NO. 4 Himmler’s Obsession with Antisemitism and A “Pure Race”

Heinrich Himmler was one of the most powerful Nazis in Germany and the main architect of the Holocaust. Starting in 1929, he grew the SS from a small 290-man battalion into a million-strong feared paramilitary group. Along the way he used his SS soldiers to set up and control concentration camps and created the infamous Gestapo.

As overseer of the Nazi genocidal programs, Himmler directed the killing of some six million Jews, between 200,000 and 500,000 Romani people and other victims. The total number of civilians killed by the regime is estimated at eleven to fourteen million people. Most were Polish and Soviet citizens.

Himmler’s antisemitism flourished in 1922, at the age of 22, when he became involved with “the Jewish question.” In a diary he kept, Himmler recorded increasingly antisemitic remarks and his reading was dominated by antisemitic pamphlets, German myths and articles on the occult.

In 1923 he joined the Nazi Party. He participated in the Beer Hall Putsch, an unsuccessful attempt by Hitler and other Nazis to seize power in Munich. He was questioned by police about his role, but was let go. He lost his job and had to move back in with his parents. Frustrated, his antisemitism and interest in German mythology and the occult became all consuming.

In 1935, his power unchecked, Himmler became obsessed with creating a pure Aryan race to eventually rule the world. He called it Lebensborn, loosely “fount of life.” Initially the program served as a welfare institution for wives of SS officers; the organization ran facilities – primarily maternity homes – where women could give birth or get help with family matters.

Lebensborn also grew to accept unmarried women who were either pregnant or had already given birth and were in need of aid, provided that both the woman and the father of the child were classified as "racially valuable". About 60% of the mothers were unmarried. The program allowed them to give birth secretly away from home without social stigma.  When dealing with non-SS members, parents and children were usually examined by SS doctors before admission.

In conquered countries, Aryan women with often forced to bear children sired by SS soldiers. And children born to “racially appropriate” parents were kidnapped. In the final stages of the war, the files of all children kidnapped for the program were destroyed. As a result, researchers have found it nearly impossible to learn how many children were taken. The Polish government has claimed that 10,000 children were kidnapped, and less than 15% were returned to their biological parents. Other estimates include numbers as high as 200,000.

All children were raised in Lebensborn nurseries and facilities and were indoctrinated from the earliest age in Nazi fervor. The total number of Lebensborn children is unknown. But it is considered to be in the hundreds of thousands. It is also unknown what happened to these children after the war.

Despite Himmler’s unconditional loyalty and efforts to please Hitler, Hitler called Himmler's mystical and pseudoreligious interests "nonsense.” Himmler was not a member of Hitler's inner circle; the two men were not very close, and rarely saw each other socially.  In the last days of the war, when it became clear that Hitler planned to die in Berlin, Himmler left his long-time superior to try to save himself.

He was captured and committed suicide by biting on a cyanide pill.

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