For years, historians grappling with the strange final months of Nazi Germany have been puzzled by one central contradiction. Heinrich Himmler, the Reichsführer SS, controlled the most formidable apparatus of terror in Europe, with an SS army of some nine hundred thousand men and absolute command over the police and security services of the Reich. Yet as the Third Reich crumbled, he seemed paralyzed, never moving to seize the power that lay almost within his grasp. The answer, it turns out, lies in a conspiracy of top SS generals who, in the last months of the war, came to believe that Adolf Hitler was no longer fit to lead and who plotted to replace him with Himmler himself.
The conspiracy began to take shape in January 1945, as the military situation on both fronts deteriorated beyond repair. Himmler, a man with no real military experience, had been given command of Army Group Upper Rhine on the Franco-German frontier, tasked with supporting Hitler’s last great offensive in the west, Operation Nordwind. After that, in late January, Hitler promoted him to command Army Group Vistula on the Eastern Front, ordering him to stop the Soviet advance into Pomerania. Himmler failed publicly and catastrophically.
Unsure of himself and without a proper military staff, he could not hold the line. Eventually he resigned his command, citing illness brought on by the stress. From that point, the relationship between Hitler and Himmler was broken, though outwardly Himmler remained as loyal as ever. Sometime in that same month, while Himmler floundered in the East, a conspiracy began to brew in the upper echelons of the SS.
Four SS generals, all holding the rank of Obergruppenführer, or lieutenant general, were named after the war as active plotters from January 1945 right up to the collapse of Germany in May: Felix Steiner, commander of the 11th SS Panzer Army; Richard Hildebrandt, Himmler’s chief liaison officer to Field Marshal Ferdinand Schörner; Curt von Gottberg, deputy commander of the Replacement Army; and Otto Ohlendorf, chief of Department 3 of the Reich Main Security Office and a former Einsatzgruppen commander in the Soviet Union. Close to them stood SS Brigadeführer Walter Schellenberg, head of SS foreign intelligence, who had stood beside Himmler throughout his secret attempts to negotiate a separate peace with the Western Allies. As the war dragged on into 1945, dissatisfaction hardened into resolve. Martin Bormann, Hitler’s powerful secretary and gatekeeper, had been encroaching on SS authority over the security police and the Gestapo, treading directly on the toes of Ernst Kaltenbrunner, the feared head of the Reich Main Security Office.
Bormann disliked Himmler and sought to undermine him whenever possible. Ohlendorf later told his interrogators that he had become aware of Steiner’s discussions about a possible reorganization of the government as early as January 1945. But the plotters knew they could not act without Himmler, and Steiner worried whether the hesitant Himmler would ever act. The rumor that Himmler was to replace Hitler began to spread.
On March 17, 1945, Joseph Goebbels noted in his diary that Swedish news coverage was presenting Himmler, not the Führer, as the guarantor of peace for Germany, and claimed that a powerful German clique had offered Hitler’s head as a surety. Goebbels dismissed it as British fabrication. The pressure on Himmler to act came not only from the SS but from the army. Colonel General Heinz Guderian, the acting chief of the general staff, confronted Himmler twice in March 1945.
On the twentieth, Guderian asked him to act as a mediator with Hitler, to convince the Führer to see sense. Himmler replied that it was too early for such a step and that his instincts told him the war would still go well. The next day, walking privately with Himmler in the Reich Chancellery Garden, Guderian pressed harder. He told Himmler bluntly that the war could not be won and that the only question was how quickly to end the senseless slaughter.
Himmler again replied that it was still too early. Guderian refused to back down, insisting that it was not five minutes to midnight but five minutes past, and that if they did not negotiate now, they never would. For ten more minutes he tried to move Himmler, but Himmler would not be moved. Guderian concluded that Himmler was simply afraid of Hitler.
Two days later, Himmler told General Gotthard Heinrici, his successor at Army Group Vistula, that he had taken steps through a neutral country to begin peace feelers with the West. It was the truth, yet he had said nothing of it to Guderian. On March 28, a top secret Special Operations Executive report from a Danish agent in London noted that Himmler had initiated not one but three peace feelers, through Sweden, Switzerland, and the Vatican. The report suggested that Himmler had hinted that the demand for Hitler’s deposition was not an obstacle to an understanding, even on the basis of capitulation, provided Himmler himself remained in power for a time, on the grounds that he represented the German nation and could prevent chaos.
That same day, Winston Churchill’s daily briefing included a decoded cable reporting that Hitler remained adamant on severe measures, but that Himmler had suddenly begun to advocate leniency, hoping to placate the Allies, and that the conflict between the two was intense. By April, the SS plotters believed that Hitler’s failing health and mental state made his removal imperative. Schellenberg reported to Count Folke Bernadotte, the Swedish envoy, that Hitler had Parkinson’s disease. On April 13, Himmler walked alone with Schellenberg in the forest at his Wustrow headquarters and told him that he did not think the Führer could go on any longer.
Schellenberg assured him that his medical experts confirmed the diagnosis and that it was time to act. But here was the persistent problem: Himmler seemed incapable of taking that step. Schellenberg later wrote that a breach between Himmler and Hitler had clearly commenced, and that over and over, Himmler asked what he could do. That same day, Albert Speer, the armaments minister, met with SS General Hans Kammler, the head of the V-weapons program.
Kammler, usually confident, appeared downcast. He bluntly told Speer that efforts were being made in the SS to get rid of the Führer, and astonishingly, he said he was prepared to hand over all files concerning Germany’s jet aircraft and V-weapons to the Americans in return for immunity and freedom. He invited Speer to join him. In London, on that same day, Churchill mentioned to Admiral Sir Andrew Cunningham, the First Sea Lord, that Himmler appeared to be trying to show that he was not as bad as painted, and that Churchill would be prepared to spare even Himmler if it would save further expenditure of life.
Cunningham drily suggested there were plenty of islands to which he could be sent. The implication was clear: the British were quietly negotiating with Himmler, and Churchill was willing to consider a deal in return for Germany’s capitulation in the West. On April 19, Schellenberg organized a meeting between Himmler and Finance Minister Count von Krosigk. Himmler and von Krosigk spoke privately while Schellenberg spoke to Labor Minister Franz Seldte.
Seldte was blunt: Himmler should seize power himself and force Hitler to announce a plebiscite, the formation of a second party, and the abolition of the People’s Courts. He told Himmler directly that he must act, that he alone had any means of influencing the Führer, and that the substance of the entire German people was at stake. Two days later, in shattered Berlin, Himmler met with Hermann Göring, Hitler’s legal successor since 1941. Himmler told Göring that Count Bernadotte had come to see him at his headquarters and that he believed Bernadotte was a negotiator sent by General Dwight D.
Eisenhower himself. Göring doubted it. Himmler insisted he had undeniable proof that he was considered abroad the only person who could maintain peace and order. In the two-hour meeting, Himmler returned to the subject of the succession at least ten times, asking what would happen if Göring were unable to take over, and eventually asking Göring to nominate him as chancellor.
Göring replied that he could not legally do so. Himmler pressed from another angle: if something prevented Göring from becoming successor, could he have the job then? The exchange suggested that Himmler was seeking a legal path to power, hoping to be named Göring’s successor, rather than mounting an outright SS coup that could plunge Germany into civil war. Göring would have time to reflect on the strange conversation, for two days later he was arrested by the SS on Hitler’s orders, on the charge of attempting to take power while Hitler was still alive.
It was a lie, engineered by Bormann. As the Battle of Berlin began, the SS plotters continued to hasten Hitler’s end. On April 22, General Steiner categorically refused to launch an attack to relieve Berlin, despite repeated orders from the Führer, citing a lack of troops and armor. In reality, Steiner had no reason to see Hitler survive.
Letting the Soviets finish Hitler in Berlin would open the way for Himmler to take over. That same day, Himmler sat at his headquarters at Hohenlychen with his escort battalion of six hundred well-equipped SS troops. SS General Gottlob Berger, a Hitler loyalist, arrived and was appalled that Himmler had not marched to the sound of the guns. Berger confronted him directly, demanding that Himmler go to Berlin at once with his battalion.
After some hesitation, Himmler telephoned Hitler, who allowed him and his battalion to come to the city. The next day, Himmler had a long private meeting with Hitler in the Führerbunker and urged him to leave Berlin. Hitler refused, saying he would die in the capital. Himmler returned to Hohenlychen, leaving his escort battalion behind to stiffen the defenses of the government quarter.
That same day, Schellenberg met Bernadotte in Flensburg and told him that Hitler was finished, that he likely had no more than two days to live. Himmler, he said, had decided to meet Eisenhower and offer the capitulation of German forces in the west. Himmler was still calm and coherent, telling the Swedish envoy that Hitler was desperately ill, possibly already dead, and that while Hitler lived he could not take the step he now proposed. He wanted to capitulate the whole Western Front while continuing to fight the Soviets, at least for a time.
Bernadotte told him that was not acceptable to the Allies. Earlier that day, Speer had visited Himmler at his headquarters and found him drawing up a plan for his future governance. Himmler said Europe could not manage without him, that after he had spent an hour with Eisenhower, the Allies would realize they were dependent on him, or they would face hopeless chaos. He claimed that he and Göring had a long-standing agreement that Himmler would be his premier, and said he was organizing his cabinet.
Many people had come to see him, including Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz. He invited Speer to join his cabinet. But on April 27, the British deliberately leaked details of Himmler’s secret peace negotiations with the Western Allies. They did so to preserve Allied unity, to keep the Soviet Union satisfied that no separate peace was being made, and to further destabilize the Nazi regime.
Churchill had effectively led Himmler along, then slammed the door in his face, leaving him exposed. Martin Bormann finally succeeded in destroying his great rival, presenting Himmler’s actions to Hitler as barefaced treason. On April 28, Himmler was officially stripped of all his offices of state and completely disgraced. The blow was devastating.
Otto Ohlendorf, who saw Himmler shortly afterward, wrote that he was no longer the same man. Himmler asked strange questions and made absurd proposals. He seemed to have lost his self-confidence, his aim, and his ambition. Himmler briefly considered death in battle.
On the afternoon of April 30, Hitler killed himself in the Führerbunker. Just after six o’clock that evening, Bormann sent a message from Berlin: Hitler had named his new successor as Reich President, Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz. Later that evening, Dönitz telephoned Himmler and asked him to come to Ploen. Himmler arrived about midnight, escorted by six heavily armed SS officers.
Dönitz handed him Bormann’s telegram. As Himmler read it, an expression of astonishment, indeed of consternation, spread over his face. All hope seemed to collapse within him. He went very pale.
Finally he stood and bowed. Allow me to become the second man in your state, he said. Dönitz replied that it was impossible. Himmler left at one o’clock in the morning on May 1, 1945.
His machinations were at an end. The SS generals who had plotted to make him Führer had failed. Himmler did not attempt to assert his claim to the succession. Instead, he placed himself at the disposal of Dönitz.
For the next twenty-two days, he fled south, a disgraced man stripped of all power, until British authorities took him into custody. On May 23, 1945, Heinrich Himmler bit into a cyanide capsule hidden in his mouth and died, bringing an end to the strangest and most secret power struggle of the Third Reich’s final weeks.