Death mask of a monster: Taken just minutes after his suicide by cyanide, the unseen picture of Himmler put up for auction. But who would want to buy such a sick memento?
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As he lies dead on a makeshift bed, his school- masterly round glasses still perched on his nose, it is hard to believe that this pathetic figure of a man was responsible for one of the largest genocides in history.
Taken just minutes after he had bitten down on a cyanide capsule, this previously unseen picture shows the still warm body of Heinrich Himmler, head of the dreaded SS and the twisted mastermind of the Holocaust.
It was taken by Corporal Guy Adderley of the Intelligence Corps in May 1945, one of the team who interrogated Himmler after his arrest at a British checkpoint in northern Germany as he tried to flee in disguise following the fall of the Third Reich.
Pathetic last act: Himmler on his deathbed minutes after committing suicide
He was transferred to a British interrogation centre in the town of Luneburg, and was due to be questioned over war crimes the following day, when he poisoned himself.
After his death, propaganda photographs of Himmler’s corpse slumped on a makeshift bed were released. But Adderley kept this grainy photograph among his wartime mementoes, which have remained hidden from the world for decades.
Adderley’s family planned to sell the picture at auction in Bristol yesterday. It was estimated to fetch thousands of pounds, a startling sum that reveals the historical value of such an image.
From agriculture student to master of terror: As head of the SS, Himmler was responsible for carrying out the Final Solution
But just before the sale, the picture was withdrawn. Speculation that this was because the family feared repercussions over selling such an inflammatory image were dismissed by Malcolm Claridge, head of medals and militaria at Dreweatt’s auctioneers.
Had it gone on sale, the photograph would almost certainly have been snapped up by one of the many anonymous and wealthy individuals who like to collect Third Reich memorabilia.
It would have counted as the crown jewel in any Nazi trophy-hunter’s display cabinet — for almost more than any other Nazi leader, it was Himmler who held the regime together and implemented some of its most repellent policies.
Following his suicide, four British soldiers took his body from the interrogation centre and buried it in an unmarked grave on Luneburg Heath — its precise location kept secret for fear of it becoming a place of pilgrimage for neo-Nazis.
Conspiracy theories have flourished ever since, for the body has never been found and Army personnel were ordered to sign the Official Secrets Act, keeping the details secret for 100 years.
What we do know, however, is that the last days of Himmler’s life were pathetic as he tried to evade capture. After the German defeat, he disguised himself as a Field Security NCO and tried to head south from Flensburg on the Danish border down to Bavaria.
He had shaved off his moustache, removed all his insignia on his uniform and wore an eye patch. He called himself Heinrich Hitzinger, and was accompanied by two of his most loyal SS men, who were willing to defend him to the death.
They set out first by car, then by foot because it was less conspicuous, and tried to pass themselves off as military refugees heading home, doing their best to merge in among the thousands of troops trying to avoid capture.
It was at a British checkpoint at a bridge at Bremervorde, 120 miles south of Flensburg, that Himmler was arrested on May 21, 1945, partly for the simple reason that all Field Security NCOs were subject to automatic arrest.
Right-hand man: Himmler at Adolf Hitler's side inspecting a parade of Nazi Stormtroopers during the war
He was not recognised, and was interned at a nearby PoW camp before being sent to an interrogation centre at Barfeld on May 23.
Before questioning had started, Himmler realised the game was up and, after putting on his distinctive spectacles, quietly announced: ‘Ich bin Heinrich Himmler.’
Military intelligence was immediately alerted, and despite under-going a thorough body search, the phial of cyanide was not found in his mouth.
Himmler was then driven to a villa in Luneburg, where, according to Adderley — the corporal who took the photograph — the German ‘became alarmed’ when a senior staff officer tried to take control of the situation.
Just after 11pm, Himmler flicked the capsule from a gap between his teeth and bit down. Despite a desperate attempt to save him, he was dead within a few minutes.
Cold, calculating monster: Despite being responsible for the deaths of millions of people, Himmler liked to pose as a family man. He is seen here in his SS uniform with his daughter, Gudrun Himmler
So ended the life of one of the most evil individuals in the Nazi regime. Ever since his solidly middle-class childhood in the early 1900s, he had been fascinated by war.
He looked set for a career in agriculture, but by 1929 he had become head of the SS and used the organisation to advance his own bizarre political and eugenic theories. By the time Hitler came to power in 1933, Himmler’s ascent was assured — and the war gave him the opportunity to practise his sinister theories with horrific effect.
His empire included not only the hated Gestapo and the concentration camps, but also his murder squads — the Einsatzgruppen —– that followed the German armed forces as they advanced into the Soviet Union.
The ‘work’ carried out by Himmler’s men was horrific. In the town of Virbalis in what is now Lithuania, Jewish families were placed in anti-tank trenches about two kilometres long and then killed by machine guns. Lime was sprayed onto the bodies, then a second row was shot, and so on until the trench was filled with corpses.
Unmoved: Himmler inspects a Russian POW camp
The Einsatzgruppen, perhaps mindful of the somewhat fragile German war economy, decided not to use bullets on the children.
‘They were caught by the legs, their heads hit against stones and they were thereupon buried alive,’ one witness recalled.
It was Himmler who gave Adolf Eichmann the authority to put into practice ‘the final solution of the Jewish question’, by handing him a document he had signed — it stated that Hitler had ordered it.
Though Himmler was willing to order murder, he found it difficult to witness. At one massacre in Minsk in August 1941, his coat and face were splattered with the brains of a Jew who had just been shot.
‘He wasn’t actually sick, but he was heaving and turned round and swayed, and then I had to jump forward and hold him steady,’ one witness recalled.
Despite his squeamishness, Himmler continued to urge his beloved SS on to new heights of murderousness. In Poznan in October 1943, he spoke openly of the ‘extermination of the Jewish people’ and congratulated his men on what they had achieved.
‘Most of you here know what it means when 100 corpses lie next to each other, when there are 500 or when there are 1,000.
‘To have endured this and at the same time to have remained a decent person — with exceptions due to human weaknesses — has made us tough, and is a glorious chapter that has not and will not be spoken of.’
Himmler, of course, was despicable rather than decent. And given the secrecy surrounding his death, it is no wonder conspiracy theories swirl around him.
There are some who reckon he was, in fact, murdered on the orders of British intelligence to keep secret the ‘fact’ that he had been negotiating with Churchill for nearly a year.
He had been one of the few Nazi leaders shrewd enough to realise which way the war was going, and in April 1945 he attempted to open negotiations with the Allies, though he was summarily rebuffed.
But there is no supporting evidence for such theories, which may have been encouraged by the fact that no one wished to acknowledge that allowing Himmler to kill himself was an extraordinary piece of incompetence by the British Army.
No, that Himmler killed himself is almost indisputable. Had he been brought to the Nuremberg Tribunal, he would have been hanged.
And for future generations, his trial would have enabled us to learn just what turned this middle-class son of a teacher into a monster.
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