Heinrich Himmler
Page 13
Himmler pledged himself and the S.S. to care for all children of pure blood, whether legitimate or not, whose fathers died fighting for Germany. However, he ordered the hanging of a Polish farm labourer for having had sexual relations with a German woman, while women who allowed Polish prisoners or workers sexual liberties were given severe prison sentences. This was race pollution.
Himmler watched over his S.S. organization during the war with all the care of a foster parent. The S.S. were still supposed to rank as an order of chivalry and the officers to behave like knights. In April 1942 Himmler signed an order exhorting his men not to seduce girls out of frivolity and so deprive the nation of potentially fruitful mothers. All seductions were to be reported to him personally. Later, in 1943, he was appalled when he learned there were no less than 244 cases of gonorrhoea in the Leibstandarte S.S. Sepp Dietrich hastened to inform him of other facts, and Himmler was able to write in July about the ‘pleasingly large number of illegitimate children’ in the Leibstandarte. ‘I want the names of all those children as well as of their mothers,’ he added. Pedantic regulations were also compiled to control the conduct of the women serving with the S.S. units; their spare time had to be kept occupied, according to Himmler’s ideas, with healthy sport and cultural opportunities. As for homosexuality among S.S. men, this he regarded as equivalent to sabotage.
In return for loyal and deserving service, Himmler initiated a welfare scheme for his men, giving exactly the same personal attention to the details of individual cases in this field as in any other. Widows of S.S. men with children were pensioned; Himmler did not spare himself in sending numerous comforting letters and even small presents of chocolate to such women and their children. Similar pains were taken to look after men invalided out of the S.S.; details of their health, their diet, their needs poured through the S.S. typewriters; the surviving mass of letters and memoranda often bear the personal comments and initials of the Reichsführer S.S. himself. Like a good headmaster, Himmler gave every teacher on his staff and every boy in his school individual attention as far as was possible, no matter how many hours of work it cost. For example, considerable correspondence passed between Himmler and a Secretary of State in the Ministry of Agriculture as to whether or not his monthly contribution to Lebensborn might be reduced to one mark or not.
Even in time of war, Himmler began to plan for the future. What kind of flats should be provided for a peace-time S.S., each man fathering not less than six children? When such men died, should not their graves be marked by a Teutonic cross, in contrast to the soft and sexless symbol of Christianity? S.S. leaders should possess their coats of arms as befits ‘Teutonic brothers’.12 Discipline must be self-administered; it was unthinkable that an S.S. man should endure the normal military or civil forms of justice. According to Himmler, an S.S. man should never get himself into difficulties by buying goods on an instalment plan. ‘An S.S. man doesn’t buy what he cannot afford,’ Himmler boasted. ‘An S.S. man is the most honest soul on earth.’ He prided himself that there were no locks on the cupboards in S.S. barracks.
Mother Crosses were presented to S.S. wives who had given birth to seven or more children. The Reichsführer S.S. concerned himself deeply in all matters of maternity, carefully vetting the pedigree of girls who were said to be pregnant by S.S. men before he would grant them the necessary permit to marry. Himmler never ceased to be obsessed by the problems of fine breeding. Hours passed throughout the war while he sat poring over the individual pedigrees of girls with whom S.S. men were involved. What about reviving the old Teutonic myth that copulation conducted on the gravestones of one’s ancestors was once said to endow any child so conceived with the brave Teutonic spirit of his forefathers? Special leave was to be given to married S.S. men to encourage procreation, though not necessarily on gravestones. If the men could not be sent back to their women, then the women were to be brought to their men. It is typical that a substantial file survives in which a case of adultery between an S.S. man and a soldier’s wife is weighed most carefully; Himmler finally decided in favour of the young couple, and sent the woman who had informed on their activities to learn her lesson in a labour camp.
In his conduct of the Lebensborn movement, Himmler’s racial obsessions combined with his genetic fantasies and reflected the strange humanitarianism that always lurked in Himmler’s nature and which he satisfied through his relations with children, beginning with his own and extending to his nation-wide family of godchildren. The parents of German children of pure race who shared his birthday were encouraged to invite Himmler to become a godfather. Special two-page forms were issued so that the stringent scrutiny that preceded the conferring of this honour could be conducted. But Himmler’s desire to be the godfather of future generations of pure Germans was also developed through the Lebensborn movement. In Himmler’s eyes children of sound racial background should be rescued from parents who for political or other reasons were undesirable, and placed in the rehabilitation centre of a Lebensborn home.
These homes were staffed by women leaders most carefully chosen for their disciplined and devoted nature; they combined the character of nurses, welfare officers and political educators for the mothers and children in their care. Mothers in the Lebensborn homes were not allowed to entertain men, though, wrote Himmler in an order dated 11 January 1941, on very special occasions they could entertain male guests who ‘might be offered a cup of coffee, but be given no opportunity for intimacy’. All cases of extreme indiscipline had to be brought to Himmler’s personal notice. The mothers were also required in 1941 to eat porridge and fruit for breakfast, and Himmler ordered statistics to be compiled about their resulting blood pressure. The consumption of porridge, said Himmler, was a status symbol in Britain. When the women complained that the porridge would make them fat, Himmler wrote on 12 December 1941:
‘I want them to be told that Englishmen, and particularly English Lords and Ladies, are virtually brought up on this kind of food… To consume it is considered most correct. It is just these people, both men and women, who are conspicuous for their slender figures. For this reason the mothers in our homes should get used to porridge and be taught to feed their children on it. Heil Hitler!’
He instanced the slim figures of Lord Halifax and Sir Nevile Henderson as proof that porridge did not fatten such men of breeding. The regular health statistics of both mothers and children became required reading at Himmler’s office. ‘Any racially good mother is sacred to us’, wrote Himmler.
The Lebensborn movement which had begun to provide welfare centres for orphans and unmarried mothers with their children, was extended during the war. Himmler established special S.S. homes and institutions to take over young children in the occupied territories who had the right racial characteristics. Writing in June 1941, Himmler outlined his plan in a letter to one of his officers:
‘I consider it right and proper to acquire racially desirable infants of Polish families with a view to educating them in special (and not too large) kindergartens and children’s homes. The appropriation of these children could be explained on the grounds of health. Children not turning out too well would be returned to their parents.
‘I suggest starting in a small way, perhaps with two or three homes at first to gather some practical experience. As for the children who turn out satisfactorily, we should get precise details about their ancestry after six months or so. After a year of successful education we might consider putting such children into the homes of racially good German families with no children of their own.
‘Only exceptional men and women, particularly well versed in racial matters, should be considered as heads of institutions such as I envisage them.’13
Childless families worried Himmler. In a letter written in April 1942 he advocated the infertile partner in a childless marriage allowing the potentially fertile one to copulate outside the marriage for the sole purpose of begetting children. But these childless families became of increasing importance from 1
942 as centres of adoption for the large numbers of children with Germanic characteristics stolen by the S.S. from the occupied territories.
In a later speech given on 14 October 1943, Himmler felt free to go much further. He said, speaking of the Slav nations: ‘Obviously in such a mixture of peoples there will always be some racially good types. There I think it is our duty to take their children, to remove them from their environment, if necessary by stealing them… Either we win over any good blood that we can use for ourselves and give it a place in our people or… we destroy this blood.’ The political purpose of this aggregation of German stock was quite clear:
‘For us the end of this war will mean an open road to the East, the creation of the Germanic Reich in this way or that… the fetching home of 30 million human beings of our blood, so that still during our lifetime we shall become a people of 120 million Germanic souls. That means that we shall be the single decisive power in Europe. We shall expand the borders of our German race 500 kilometres further out to the East.’
The number of children up to the age of twelve who were removed in this way will never be known. Though most came from Poland, there were cases of adopted children from Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia and Russia. This wholesale Germanic adoption was limited by the scale of the organization that could be set up in wartime to deal with it, but an affidavit sworn after the war by Dr Hans Hilmar Staudte, a lawyer attached to the Lebensborn movement, claimed that between two and three hundred children were adopted for Germanization in the Warthegau administrative district of Poland. After testing they were placed with German foster parents whose name they were given, their own first names being kept as far as possible in their German form. The children, of course, were taught to speak German, and in effect became Germans. The problem of tracing individual cases still continues to this day in the International Tracing Centre at Arolsen.
Early in 1943 Himmler’s fancy was taken by two blond and blue-eyed Russian boys he saw in Minsk. These children were in effect adopted for a while by Himmler and his aides: after having been cleaned and schooled a little, they were sent by air to join Himmler on his train. They travelled for a while with him and there was much S.S. correspondence over the loss of one of their overcoats in Munich. Then they were placed in a school to be trained in the proper ways of the Reich.
The national reaction to Lebensborn was often critical. Because the homes were full of unmarried mothers many people thought they were brothels set up for the S.S. The Church in particular opposed the homes. In a speech given to an intimate circle of high officials much later in the war, during May 1944, Himmler spoke informally about the Lebensborn movement and the attacks that had been made upon it, and on himself for advising his S.S. men to procreate:
‘…At first these Lebensborn homes, like every new idea, became the object of scandalmongers by the score. They called them breeding-grounds, human stud-farms and so on. In fact, in these homes we merely look after mothers and the children, some of them legitimate, some not. I would say the ratio is about fifty-fifty, more likely sixty-forty in favour of the legitimately born babies.
‘In these homes every woman is addressed as Frau Marta, or Frau Elisabeth, or whatever her name happens to be. No one bothers whether their babies are legitimate or illegitimate. We look after mother and child, protect them, help them in their problems. There is only one thing unforgivable in these homes: if a mother fails to care for her child as a mother should.
‘Towards the end of 1939, after the Polish campaign, as soon as we knew that the war would go on in the West — the British and French having turned down the Führer’s peace offer after the Polish campaign — I issued an order which at that time caused quite a controversy and got the scandalmongers going again with further loads of abuse, directed largely at me. That order of mine simply said: every S.S. man before going to the front should procreate a child.
‘It seemed to me a thoroughly simple and decent order, and by now, after many years of terrible losses sustained by the German people, those who failed to comprehend my order at the time will have come to see that it makes sense. After all, I gave these matters a great deal of careful thought. My consideration was simply this: it’s a law of nature that the most valuable blood is lost for the nation so long as it cannot be procreated. It stands to reason that the man who is racially the most valuable will be the bravest soldier, and the one most likely to be killed in action. A nation which, in the course of twenty-five years has lost millions of its best sons, simply cannot afford such a loss of its blood; hence if the nation is to survive, and if the sacrifice of its best blood is not to be wasted, something had to be done about it.’
At the time he was making this speech about the procreation in the S.S., Hedwig, Himmler’s recognized mistress, was in the last stages of pregnancy with her second child. She gave birth to a daughter, who was named Nanette Dorothea. Her son Helge had been born on 15 February 1942.14
The establishment of this second family placed a strain on Himmler’s deliberately restricted income. Schellenberg throws some light on this situation. Himmler, during a period of truce with Bormann, with whom he was later to form a kind of tactical relationship, asked for a loan of 80,000 marks from Party funds, ostensibly to build a house. Bormann granted him the loan, but at a very high rate of interest which Himmler could scarcely afford to pay out of his official salary. Schellenberg was astonished at this extraordinary arrangement which he found ‘incomprehensible’, and made his own observation on Himmler’s domestic problems:
‘Himmler’s first marriage had been unhappy, but for his daughter’s sake he had not sought divorce. He now lived with a woman who was not his wife, and they had two very nice children to whom he was completely devoted. He did what he could for these children within the limits of his own income, but although, after Hitler, Himmler had more real power than anyone else in the Third Reich, and through the control of many economic organisations could have had millions at his disposal, he found it difficult to provide for their needs.’15
When Schellenberg suggested a mortgage would be cheaper than the loan, Himmler rejected the suggestion with an ‘air of resignation’. It was, he said, ‘a completely private matter and he wanted to act with meticulous rectitude; in no circumstances did he want to discuss it with the Führer’. Meanwhile, he supported his family at Gmund, and although his wife knew of his liaison with Hedwig, he maintained formal good relations with her for the sake of their daughter Gudrun.
In November 1939, Himmler had assigned a special mission to Schellenberg, who abducted from Venlo, a town just across the Dutch frontier, two British Intelligence officers with whom he had been in contact, posing as an anti-Nazi German officer. The British agents, Captain S. Payne Best and Major R. H. Stevens, were accused of being involved in an attempt on Hitler’s life at Munich on 8 November. Though is is now widely assumed that the attempted assassination had been pre-arranged with Hitler’s approval, seven men lost their lives in the explosion that occurred after the Führer and other leaders had left. Hitler needed this excuse for propaganda to stir the German people against the Allies and to show what desperate enemies Himmler’s agents had to face. On 21 November Himmler announced that the British Intelligence service was behind the plot, and that prisoners had been taken.
The Venlo incident itself was to become one of the more entertaining spy stories of the war, both Schellenberg and Captain Payne Best giving their own detailed accounts of what happened. Both the British officers spent the next five years in concentration camps, and Schellenberg was promoted to S.S. Major-General for his efforts in having captured them. Schellenberg’s specialization in foreign espionage led to the practice of placing S.D. and Gestapo men as attaches in various German legations and embassies abroad, which enabled Himmler once more to encroach on Ribbentrop’s territory. In March 1940, as a follow-up to the Venlo incident, Schellenberg enabled Himmler to present a detailed report to Hitler establishing the close connection that existed between British an
d Dutch military Intelligence. Hitler was later to use this incident to help justify his attack on the Netherlands for violating their neutrality.
In the early months of 1940 Hitler was preparing for the assault on the West. The loss in February of the plans for the campaign against Holland and Belgium — when a special courier who was carrying them made a forced landing in Belgium owing to poor visibility — caused consternation among the Nazi leaders. While Goring raved at the carelessness of the Luftwaffe and dismissed the commander of the Air Fleet whose officer had done the damage, Himmler, according to Schellenberg, was so excited and confused he was quite unable to give clear instructions about the immediate necessity to draw up security regulations for the Army.
Himmler’s military ambitions were still frustrated. The S.S. fighting forces acquired their official title of Waffen or Armed S.S. during the Western offensive, in which only two S.S. divisions served alongside some eighty-seven divisions of the Army. They were given favoured positions in which to display their ruthlessness in battle, while the special armoured S.S. regiment, the Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler under Sepp Dietrich, played as spectacular a part as possible in the fall of Rotterdam and Boulogne. Theodor Eicke’s Death’s Head division made up of German camp guards behaved with shameless ferocity, as the massacre of British troops at Le Paradis in May 1940 showed; the celebrated Private Pooley was one of only two survivors.
But in spite of this activity by the S.S., Himmler seems to have taken no direct part in the campaign, which lasted from April 1940, with the initial occupation of Denmark and Norway, to 21 June, when the conquest of Belgium, Holland and France was complete and the armistice was signed by Hitler in the Forest of Compiègne, a ceremony at which Himmler was not present.