with Himmler. Hitler at first seemed like an absurd fanatic, Goebbels - a poseur orator, Goering - a cheerful donkey, Himmler - a nonentity. But none of them were what they seemed, otherwise they would never have won supreme power over a great nation.

Therefore, our purpose in writing these biographies was to explore what special qualities they and the people they chose to help them possessed. The reasons for their eventual failure are as important and fascinating as the explanation for their initial success. In just 8 years they had risen from obscurity and relative poverty to become the absolute masters of Germany. After 12 years they were dead and completely discredited. Such a case is unique in modern history, and it happened not in some lawless period of antiquity, but in the middle of our century.

Heinrich Frankel visited Germany many times on research for his book. He talked to many people, some of them were famous SS men or former employees Himmler, they wished to remain anonymous. Thanks to Himmler's methodical approach, he left behind a wealth of personal papers, official correspondence and secret directives, which are stored in the various official archives that we have indicated. Over the past two years, many new facts have come to light from documents recently transferred by the American government to the German Federal Archives in Koblenz.

These and other documents were examined and what they revealed helped to complete the portrait of Himmler.

Although this is the first detailed biographical sketch of Himmler, we feel that we owe much to the published work of Gerald Reitlinger, whose two books on the SS and the extermination of the Jews in Europe, The Final Solution and The SS, have proved invaluable to us. , since in many ways they shed light on the life of Himmler himself. Willi Frischhauer's essay on Himmler was also very helpful in terms of detail, although the book focuses more on the SS and its activities than on Himmler the man.

We received valuable assistance from Fraulein Gudrun Himmler, Himmler's daughter, and Gebhard Himmler, Himmler's elder brother; Also former general SS Karl Wolf, currently serving a sentence to which he was sentenced after a trial in Munich; Heinrich Frankel visited him several times in prison. We were also provided with important information by Count Schwerin von Krosigg, Hitler's finance minister, Dr. Otto Strasser, for whom Himmler served as an assistant during the initial period of his work in the party, Dr. Werner Best, who became governor of Denmark during the Third Reich, Frau Lina Heydrich, the widow of a former SS leader, Joseph Kirmayer, Himmler's bodyguard, Fraulein Doris Mehner, one of Himmler's secretaries, Dr. Riess, chairman of the court in Erding, and Colonel Saradet, who studied with Himmler at the University of Munich, Dr. Otto John, Frau Irmgard Kersten, widow of Felix Kersten , Himmler's masseur, Colonel L. M. Murphy and Captain Tom Sylvester were British officers who guarded Himmler after his arrest. We must also acknowledge the generous assistance given to us by the staff of the Weiner Library in London, and especially by Mrs. Ilse Wolf, as well as the assistance of the staff of the German Federal Archives in Koblenz (especially Dr. Boberach), the Institute of History in Munich (especially Dr. Hosch), the Berlin Documentation Center, Institute of Documents in Amsterdam (especially Dr. de Jong), the International Red Cross Center for the Search of Missing Persons during the War in Arolsen (especially Dr. Burkhardt). And we would like to once again thank Mrs. M. G. Peters, who performed the difficult task of typing this manuscript.

Roger Manwell

Here is the version of a member of the Writers' Union, Captain 1st Rank Sergei Turchenko. However, there is another version, leaked to the press from the documents of the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), MI6 (Military Intelligence) - the government foreign intelligence agency of Great Britain.

FSB archive employee Alexander Kalganov told me about the unenviable end of Reichsführer SS Himmler. As you know, the most authoritative reference books and encyclopedias say that Himmler was arrested on May 21, 1945 by British military authorities. But it turns out that if it weren’t for soviet soldiers Ivan Egorovich Sidorov and Vasily Ilyich Gubarev, Himmler could well have gotten lost in the crowds of refugees. And until today, historians would argue where the sinister Reichsführer SS disappeared after the war.

In the spring of 1945, Kalganov said, Heinrich Himmler found himself in an extremely unenviable position. Firstly, he did not justify the trust of Hitler, who appointed him to the post of commander of Army Group Vistula in the hope that, under the leadership of Himmler, German troops would delay the rapid advance Soviet troops. It turned out, however, that the experience of a police officer and a punisher was not enough for successful combat operations. As a result, Himmler was removed from command of the army, and the elite SS regiment "Adolf Hitler" was ordered to remove stripes with the name of the fascist Fuhrer as punishment for lack of courage. Secondly, Hitler was informed about Himmler’s attempts, through the mediation of the head of the 6th Intelligence Directorate of the RSHA, Walter Schellenberg, to negotiate with the Western allies of the USSR on the terms of his personal salvation after the inevitable surrender of Germany. All these events, as well as the inevitable approach Soviet army prompted Himmler to enter into a conspiracy with several ministers of the Hitler government who did not want to share with the Fuhrer his unenviable fate after the defeat of Germany. Since all the armed formations of the SS were subordinate to Himmler, according to the plan of the conspirators, he was supposed to appear to Hitler on April 20, 1945 and offer to voluntarily relinquish power in favor of the Reichsführer SS. If Hitler disagreed, he should have been eliminated by any possible way. Himmler, who sent thousands of people to their deaths with the stroke of a pen, was terribly afraid of losing his own life. Therefore, the conspirators did not wait for the promised decisive actions from him. The Reichsführer decided to save himself alone.

On April 28, 1945, the Fuhrer's closest adviser, Martin Bormann, reported to Hitler the radio messages from the world. news agencies that Heinrich Himmler, on his own behalf, proposed to the political leadership of the United States and Great Britain the surrender of Germany. For Hitler, the message about the betrayal of his former favorite was yet another disappointment in his closest associates. A few days before this, information was received about an attempt at treason on the part of Reichsmarshal Hermann Goering, whom Hitler had previously officially declared as his successor. Following Goering, Himmler was expelled from the party, stripped of all awards and declared an outlaw.

What saved Himmler from death was that Hitler decided to die and on April 30 first took potassium cyanide, tested on his shepherd dog. His entourage did not grieve for long: after the burning of the Fuhrer’s corpse, one part of his comrades decided to fight their way out of the encirclement, the other, led by Hitler’s new successor, Admiral Doenitz, hastened to send a truce to the Soviet military command to discuss the terms of surrender. Himmler tried to use the last opportunity to save his life - to get out of the encirclement unnoticed and get lost in the crowd of refugees.

It should be noted that this idea was not completely fantastic. For example, one of Hitler's closest henchmen, Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop, safely disappeared at the end of April and settled in Hamburg in an inconspicuous house under the very nose of the British commandant's office. Only on June 14, 1945, the British military authorities managed to arrest Ribbentrop following a denunciation from a German who identified him.

Himmler was most afraid of meeting with Soviet counterintelligence officers and, having taken the necessary camouflage measures (prepared false documents, shaved his mustache, put a bandage on one eye, changed into civilian clothes), he began to make his way, accompanied by two bodyguards, to the west of Germany, away from Soviet troops. Ironically, Himmler’s meeting with our soldiers did take place. And his plans to escape to the West collapsed. And it happened like this.

At the end of the war, prisoners of fascist concentration camps in Germany, before being sent home, were in temporary collection and transfer points both in the Soviet occupation zone and in the zones of occupation of the Allied forces. Former prisoners of war who were not sick or extremely exhausted tended to enroll in commandant companies and take part in patrolling the area. In May 1945 to the commandant company collection point No. 619 in the city of Tseven, located on the territory of the English zone of occupation, privates of the Soviet Army Sidorov and Gubarev signed up. The declassified Smersh file about the circumstances of Himmler’s captivity and death contains their biographical data.

Ivan Egorovich Sidorov was born in May 1920 in the village of Klyuchi, Shiroko-Kamyshensky district, Saratov region. He was drafted into the Red Army on June 7, 1941, and served in a mortar battery. rifle regiment, in which he participated in the battles near the city of Zhlobin in Belarus. He was captured on August 17, 1941 and from that moment he passed through 6 fascist concentration camps in the occupied territory of the USSR and in Germany.

Vasily Ilyich Gubarev was born in 1916 in the Sapozhkovsky district Ryazan region. In the Red Army he served as a sled driver in an artillery regiment since 1939. As part of the regiment, he took part in the battles in Zaporozhye, where he was captured on September 8, 1941. Before being liberated by the Allies on May 4, 1945, he went through 4 fascist concentration camps.

Probably because in Soviet times the attitude towards former prisoners was not conducive to their glorification, until now we did not know the names of these fighters, as well as the circumstances of their capture of Himmler.

At 9 a.m. on May 21, 1945, Sidorov and Gubarev embarked on a joint patrol with six British soldiers, the eldest of whom was a corporal. Armed with rifles, our soldiers patrolled together along the outskirts of the town of Mainstadt. At 19 o'clock they went into a house where English soldiers were talking, smoking and drinking coffee. The corporal suggested that the Russians rest or make another round, since the patrol car was supposed to arrive in about half an hour.

Our soldiers decided to once again walk along the outskirts of Mainstadt and soon noticed three Germans stealthily emerging from the bushes, intending to cross the road and go into the forest. Gubarev and Sidorov ran after them and, when 200 meters remained, they commanded in German: “Halt!” - “Stop!” One stopped immediately, the other two pretended not to hear the shout and continued to walk forward. Then Gubarev fired a warning shot upward, both soldiers took the Germans at gunpoint.

The detainees introduced themselves German soldiers. But Sidorov and Gubarev saw that they were wearing officer’s raincoats, and both of them were wearing officer’s trousers (Himmler was in civilian clothes). When the detainees were brought to the British, the Germans began to show signs that they were sick. Himmler, who had a stick in the form of a crutch and an eye patch in his hands, feigned the consequences of being wounded. The British soldiers didn’t really want to go to the commandant’s office instead of the barracks and waste time explaining to the officer on duty the circumstances of the arrest. And they offered to let the Germans go, saying that they did not want to bother with the sick. But Gubarev and Sidorov insisted on delivering the detainees to the military commandant.

Three days later, both of our soldiers went on patrol again. 16 Russians gathered in the square waiting for the car, and were approached by an English officer and translator. The officer asked who detained the three Germans. When Sidorov and Gubarev came forward, they were questioned in detail about the circumstances of the detention and the signs of the Germans. Then they wrote down their names, and the translator asked: “Do you know who you brought? The one who had the eye bandaged is the head of the Gestapo and Hitler’s closest assistant, Himmler.”

For their vigilance, the head of collection point No. 619, Major Godlevsky, announced gratitude to Gubarev and Sidorov on May 26, 1945 and awarded each a “Red Cross package.”

At the guardhouse of camp No. 619, British soldiers searched three detained Germans and took away their watches, compasses and maps. According to the testimony of the aforementioned Major Godlevsky, a flask with some kind of solution was found in the person who was later identified as Himmler. Himmler stated that it contained medicine for the stomach, after which the flask was returned to him.

On May 23, the detained Germans were taken to the intelligence service of the British 2nd Army to identify Himmler, who, realizing that it would be impossible to remain incognito in the German prisoner of war camp, told the British his name. It was clear from Himmler's behavior that from that moment on he expected special treatment for himself as one of the highest leaders of the German state. The name of the Reichsführer did not make any impression on the English officers. If the intelligence officer on duty quite correctly questioned Himmler about his date of birth, party and SS number, and other identifying information in order to make sure that he was not an impostor, then the English counterintelligence colonel who came for Himmler simply ordered him to take off his clothes and put on the ones brought for him. him. When Himmler said that he was not subject to such treatment, Colonel Murphy replied that either he would change his clothes himself, or he would be undressed by force. Eyewitnesses to this discussion noted that Himmler was completely depressed as a result. He said that because of such brutal coercion, he would not say a word about what he wanted to talk about.

Himmler's misadventures did not end there. At counterintelligence headquarters he was again ordered to undress and given a thorough personal examination in order to determine whether there were any foreign objects on Himmler’s body and “in the orifices of the body.” (The British already had a sad experience when the detained Admiral Friedenburg committed suicide.)

Having finished examining Himmler's torso and limbs, Captain Wells of the British medical service decided to check if the Reichsführer had hidden anything in his mouth. Pulling the detainee's cheeks to the sides, the officer saw a small object with a blue head in the cavity between the lower jaw and cheek. An attempt to push this object out of Himmler’s mouth with his finger failed, he quickly placed the ampoule between his teeth and bit it through. A strong odor of almonds, characteristic of potassium cyanide, spread throughout the room. All measures taken to bring Himmler back to life were unsuccessful...

So, six months before the issuance Nazi criminals verdict at the Nuremberg trials, one of the most sinister figures of the Third Reich escaped direct responsibility.

As I already said, there is another version. According to this version, Himmler did not commit suicide, he was killed by members of the British intelligence services. They were extremely uninterested in Himmler testifying in court. Then the whole world would know about the dirty dealings of the British government that were carried out with representatives of Nazi Germany behind the back of the anti-Hitler coalition, including the possibility of concluding a separate peace, supplies to the German military-industrial complex and much more.

The fate of the military-political elite of the Third Reich is very indicative for everyone who wants to create a “New World Order” on the planet. At the end of the war, many of them completely lost their human appearance and reason, including their leader, Adolf Hitler. Until the end, Hitler made unrealistic plans for the liberation of Berlin by Theodor Busse's 9th Army, which was surrounded east of Berlin, and by Wenck's 12th Shock Army, whose counterattacks were repulsed.

On the 20th, Hitler learned that the Russian armies were approaching the city; on this day he turned 56 years old. He was offered to leave the capital due to the threat of encirclement, but he refused; according to Speer, he said: “How can I call on the troops to stand to the end in the decisive battle for Berlin and immediately leave the city and move to a safe place!.. I rely entirely on the will of fate and remain in the capital...”. On the 22nd, he ordered the commander of the Steiner army group, which included the remnants of three infantry divisions and a tank corps, General Felix Steiner, to break through to Berlin, he tried to carry out a suicidal order, but was defeated. In order to save people, he began to retreat to the west without permission and refused to carry out Keitel’s order to strike again in the direction of Berlin. On the 27th Hitler removed him from command, but he again did not obey and on May 3rd he surrendered to the Americans at the Elbe.

F. Steiner.

On April 21-23, almost all the top leaders of the Third Reich fled from Berlin, including Goering, Himmler, Ribbentrop, Speer. Many of them started their game trying to save their “skins.”

According to the recollections of the commander of the Berlin garrison, General Helmut Weidling, when he saw Hitler on April 24, he was amazed: “... in front of me sat a ruin (ruin) of a man. His head was hanging, his hands were shaking, his voice was slurred and trembling. Every day his appearance became worse and worse.” In fact, he was delirious, dreaming of "blows" already broken German armies. His comrades, Goebbels and Bormann, also had a hand in this, who, with the help of Krebs, deceived the Fuhrer. By April, a new Control Center for Hitler and his associates, the Alpenfestung (Alpine Fortress), was already ready in the Bavarian Alps. Most of the services of the Imperial Chancellery have already relocated there. But Hitler hesitated, still waiting for a “decisive offensive,” Goebbels and Bormann convinced him to lead the defense of Berlin. With the help of Hans Krebs, the last Chief of the High Command ground forces, they hid the true state of affairs at the front. From April 24 to April 27, Hitler was deceived by reports of the approach of Wenck's army, which was already surrounded. Weidling: “Either the advanced units of Wenck’s army are already fighting south of Potsdam, then... three marching battalions arrived in the capital, then Doenitz promised to fly the most selected units of the fleet to Berlin by plane.” On the 28th, Weidling told Hitler that there was no hope, the garrison can hold out no more than two days. On the 29th, at the last military meeting, Weidling said that the garrison was defeated and there was no more than 24 hours to try to break through, or it would be necessary to capitulate. Hitler refused to make a breakthrough.

G. Weidling.

Hitler drew up a will, appointing a triumvirate as his successors - Grand Admiral Doenitz, Goebbels and Bormann. But although he said that he would commit suicide, he still doubted and waited for Wenck’s army. Then Goebbels came up with a subtle psychological move to push the Fuhrer to suicide: he brought a message from Italy - the Italian leader Mussolini and his mistress Clara Petacci were captured by partisans, killed and then hanged by their feet in the city square of Milan. But Hitler was most afraid of shameful captivity; the thought that he would be put in an iron cage and displayed in a shameful square haunted him. On the afternoon of the 30th, he and his wife E. Hitler (Brown) committed suicide.

General G. Krebs tried to conclude a truce on May 1, but he was refused, demanding unconditional surrender. On the same day he shot himself.

G. Krebs

Joseph Goebbels, was appointed Reich Chancellor by Hitler in the event of his death. He stated that he would follow his leader, but was trying to negotiate a truce with Stalin. Goebbels and Bormann informed Admiral Dönitz that he had been appointed Reich President, but they kept silent about Hitler’s death.

On the 30th, Goebbels and Bormann sent Goebbels' referent Heinersdorf and deputy commander of the Citadel combat area, Lieutenant Colonel Seifert, as negotiators; they announced that they had been sent to negotiate the reception of General Krebs by the Soviet side. The military council of the 5th Shock Army decided not to enter into negotiations, since there was no proposal for unconditional surrender. And Lieutenant Colonel Seifert was able to establish contact with the command of the Soviet 8th Guards Army, and they agreed to listen to Krebs. On May 1, at 3:30 a.m., G. Krebs, accompanied by Colonel von Duffing, crossed the front line and arrived for negotiations. Krebs informed Colonel General Vasily Chuikov about Hitler's death, so he became the first, except for the garrison of Hitler's bunker, to learn about his death. He also handed over three documents to Chuikov: Krebs' authority on his right to negotiate, signed by Bormann; the new composition of the Reich government, according to Hitler’s will; appeal of the new Reich Chancellor J. Goebbels to Stalin.

Chuikov handed over the documents to Zhukov, his translator Lev Bezymensky translated the documents to Zhukov, and at the same time, by telephone, General Boykov communicated the translation to the general on duty at Stalin’s headquarters. At 13 o'clock Krebs left the location of the Soviet troops, with German bunker A direct telephone connection was established. Goebbels expressed his desire to speak with the commander or a government representative, but he was refused. Stalin demanded unconditional surrender: “... no negotiations other than unconditional surrender should be conducted either with Krebs or with other Nazis.”

In the evening, in the bunker they realized that there would be no negotiations, Dönitz was informed of Hitler’s death, Goebbels and his wife Magda Goebbels committed suicide, before which Magda killed six of her children.

On the evening of May 2, Bormann and a group of SS men tried to break out of the city, but were wounded by a shell fragment and committed suicide with poison. This is how the last two main leaders of the Third Reich died; before that they clung to power to the last, beating their party comrades, but they could not deceive death...

J. Goebbels.

Heinrich Himmler, who at one time was the second man of the empire, lost a number of his positions in the spring of 1945. Bormann was able to approve the idea of creating Volkssturm battalions throughout Germany, and he also led them. He set Himmler up by inviting him to lead two offensives: on the Western Front and in Pomerania, against the Red Army, both of which ended unsuccessfully. At the end of 1944, he began to try to begin separate negotiations with the Western powers; at the beginning of 1945, he met three times with Count Folke Bernadotte, last time April 19, but the negotiations did not end in anything. A conspiracy was even drawn up, according to which on the 20th Himmler was supposed to demand that Hitler resign his powers and transfer them to him, he was supposed to be supported by SS units. If Hitler refused, it was proposed to eliminate him, even to the point of killing him, but Himmler got scared and did not agree to this.

On the 28th, Bormann informed Hitler about the betrayal of Himmler, who, on his own behalf, proposed the surrender of the Reich to the political leadership of the United States and Great Britain. Hitler removed Himmler from all positions and declared him an outlaw. But Himmler still continued to make plans - at first he thought that he would be the Fuhrer in post-war Germany, then he offered himself to Dönitz as chancellor, chief of police, and in the end just the prime minister of Schleswig-Holstein. But the admiral categorically refused to give Himmler any post.

I didn’t want to give up and answer for the crimes, so Himmler changed into the uniform of a field gendarmerie non-commissioned officer, changed his appearance and, taking with him several loyal people, headed to the Danish border on May 20, thinking of getting lost among the masses of other refugees. But on May 21, he was detained by two Soviet soldiers, ironically, they were prisoners of concentration camps, who were released and sent to patrol service, these were Ivan Egorovich Sidorov (captured on August 16, 1941 and went through 6 concentration camps) and Vasily Ilyich Gubarev (came to captured on September 8, 1941, went through hell in 4 concentration camps). It is interesting that the British and other members of the joint patrol offered to release the unknown people; they also had documents, but the Soviet soldiers insisted on a more thorough check. So Himmler, the all-powerful Reichsführer SS (from 1929 until the end of the war), Reich Minister of the Interior, was captured by two Soviet prisoners of war. On May 23, he committed suicide by taking poison.

G. Himmler.

Hermann Goering, who was considered Hitler's heir, was accused of failing to organize the air defense of the Third Reich, after which his “career” went downhill. On April 23, 1945, Goering proposed that Hitler transfer all power to him. At the same time, he tried to conduct separate negotiations with the Western members of the Anti-Hitler coalition. By order of Bormann, he was arrested, deprived of all posts and awards, and on April 29, Hitler officially, in his will, deprived him of the post of his successor, appointing Admiral Dönitz. On May 8, he was arrested by the Americans and brought to trial at the International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg as the main criminal. He was sentenced to hang, but committed suicide on October 15, 1946 (there is a version that they helped him with this). He had plenty of opportunities to obtain poison - he communicated daily with many lawyers, with his wife, he could bribe the guards, and so on.

G. Goering.

Sources:
Zalessky K.A. Who was who in the Third Reich. M., 2002.
Zalessky K. “NSDAP. Power in the Third Reich." M., 2005.
Pay. Third Reich: falling into the abyss. Comp. E.E. Shchemeleva-Stenina. M., 1994.
Toland J. The Last Hundred Days of the Reich / Trans. from English O.N. Osipova. Smolensk, 2001.
Shirer W. The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. T.2. M., 1991.
Speer A. Memoirs. M.-Smolensk, 1997.

Gestapo leaders: Goering, Himmler, Heydrich, Müller, Kaltenbrunner

All these people in different time those who led the Gestapo contributed to the creation of a terrible machine for the extermination of entire peoples. This is not to say that they were always scoundrels and scum. They had their vices and weaknesses, but also positive traits: extraordinary intelligence, organizational skills, ability to preserve a good relationship in family. Gestapo leaders were adherents of order and discipline, and in some cases showed personal courage. Goering, a great lover of painting, was given a good military education by his father. Himmler was born into the family of a teacher, was educated at the Higher Technical School at the University of Munich, was fond of literature, had a rare ability to work, and was an eloquent and pleasant conversationalist. Heydrich came from a family of musicians, received an excellent education, and knew several European languages. Muller was born into the family of a manager, attended school, and then became a good aircraft mechanic, who was very highly regarded in the army. Kaltenbrunner did not shine with a special education, but he was distinguished by personal courage.

So, these were seemingly individuals who were not without even some degree of attractiveness. What made these people commit monstrous acts against humanity?

The fate of the highest ranks of the Reich was changed by the Nazi ideology, which gave them a “new morality”, which completely subjugated them, instilled in them the superiority of some nations over others, unbridled anti-Semitism, disregard for people, pleasure in murder and torture. And these rabid fascists forgot very quickly about the culture that they had previously worshiped, quoting the playwright Hans Jonst, who declared: “When I hear the word “culture”, my hand reaches for the gun.”

Hermann Goering born January 12, 1893 in Bavaria, in the city of Rosenheim. Through his maternal grandmother, Caroline de Neray, his ancestors were Huguenots from the Netherlands. His father, a personal friend of Otto von Bismarck, graduated from the Universities of Bonn and Heidelberg and served as an officer in the Prussian army. The mother soon died, leaving five children to be raised by her husband. The second time he married an Austrian woman, he took her with him to Haiti, where he was appointed governor-general. Returning to Bavaria, his young wife gave birth to a son, Herman. When he grew up, his father sent him to a cadet school in Karlsruhe, and then Hermann moved to a military school in Berlin-Lichterfeld. In March 1912, having graduated with honors from college and received the rank of lieutenant, Herman joined the 112th infantry regiment Prince Wilhelm, located in Mühlhausen. At the beginning of the First World War he already took part in battles on the Western Front. In October 1914, Goering achieved a transfer to the 25th Aviation Detachment. He first flew as an observer, then as a reconnaissance and bomber pilot, and finally as a fighter pilot. Here he showed himself to be a fearless aviator, knocked out one of the heavy British bombers, then was shot down himself, wounded in the left thigh and arm. However, having recovered, Hermann returned to duty and in May 1917 took up the post of commander of the 27th squadron, and then served in the elite Richthofen squadron - the most famous air force of the German army, named after the commander who died in battle.

Hermann Goering

Goering had 22 planes shot down by him, the highest German Order of Merit, the Iron Cross 1st Class and other awards. However, Germany was defeated, and Goering was demobilized at the end of 1919 with the rank of captain. Not wanting to serve in the Reichswehr, Hermann was forced to look for a job. He performed demonstration flights in Denmark and Sweden. There he met the wife of a Swedish officer, nee Karin von Fock, took her away from her husband and son, and married her.

In 1922, Goering returned to Germany and entered the University of Munich. He lived in a suburb of Munich at the expense of his wife. In the fall of 1922, France demanded that Germany hand over war criminals to it, Goering was named among them. Protest rallies were held in Munich against the Allied demands. At one of them, Hermann met with Adolf Hitler. He was captivated by his speeches, the main motive of which was the fight against the “Versailles dictatorship.” Goering, who led a semi-beggarly existence, was very interested in this topic. And, without thinking twice, Herman joined the National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP). He became an active participant in the Nazi movement. In January 1923, Hitler, flattered by being a war hero in the party, appointed him supreme leader of the SA, which Goering decided to transform into a powerful paramilitary force.

During this period, Goering had a strained relationship with another SA leader, Ernst Rehm. During the Beer Hall Putsch in November 1923, Goering was next to Hitler and was seriously wounded by two bullets in the upper right thigh. Dirt got into the wound, causing infection. On November 10, a warrant was issued for his arrest. However, he was temporarily sheltered in their home by the Jewish Ballin family, and then his wife illegally took the seriously wounded Hermann to Austria. After some time, he was transported to Italy and Sweden. The wounds were not healing well and to get rid of severe pain, Herman began taking morphine, which caused a disturbance in his mental activity. He was first admitted to the Langbro psychiatric clinic and then to Konradsberg. Staying in these hospitals did little to help Goering. All his life he continued to have fits, sentimentality turned into rage. Characteristic features of Goering were irrepressible vanity, fear of responsibility and complete violation of moral principles. Otto Schrasser assessed Goering this way: “He is a born killer who enjoyed the horror of his victims.”

When Hitler's trial began, Goering tried to return to Germany, but Hitler, through his lawyer, forbade him to do so in order to “save it for National Socialism.” In April 1924, Goering's wife, Karin, met Hitler in prison, who confirmed to her that "Hermann is his closest ally." In 1927, after an amnesty for the participants in the putsch, Goering returned to Germany and became Hitler's personal representative.

In the September 1930 elections to the Reichstag, Goering became its deputy. There he established close relationships with many leaders of the German war industry. He is elected chairman of the Reichstag.

In October 1931, Goering buried his wife, who died of tuberculosis, and “went headlong” into politics, devoting his life to Hitler. On January 30, 1933, after the formation of Hitler's government, while remaining Chairman of the Reichstag, Goering became Reich Minister without Portfolio, exercising control over aviation and the Prussian Ministry of the Interior.

In 1933, Hermann headed the Prussian police, appointing NSDAP adherents to all its leadership positions. And having become Minister-President of Prussia in 1933, he issued a decree according to which the Gestapo was freed from subordination to the Ministry of the Interior and came under the jurisdiction of Goering alone. On January 30, 1934, police services were transferred under the jurisdiction of the Reich by a special decree. Goering held the Gestapo firmly in his hands until Hitler, who officially recognized the existence of the Luftwaffe in Germany, appointed him Minister of Aviation. Goering was forced to hand over the leadership of the Gestapo to its new master, Heinrich Himmler.

Heinrich Himmler born on October 7, 1900 in Munich in the family of a teacher. Young Henry adopted for himself, according to his romantic ideas, first a royalist, then increasingly a civil attitude. Since childhood I have been interested German history, was exceptionally hardworking and meticulous. He wanted to become a military man and at the end of 1917, of his own free will, he was enrolled in the 11th Bavarian Infantry Regiment. After six months of military training, from June 15 to September 15, 1918, he attended courses for warrant officers in Freising, then until October 1, 1918, for machine gunners in Bayreuth. In December 1918 he was demobilized. In April 1919, he enlisted in a volunteer detachment to suppress the communist putsch in Bavaria, but did not participate in hostilities.

Reichsführer SS and Chief of German Police Heinrich Himmler

From August 1, 1919, he worked on a farm in Ingolstadt, but immediately fell ill with typhus and did not work until October, when he managed to enroll in the agricultural department of the Higher Technical School at the University of Munich. In November 1919 he joined the city defense brigade, and on May 16, 1920 he joined the ranks of the people's militia. While studying at the university, he read a lot and was interested in literature devoted to the Jewish question, which had a strong influence on the formation of his nationalist and anti-Semitic views. In 1922, he was involved in a conspiracy to free Count von Arco-Valley, the murderer of Minister von Rathenau, from prison.

In August 1922, having passed his final exams, he got a job at a company producing nitrogen fertilizers and at the same time joined the nationalist organization “Imperial War Flag” under the command of Captain Rehm. Participated in the “beer hall putsch” as a standard bearer. After the failure of the putsch, he joined the National Liberation Movement, where he came under the influence of Hitler's comrade-in-arms Gregor Strasser. He was engaged in propaganda work in the countryside. On August 2, 1925 he joined the NSDAP, receiving the position of secretary and assistant general issues at Strasser's. In particular, he was responsible for secret weapons depots and helped publish the magazine “Courier of Lower Bavaria”. In the same year he was appointed Deputy Gauleiter of Lower Bavaria and Deputy Reich Director of Propaganda. He continued to do a lot of agitation in the countryside, which allowed him to become well acquainted with the situation of the German peasantry. Together with like-minded people from the Artam Union, which called for a return to the land, he organized a peasant farm, but it quickly went bankrupt. He was elected head of the Lower Bavarian branch of the Union, and in 1927 appointed Deputy Reichsführer of the SS.

By this time, his radical anti-Semitic, anti-Slavic and populist views had finally formed. Himmler fell into mesmerism, eugenics, and clairvoyance. He introduced magicians, hypnotists and fortune-tellers into his circle. He admired chivalry, admiring the German Emperor Henry the Birdcatcher, who drove out the Danes and Hungarians and conquered the Slavs. He had ambitions taken to the point of absurdity, an abnormally developed erotic instinct, a lack of common sense and wild stubbornness, expressed in enormous capacity for work.

He was a rather tall man with a round face and the appearance of a modest accountant. The small mustache on his face gave him the appearance of a market trader. Extremely pedantic, he devoted himself entirely to work and almost never lived at home.

In July 1928, Heinrich married nurse Marga Kutsertseva, a native of Bromsberg, who was seven years older than him. With his wife's money, Himmler bought a chicken breeding company in Trudering near Munich. But things didn’t work out for them, and Himller tried to grow medicinal herbs. However, all these activities ended in failure, and disagreements began with his wife. Despite the birth of his daughter Gudrun, he became estranged from his wife, who despised her husband. At first he did not consider it possible for himself to file for divorce because of his daughter, although by that time he was already living with another woman, with whom he had two children. However, in 1929 he divorced and after marrying the landowner's daughter Margaret Boden became Reichsführer of the SS.

Himmler immediately began selecting candidates for the SS based on race. In 1930 he was elected as a member of the Reichstag. In February 1931, he took an active part in the fight against stormtroopers and on March 9, 1933, he was appointed chief of police in Munich. Having rented Wewelsburg Castle, he turned it into spiritual center SS Order. By the beginning of 1934, he subjugated the political police of all “lands” except Prussia, using security detachments to put pressure on local officials. On April 20, 1934, Goering appointed him “inspector” of the Prussian Gestapo. Heinrich was one of the main organizers and inspirers of the “Night of the Long Knives.”

On July 20, 1934, Himmler received the rank of Reichsleiter of the NSDAP and was removed from subordination to the Chief of Staff of the SA. In the same year he began to create SS units. In 1935 he founded the Society for the Study of Spiritual History and the Source of Life Society, which engaged in research in the field of racial and occult issues.

After the seizure of power by the National Socialists, Himmler in 1930 passed from the NSDAP to the Reichstag and already in mid-March became a political assistant at the Ministry of the Interior, then the police president in Munich and from April the commander of the Bavarian political police. After a short time he was appointed commander of almost the entire political police. The police of Baden, Bremen, Hamburg, Hesse, Lübeck, Mecklenburg, Thuringia and Württenberg came under his control, and in February 1934 - already 14 “states” of the German state.

The next jump in his career was deputy chief and inspector of the Prussian Secret State Police Goering. On April 20, 1934, Goering opened the way for Himmler to the SS, SA and the leadership of the Prussian police. By then, the era of Rudolf Diels in the Gestapo was over. He, not being a member of the NSDAP, was forced to move to the position of head of the Cologne district administration. The head of the Gestapo was SD chief Heydrich, who moved the security service to Berlin, to the palace of Prince Albrecht.

Formally, Goering was now subordinate to Himmler, who in no way felt obliged to report to the Prussian Prime Minister; in fact, he had the right to dispose of the largest political police force in Germany.

With the creation of the coordinating "Central Bureau of Political Command of the Land Police" on May 2, 1934, Himmler extended his power to the entire country. The emergence of a new organization was justified, since by that time the struggle for influential positions in the National Socialist Party had intensified. After the Rem putsch, the positions of the SA and, above all, its chief, were significantly shaken. Himmler, taking advantage of this, strengthened his influence as Reichsführer SS and began to report directly to Hitler. The SS gained organizational independence. Goering, under pressure from Hitler, ceded to Himmler command of all the political police organizations in Prussia that had been assigned to him until then. By decree of Hitler, Himmler, starting from June 17, 1936, becomes “the Reich Leader of the SS and the Chief of the German Police in the Reich Ministry of the Interior.”

Thus, Himmler became, after the Fuhrer, the most significant person in the German Reich. In practice, he controlled not only the SS and SD, but also the entire police force, which made his formal subordination to the Secretary of State and the Prussian and Reich Minister of the Interior Frick practically insignificant. At the same time, he exercised “executive power” and centralized the police on the imperial field.

The SS, and especially the Gestapo, became the implementers of the militant racist ideas of Nazism. Himmler tried to revive the traditions of chivalry by developing an oath for new SS members. “I swear,” the oath said, “to you, Adolf Hitler, Fuhrer and Chancellor of the Reich, of my loyalty and courage. And I solemnly promise you and those who appointed me as leaders, with God's help obey until death." “My honor is my loyalty,” declared the SS men. And this honor not only did not interfere, but, on the contrary, ordered the killing of women, children and the elderly. Himmler selected people into the SS and, accordingly, the Gestapo, according to the “principle of blood.” To select the owners of this blood, candidates were subjected to the strictest tests, the ultimate goal of which, according to Himmler, was “the formation of a superior class that will dominate Europe for centuries.”

From now on, the Gestapo became more and more separated from the state police and tied to the SD. However, Himmler used the won positions not only to expand the police apparatus, but continued to develop the system of concentration camps. As part of the emerging triangle of power: SS - political police - concentration camp, on his orders, already in March 1933, the concentration camp in Dachau was created, which was under the control of the SS and served as a model for the organization of all subsequent camps in the country.

The “Black Order” created by Himmler infiltrated all spheres of German life and allowed him to brutally deal with all his enemies.

Reinhard Heydrich born in March 1904 in the city of Halle an der Saale near Munich in the family of a composer and director of a music school. Attended a real gymnasium. Already in his youth he was well-read, knew English, French and Russian, and was seriously involved in his education. He was a good swimmer and fencer, and played the violin well. In the spring of 1919 he joined General Merker's Volunteer Corps, then served as a liaison in the Halle people's militia. In March 1920, he worked in the Technical Assistance Service, which established the supply of electricity, gas and water to the population. In 1918 - 1919 he was a member of the German National Youth Union, and later from 1920 to March 1922 - in the German National Defense Union.

Reinhard Heydrich

On March 30, 1922, Heydrich entered the Naval Officers' School in Kiel-Holtenau, and in 1926 he was promoted to lieutenant, and in 1928 to first lieutenant. Reinhard was distinguished by exorbitant ambition; from the very beginning he dreamed of becoming an admiral. He trained on the battleship Braunschweig, the sailing ship Niobe and the cruiser Berlin, where he met the future chief of German military intelligence, Canaris (at that time he was the commander of the cruiser). He often gave chamber concerts at the home of Canaris and his wife, but had no friends among his other colleagues. He trained for two years to become a communications officer. He did not show outstanding success in his studies (he was only in 23rd place among the chief lieutenants of his graduation), but he was an excellent athlete, engaged in fencing, pistol shooting, swimming, steeplechase, horseback riding and sailing.

Heydrich was always interested in politics, extremist theories of “patriotic” movements, imbued with the spirit of militarism. Having received the rank of lieutenant, he was sent to the political sector of the intelligence service of the Baltic Fleet.

Heydrich could have made a brilliant career in the navy if he had not been a sexual maniac. The love story put an end to his further advancement in military service. On April 30, 1931, he appeared before the court of honor on charges of insulting a girl, the daughter of a senior officer. They said he got her drunk, raped her and refused to marry her. As a result, Heydrich was fired from the Navy. Left out of work, Heydrich went through a rather difficult time, living from bread to water and moving among the dregs of society in the northern ports of Germany. Connections with dark personalities whom the Nazis used in the fight against other parties led him to the NSDAP on June 1, 1931.

Through a family friend, SS Oberführer von Eberstein, he met Reichsführer SS Himmler. At the meeting, I received an assignment from him to sketch out a diagram of the future party intelligence service in 15 minutes. Heydrich completed this task, and on July 14, 1931, he was accepted into the Hamburg branch of the SS.

He took part in battles with the communists and conducted military training for the SS units entrusted to him. In August 1931, he organized an intelligence department in the SS, actually a security service, called department 1s. He successfully fought traitors in the party ranks, collected files on enemies and people potentially useful to the party. Even then he nurtured the idea of total control of the SS over all areas of public life.

On December 26, 1931, Reinhard married Lina von Osten. This "secular" gentleman, a lover of music, was in fact a completely unbalanced, evil person. He constantly visited dubious nightlife establishments, spent the night in brothels, where he picked up the dirtiest prostitutes. Heydrich was constantly jealous of his wife, a cold beauty who hoped to bask in luxury with his help, unable to imagine herself without her. A distinctive feature of Heydrich was his exorbitant cruelty, which he knew how to hide with his characteristic cunning, showing himself to be an efficient and disciplined employee.

In July 1932, Reinhard Heydrich was appointed chief of the security service of the Reichsführer SS (SD). He formed the SD on the model of the British secret service, giving preference to intellectuals with higher education. In March 1933 he received the post of chief of the political police of Munich. Together with Himmler he was involved in organizing the concentration camp in Dachau.

The initiator of the creation of paramilitary units and SS cadet schools in Bad Tölz and Braunschweig, he personally developed a training program for cadets in these schools, focusing on military rather than ideological training. In June 1936 he was appointed chief of the security police and SD. In the same year, he published the essay “Metamorphoses of our struggle,” where he briefly described the enemies of National Socialism - Jews, Freemasons and politicized priests - and methods of combating them.

Immediately after the Rehm putsch, Himmler, as chief of the German police, reorganized it and placed Heydrich in charge of the security police ("Sipo"), which had been part of the criminal police ("Kripo"). The top political career Heydrich took over the leadership of the new organization of the Main Directorate of Imperial Security (RSHA), formed in September 1939 after the merger of “Zipo” and “Kripo”. From his office at Prinz Albrechtstrasse 8, Heydrich weaved a gigantic web that later covered the whole of Germany.

Heinrich Müller born on April 28, 1900 in Munich in the family of a manager. Attended primary and work schools. In 1914, he became an assistant aircraft mechanic at the Bavarian aviation workshops in Munich. In 1918 he completed flight training and was sent to the Western Front. Made an independent raid on Paris. On June 13, 1919, he was discharged from aviation with the rank of vice-sergeant major, and until November 1919 he worked as a forwarder in the air navigation inspectorate.

Gestapo Chief Heinrich Müller

On December 1, 1919, Müller was accepted as an assistant in the administrative department of the Munich police department. On October 16, 1920, he was transferred to the political police department, whose tasks included the fight against left-wing movements.

In 1923, Heinrich completed his secondary education. On July 1, 1929, he passed his specialty exam with a “very good” grade and received the position of secretary in the police. In 1929, he was considered the best employee of the police presidium. In this regard, Himmler and Heydrich appointed Müller as inspector in 1933 criminal police. The following year he joined the SS and SD. Heinrich knew and admired the Soviet intelligence and counterintelligence systems very well. On September 1, 1933, he was transferred to the Bavarian political police.

With the creation of the Gestapo, Himmler sent Müller to Berlin on Prinz Albertstrasse to fight the KPD, SPD, trade unions and other enemies of the nation. He becomes the head of department II1. Beginning in April 1934, Müller was also responsible for control of the NSDAP and its sections. In July 1936, he was the head of Department II (internal political police), which included the Gestapo.

Since 1937, as an adviser to the government and the criminal police, who was on public service, Müller, after the adoption of the reorganization plan in January 1938, became not only the deputy head of the political police, the Gestapo, but actually the chief of the Gestapo, since he headed the entire political line of this organization. With the establishment of the RSHA in 1939, Müller was finally promoted to the rank of lieutenant general of police, became chief of the Gestapo and later was involved in the persecution and deportation of Jews in concentration camps. He was allowed to join the NSDAP, despite the fact that only in 1939 - in the Weimar Republic - he was close to the Catholic centers and, while serving in the police, opposed the National Socialists.

Cunning, secretive, with great skill in exposing his political opponents, the owner of a huge card index containing incriminating evidence on all the highest ranks of the Reich, “Gestapo-Müller,” as he was called, managed to significantly strengthen the Secret State Police and made this organization one of the most brutal.

Ernst Kaltenbrunner born on October 4, 1903 in the city of Ried (Austria) in the family of a lawyer. Kaltenbrunner's parents were ardent nationalists who were hostile to the church. In 1918, Ernst moved to Linz, where he studied at the gymnasium. In 1921 he studied chemistry at the Technical High School in Graz. He joined the armed student association "Arminia" and soon became a leader among students. In 1923 he switched to studying law. Ernst made his living transporting coal at the mine. In 1924 - 1925 he became the leader of Arminia and, together with nationalist-minded students, took part in anti-Marxist and anti-church demonstrations. He received his doctorate in law in 1926 and worked as an intern in Linz and Salzbug until 1928. In 1928 he is a lawyer in Linz; joined the nationalist Gymnastic Union, and in 1929 - the People's Militia and on October 18, 1930 - the NSDAP, whose demand for the annexation of Austria to Germany particularly appealed to him. On August 8, 1931, he became a member of the SS, independent of the local National Socialist Party. He was assigned to the headquarters of Subsection VIII as a legal advisor.

Ernst Kaltenbrunner, since 1943 Chief of the Security Police and SD

In 1932, Kaltenbrunner went to work at law office father, defending the National Socialists for free in court. From June 15, 1934 to June 15, 1935 - commander of the 37th SS Standard. In 1934, after the failed Beer Hall Putsch, he was placed together with other National Socialists in a concentration camp. He organized a general hunger strike there. He was soon released and in 1935 he was arrested again on charges of treason. He was sentenced to 6 months in prison and disbarred.

From 1936 to 1938, Kaltenbrunner devoted himself entirely to work in the SS. He headed Section VIII, which existed illegally. On January 20, 1937, he was appointed head of the SS Danube section. On March 12, 1938, after the annexation of Austria to Germany, he received the post of State Secretary for Public Security in the Seyss-Inquart government. Since September 11, 1938, Kaltenbrunner has been the highest leader of the SS and police of the SS Danube station. Created the Mauthausen concentration camp.

On January 1, 1943, after the assassination of Heydrich, Himmler appointed Kaltenbrunner as his successor. Himmler was not bothered by the fact that Kaltenbrunner, this tall, healthy and violent man, was a heavy drinker. He simply was not afraid of competition on his part. Kaltenbrunner became chief of the Reich Security Police SD. Then he received the rank of Obergruppenführer and General of Police. And on January 30, 1943, he was appointed chief of the RSHA (before that, he actually replaced Himmler in this post). The main role in Kaltenbrunner's appointment to this post was played by his successes in organizing intelligence. He was mainly involved in the work of the SD (Gestapo chief Müller acted independently of him). At the same time, he supervised the activities of SD operational groups.

He was distinguished by extreme sadism.

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