For years I have picked at the mystery of Heinrich Himmler’s final months and his strange demise in British custody in May 1945. The official story has never satisfied me, and I have always believed the bigger story remains just out of focus. One thing has mystified me for a long time. Himmler wielded immense power through the SS state, with an army of 900,000 men at his disposal and complete control over the police and security organizations of Nazi Germany.
Yet he never moved to oust Hitler and take power for himself, even though from 1943 onwards he was secretly trying to make a separate peace with the Western Allies behind the Führer’s back. It is well known that Himmler probably aided the July plot in 1944, when a cabal of aristocratic army officers attempted to assassinate Hitler at the Wolf’s Lair. Himmler had some knowledge of the plot before the attack and did nothing to stop it, but afterward he was tasked by Hitler with rounding up and destroying the plotters, a task he performed with great alacrity, perhaps to ensure his own part in the affair was never revealed. It may surprise some that an SS plot did exist to kill Hitler and replace him with Himmler.
But this plot did not originate with the Reichsführer himself. It came from a conspiracy of top SS generals who believed in the last months of the war that Hitler was no longer fit to lead, and that terms should be sought with the Western Allies to prevent the complete destruction of Germany. In late 1944, Himmler, a man with no real military experience, was given command of Army Group Upper Rhine in Alsace on the Franco-German frontier. He was tasked with assisting Hitler’s last great offensive in the west, Operation Nordwind, launched on New Year’s Day 1945 against weak American opposition.
The aim was to relieve pressure on the stalled Ardennes Offensive further north. Himmler’s subsidiary attack went quite well, and he made limited gains. Many supposed he wanted to win the Knight’s Cross for military success. On the 25th of January 1945, Hitler promoted him to command of Army Group Vistula on the Eastern Front, with the task of stopping the Soviet advance into Pomerania.
Completely inadequate to this task and without a proper military staff, Himmler very publicly failed the Führer and eventually resigned his post due to illness caused by the great stress of command. From that point, the relationship between Hitler and Himmler was broken. Though outwardly as loyal as ever, Himmler decided to try to make peace once more secretly behind Hitler’s back. However, it has emerged that sometime in January, while Himmler was trying to prove himself at Army Group Vistula, a conspiracy started to brew in the upper echelons of the SS to make Himmler Führer.
It began with various characters carefully sounding one another out, sharing their dissatisfaction with how the war was being fought and Hitler’s evident incompetence as leader. Four SS generals in particular were named post-war as active plotters from January 1945 right up to the German surrender in May, with things seemingly reaching a head in April as the Battle of Berlin began. The four men all held the same rank: SS Obergruppenführer, or Lieutenant General. One was Felix Steiner, commander since the 28th of January 1945 of the 11th SS Panzer Army, part of Himmler’s Army Group Vistula.
The second was Richard Hildebrandt, Himmler’s chief liaison officer to the commander in chief of Army Group Center, Generalfeldmarschall Ferdinand Schörner, and from April 1945 the Higher SS and Police Leader of Bohemia and Moravia. The third was Curt von Gottberg, from December 1944 onwards deputy commander to Himmler in his post as commander of the Replacement Army, the organization Colonel Count von Stauffenberg had tried to deceive into the July Plot. The fourth man was Otto Ohlendorf, chief of Department 3 of the Reich Main Security Office in Berlin. Ohlendorf had once commanded one of the Einsatzgruppen mass murder units in the Soviet Union, and by 1943 he was a top SS economics advisor.
Another man deeply involved with this coup plotting was SS Brigadeführer Walter Schellenberg, head of SS foreign intelligence until war’s end, who had stood beside Himmler throughout his secret peace negotiations with the allies. There were others part of this amorphous conspiracy as well. As the war dragged into 1945 with no sign of the promised victory, dissolution grew in the highest ranks of the SS and the army. Martin Bormann, Hitler’s powerful secretary and gatekeeper, was identified by the SS as someone who needed removing.
Bormann was encroaching on the power of the SS over the security police and the Gestapo, treading directly on the toes of SS Obergruppenführer Dr. Ernst Kaltenbrunner, the much-feared Austrian head of the Reich Main Security Office. It was no secret that Bormann disliked Himmler and sought to undermine him whenever he could. Otto Ohlendorf told his interrogator on the 27th of October 1945 that he had become aware of Felix Steiner’s discussions with other plotters about the possible reorganization of the government as early as January 1945.
But Steiner and the others knew they could not act without Himmler, and Steiner was worried whether the hesitant Himmler would act. Ohlendorf believed that Kaltenbrunner would not support a coup to place his boss Himmler in Hitler’s place, as Kaltenbrunner had found himself increasingly in Hitler’s favor despite his conflict with Bormann, and seemed only interested in advancing his own career. In the meantime, Himmler, via Walter Schellenberg, had opened a fresh round of communications with the West through Count Folke Bernadotte of the Swedish Red Cross and former Swiss President Musy. Himmler would ultimately use Jews from his concentration camp system as diplomatic pawns at war’s end, negotiating the release of certain groups in return for access to high Allied officials and politicians, even selling Jews to American Jewish groups via Switzerland.
An examination of Himmler’s calendar for 1945 shows he had several private meetings with Felix Steiner, though they may have been connected only with military affairs regarding Army Group Vistula. These meetings occurred on the 24th of January and the 1st of February. Suddenly, Himmler’s machinations behind the Führer’s back had started a rumor that he was to be Hitler’s replacement. Dr.
Joseph Goebbels, the propaganda minister, noted in his diary for the 17th of March 1945 news coverage from Sweden. He wrote: “The really grotesque feature this news coverage is that Himmler, not the Führer, is presented as the guarantor of peace for Germany. A powerful German clique is said to have offered the Führer’s head as a surety. Not a word of this is true, of course; all this has been cooked up by the British themselves.
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It was not just rumblings coming from the SS that threatened Hitler, but once again from the army. Colonel General Heinz Guderian, acting chief of the general staff of the army high command and Hitler’s advisor on the Eastern Front, confronted Himmler twice regarding Hitler’s removal over two days in March 1945. On the 20th of March, Guderian had sounded out top Nazi leaders concerning making peace with the West. Joachim von Ribbentrop, the Foreign Minister, was evasive, stating that he was loyal to Hitler.
Guderian then approached Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz, Commander of the Navy, without success. Finally, he spoke to Himmler, asking him to act as a mediator between Guderian and Hitler to get the Führer to see sense. Himmler told Guderian that it was too early for such a step and that his instincts made him feel the war would go well yet. The following day, Guderian met Hitler at the bunker in Berlin and afterward was able to walk privately with Himmler in the Reich Chancellery Garden.
Guderian said: “I told him bluntly what he had always known for a long time. The war cannot be won. The only problem now is how quickly to put an end to the senseless slaughter and bombing. Apart from Ribbentrop, you are the only man who still possesses contacts in neutral nations.
I must ask you to use your contacts and to go with me to Hitler and urge him that he agree an armistice. ”
Himmler replied: “My dear Colonel General, it is still too early for that. ”
Guderian refused to back down. He said: “I don’t understand you.
It is not now five minutes to twelve, but five minutes past twelve. If we don’t negotiate now, we shall never be able to do so at all. Don’t you realize how pitiful our situation has become? ” For ten more minutes, Guderian tried to get Himmler to act, but he would not.
Guderian concluded there was nothing to be done with the man. He was afraid of Hitler. Two days later, Himmler told Colonel General Gotthard Heinrici, who had replaced him as commander-in-chief at Army Group Vistula, that he had taken steps via a neutral country to begin peace feelers with the West. This was completely true, yet he had not divulged such to Guderian.
On the 28th of March 1945, a top secret Special Operations Executive report landed in London from a Danish agent. It spoke of Himmler having initiated not one but three peace feelers via Sweden, Switzerland, and the Vatican. The report noted: “Himmler has hinted that the demand for the deposition of Hitler was not an obstacle to an understanding, even on the basis of capitulation, but Himmler to remain, at all events, for a time, on the grounds that Himmler represents the German nation and can prevent chaos on capitulation. ”
The same day, Winston Churchill’s daily briefing included a decoded cable from the Chinese diplomatic mission that read: “I hear that the Führer still adamant severe measures,” a reference to the executions of deserters, defeatists, and Jews, “but that Himmler has suddenly begun to advocate leniency, hoping to placate the United Nations.
The conflict of opinion between the two is intense. ”
The SS conspirators believed that Hitler’s increasing ill health and frailty, not to mention his mental state, were cause for his removal from power. Walter Schellenberg reported to Count Bernadotte that Hitler had Parkinson’s disease. On the 13th of April 1945, Schellenberg met with Himmler and the head of Nazi public health, Leonardo Conti.
Afterward, Himmler and Schellenberg walked alone in the forest at Himmler’s Wustrow headquarters. Himmler said: “Schellenberg, I don’t think that we can let the Führer go on any longer. ” He asked if Schellenberg’s medical experts were sure in their private diagnosis of Hitler’s Parkinson’s. Schellenberg replied: “Yes, it is true that it has been two or three years since I met Hitler, but from what I can judge of his behavior in recent times, I am convinced that it is high time for you to act.
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But this was the problem. Himmler seemed incapable of taking that step, as Guderian and others had found out. Schellenberg wrote of Himmler: “It was clear that a breach between him and Hitler had commenced. Over and over, he asked me what he could do.
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That very same day in Berlin, Armaments Minister Albert Speer had an early afternoon meeting with the head of the V-weapons program, SS Obergruppenführer Dr. Hans Kammler. Usually Kammler was a very confident man, but Speer noticed this time that he was very downcast. Kammler bluntly told Speer that he was part of, or at least had knowledge of, a plot within the SS.
He said efforts were being made in the SS to get rid of the Führer. Even more incredibly, Kammler told Speer that he was prepared to hand over all the files concerning Germany’s jet aircraft and V-weapons to the Americans in return for immunity from prosecution and freedom. He then invited Speer to join him. That same day in London, Admiral Sir Andrew Cunningham, the First Sea Lord, met with Winston Churchill.
He recorded the following exchange in his diary: “During our interview, the PM mentioned that Himmler appeared to be trying to show that he wasn’t so bad as painted. And PM said if it would save further expenditure of life, he would be prepared to spare even Himmler. ” This is a rather extraordinary admission by Churchill. It recognizes that the Reichsführer SS was holding the fate of Germany at this time, not Hitler.
The British were secretly negotiating with Himmler via Sweden. By sparing Himmler, was Churchill suggesting some kind of immunity deal in return for Himmler getting Germany to capitulate to the Western Allies? Certainly seems like it. Admiral Cunningham replied: “I suggested there were plenty of islands he could be sent to.
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Schellenberg’s plan, and perhaps he was responsible for the wider SS plot, advanced further on the 19th of April 1945, the day before Hitler’s last birthday, when he organized a meeting between Himmler and Nazi Finance Minister Count von Krosigk at Himmler’s Berlin office. Nazi Labor Minister Franz Seldte also met separately with Count von Krosigk. While Himmler and von Krosigk had a private discussion, Schellenberg spoke to Seldte. The Finance Minister was incredibly blunt.
He felt that Himmler should seize power himself and force Hitler to read a proclamation to the German people on his birthday, announcing a plebiscite, the formation of a second party, and the abolition of the People’s Courts, the kangaroo courts set up following the July plot. Seldte spoke on these matters to Schellenberg for two hours. He then met Himmler and repeated what he had said. He told Himmler that he must act, that it was only he who had any possible means of influencing the Führer, that this was no longer something concerning individuals, but the substance of the entire German people that was at stake.
Even more bizarre was Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring’s last meeting with Himmler on the 21st of April 1945 in shattered Berlin, by now under direct Soviet ground attack since the day before. Göring had been since 1941 Hitler’s legal successor as Führer. On the 21st of April, Himmler told Göring that Count Bernadotte had come to see him at his headquarters at Hohenlychen. He told Göring that he believed Bernadotte to be a negotiator sent by none other than General Dwight D.
Eisenhower, the Allied Supreme Commander. Göring replied: “I can’t believe that. Don’t take offense, but I doubt whether they will accept you as a negotiator. ” Himmler replied airily: “Sorry to contradict you, but I have undeniable proof that I am considered abroad to be the only person who can maintain peace and order.
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Göring would recall that Himmler kept returning to the same subject at least ten times in the two-to-three-hour meeting: the succession following Hitler’s death. Himmler asked: “If anything should happen to the Führer and you were unable to take over, after all that might happen, and can I say such and such? ” Himmler kept asking variations of what might happen if Göring could not succeed Hitler. Eventually Himmler asked Göring to nominate him as his Chancellor upon becoming Hitler’s successor, which Göring said he couldn’t legally do.
Himmler then said: “If anything should prevent you from becoming the successor, can I have the job then? ”
To my mind, this bizarre exchange indicates that Himmler was seeking a legal path to ultimate power by plotting to prevent Göring from succeeding, but beforehand being legally named as his successor. This was instead of mounting some kind of military coup by the SS to place him into power, perhaps limiting the chances of a civil war breaking out. Göring certainly would have plenty of time to ruminate on this strange conversation, for two days later he was arrested by the SS on the orders of Hitler via Bormann on the charge of attempting to take power while Hitler was still alive.
Göring had not actually attempted anything of the sort, but his enemy Bormann was happy to connive his downfall. Göring appealed to Himmler to order the SS guards that stood over him at his Obersalzberg home to release him, but Himmler said his detention had been ordered by the Führer and it must all be a mistake. Just sit tight. Presumably Himmler believed that Hitler was about to name him as his new legal successor.
But as it turned out, he wasn’t. During those confused days, as Hitler sought to control the battle for Berlin from his bunker beneath the Reich Chancellery Garden, SS plotters continued to hasten his end. Specifically, General Steiner, who on the 22nd of April categorically refused to make an attack with his forces to try to relieve Berlin despite repeated orders from the Führer. He cited lack of proper troops and armor, but I think in reality he had no reason to see Hitler survive.
He was, after all, a plotter with Ohlendorf, Hildebrandt, and von Gottberg, wanting Himmler to take over. Letting the Soviets finish off Hitler in Berlin would lead to such an outcome. We also see a reluctance by Himmler to aid the Führer in his hour of greatest need. On the 22nd of April, Himmler was at his Hohenlychen headquarters with his escort battalion of 600 well-equipped SS troops.
Obergruppenführer Gottlob Berger, a Hitler loyalist, arrived and was aghast that Himmler hadn’t marched to the sound of the guns in Berlin. Himmler seemed unsure what to do and asked Berger his advice. Berger didn’t mince his words: “You go straight to Berlin, Herr Reichsführer, and your escort battalion, of course, right with you. You haven’t the right to keep an escort battalion here at a time when the Führer intends to remain in Berlin and defend the Reich Chancellery.
I am going to Berlin, and it is your duty to do likewise. ”
Himmler then telephoned his liaison officer at the bunker, Gruppenführer Hermann Fegelein, but Berger lost his cool. “What kind of Reichsführer are you? ” he shouted.
“Why don’t you speak to the Führer in person? ” Which is what Himmler then did, Hitler allowing Himmler to bring himself and his battalion to the city along with Berger, for whom he had a separate job. On the 23rd of April, Himmler and Berger went to the Führerbunker, and Berger alleges that Himmler had a long private meeting with Hitler. Himmler said he tried to get Hitler to leave Berlin, but he refused, saying he would die in the capital.
Himmler then returned to Hohenlychen, leaving his escort battalion behind to stiffen the defenses of the government quarter. That same day, Schellenberg met again with Count Bernadotte, this time at the Swedish Consulate in Flensburg in northern Germany. A meeting was planned with Himmler for a few hours later. Schellenberg told Bernadotte that Hitler was finished, that it was thought he would not live more than a couple of days at the outside.
Schellenberg said that Himmler had decided to bring about a meeting with General Eisenhower to inform him that he was willing to give orders to the German forces in the west to capitulate. Schellenberg asked Bernadotte to take this message to Eisenhower. Remember, this is the same day Göring was arrested and removed from the succession. Hitler was still alive, but he had not yet named his successor.
It appeared that Himmler was the next by right of seniority and power. It seemed the logical choice, certainly to the SS leadership. On the 24th of April, Sir Victor Mallet, British Ambassador to Sweden, telegraphed London the following: “Himmler, though tired and admitting Germany was finished, is still calm and coherent. Himmler said that Hitler was desperately ill, that he might be dead already, and in any case would be so in two days’ time.
General Schellenberg of Himmler’s staff told Bernadotte that it was a hemorrhage of the brain. Himmler stated that while Hitler was still alive, he would not have been able to take the step he now proposed. But, as Hitler was finished, he was now in a position of full authority to act. Himmler wanted to meet Eisenhower in order to capitulate the whole Western Front.
Himmler said he hoped to continue the fighting on the Eastern Front, at least for a time. But Bernadotte told him that this was not acceptable to the Allies. ”
Earlier that day, Albert Speer had visited Himmler at his headquarters at Hohenlychen. He found Himmler drawing up a plan for his future governance.
Himmler said: “Europe cannot manage without me in the future. You will go on needing me as Minister of Police. After I’ve spent an hour with Eisenhower, he’ll approve that fact. They’ll soon realize that they’re dependent on me, or they’ll have hopeless chaos on their hands.
” Himmler told Speer that he and Göring had had a long-standing agreement that Himmler would be his premier, which we know to be a lie. Himmler said he was in the process of organizing his cabinet, that many people had been to see him, for example Grand Admiral Dönitz, the new military commander in the north. He then invited Speer to join his cabinet. Speer left and overheard the arrival of Generalfeldmarschall Wilhelm Keitel from Berlin, Hitler’s head of the armed forces.
Speer recalled Keitel swearing his complete loyalty to the Reichsführer SS, which must have further convinced Himmler that he was about to be named as Hitler’s successor. But then, on the 27th of April, the British deliberately leaked details of Himmler’s secret peace negotiations with the Western Allies. By the following day, the German people knew of them. The British did this to preserve Allied unity, to keep the Soviet Union happy, as a separate peace between Germany and Britain and America would have never been acceptable to Stalin.
The other reason was to further destabilize the Nazi regime. Churchill had effectively led Himmler up the garden path to some degree and now slammed the door in his face, leaving him hanging in the wind and exposed, though Churchill had earlier made some ambiguous comments concerning Himmler and striking some kind of deal with him to end the war. Himmler’s downfall seemed assured, for it probably would have been dangerous to have Himmler in charge of Germany. He may have proven a more competent leader than the ailing Hitler at this stage of the war.
Martin Bormann finally managed to bring down his number one opponent, Himmler, by presenting Himmler’s actions to Hitler as barefaced treason. On the 28th of April, Himmler was officially stripped of all his offices of state and completely disgraced. However, the SS actually continued to follow his orders. Who would now succeed Hitler?
There didn’t appear to be a good candidate except for the Reichsführer. Perhaps Hitler might still see sense and pass the baton to him. General Ohlendorf saw Himmler shortly after and wrote: “He was no longer the same man. He asked me the queerest questions and made the most absurd proposals and plans.
I could no longer understand him. He seemed to have lost his self-confidence, his aim, and ambition. ”
At this point, Himmler considered death in battle. On the 30th of April, he and his headquarters moved to Schloss Kaukhorst, not far from Grand Admiral Dönitz’s headquarters at Plön.
Later that day, Himmler summoned Dönitz to a meeting at the police barracks in Luebeck. The building was absolutely full of senior SS leaders. Himmler kept the Grand Admiral waiting. Dönitz wrote: “He seemed to regard himself as head of state.
I asked him whether the report was true that he had sought contact with the Allies through the medium of Count Bernadotte. He asserted that it was not true, and that in his opinion, it was essential in these last days of the war that discord among ourselves shall not be allowed to create further chaos in the country. We parted amicably. ”
Then the hammer fell.
At 18:07 hours, Bormann sent a message from the Führerbunker. The Führer was dead. He had named his new successor as Reich President: Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz. Later that evening, Dönitz telephoned Himmler and asked him to come and see him in Plön.
He arrived about midnight, escorted by six heavily armed SS officers. Dönitz handed him Bormann’s telegram, saying: “Please read this. ” Dönitz recalled the effect. As he read, 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 up and bowed. “Allow me to become the second man in your state,” he said.
Dönitz replied that it was impossible. Himmler left at 1:00 a. m. on the 1st of May 1945.
Himmler’s machinations were apparently at an end. According to General Ohlendorf, who was with him at his headquarters at the time, after Hitler had bestowed his mantle upon the Grand Admiral, Himmler changed his plans. He did not attempt to assert his claim to the succession of the Nazi Führership, but placed himself unreservedly at the disposal of Dönitz. Himmler, however, wasn’t quite done.
In the days following Dönitz’s promotion and Himmler’s fleeing south, Himmler still tried to find a role for himself. But his time had passed. The fate that awaited him was not power, but a slow and ignominious end: capture by the British, a cyanide capsule, and a shallow grave in an unmarked field.