During the two funeral services, Himmler — the chief mourner — took charge of Heydrich's two young sons, and he gave the eulogy in Berlin.

Since the Reserve Army consisted of two million men, Himmler hoped to draw on these reserves to fill posts within the Waffen-SS.

He wrote a letter on 6 May — two days before German Instrument of Surrender — formally dismissing Himmler from all his posts.

Himmler was not a member of Hitler's inner circle ; the two men were not very close, and rarely saw each other socially.

The alliance was shaky at best, mainly because during this period Himmler was still cooperating with Bormann to gain more power at the expense of Göring and most of the traditional Reich administration ; Göring's loss of power had resulted in an overindulgence in the trappings of power and his strained relations with Goebbels made it difficult for a unified coalition to be formed, despite the attempts of Speer and Göring's Luftwaffe deputy Field Marshal Erhard Milch, to reconcile the two Party comrades.

On 26 June, Himmler reorganised the police into two groups: the Ordnungspolizei ( Orpo ), consisting of both the national uniformed police and the municipal police, and the Sicherheitspolizei ( SiPo ), consisting of the Gestapo and Kripo ( Kriminalpolizei-criminal police ).

On April 20, 1934, ( as a prelude to the Night of the Long Knives ), Göring transferred the Gestapo to Himmler, who was also named chief of all German police forces outside Prussia ; two days later Himmler named Heydrich the head of the Gestapo.

: Himmler had two but they were small,

On 13 October 1941, Heinrich Himmler gave SS and Police Leader Lublin, SS Brigadeführer Odilo Globocnik, two orders which were closely connected with each other: to start Germanizing the area around Zamość and to start work on the first German Nazi extermination camp in the General Government near Bełżec.

A long-running power struggle between the two culminated in Frick being replaced by Himmler as interior minister in 1943.

Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler, who himself had only just escaped death too at the failed Bürgerbräukeller assassination attempt along with Chancellor Adolf Hitler, seized the opportunity and ordered in an enraged telephone conversation with his masquerading " Hauptmann Schämmel " to capture the two British SIS agents for interrogation of British involvement into the Bürgerbräukeller assassination attempt.

This was due to Heinrich Himmler ’ s intervention, after two years of arguments between Globocnik and the authorities.

I also, if you so desire, make Herr Goebbels or Herr Himmler your ally ; for even these two men have long realized that with Hitler they are doomed.

To avoid having the SS split into two separate entities, one based in Northern Germany and the other in Bavaria, Adolf Hitler promoted Daluege to the new rank of Obergruppenführer making him equal in rank to Himmler.

He showed some links between two Ariosophists and Heinrich Himmler.

This involved visits to meet Hitler, Hess, Goering, Himmler, von Papen, and other senior members of the German Government and the much-discussed two stays, of several days each, in 1936, of Joachim von Ribbentrop, German Ambassador to the Court of St. James ( and later the German foreign minister ), at the principal ancestral homes of the Marquess in Northern Ireland and England namely at Mount Stewart 29 May-2 June, and at Wynyard Hall 13 – 17 November, and subsequent briefings with government officials in London.

Similar to his speech of two days earlier, Himmler clearly explained in the final speech of the day the nature of the Final Solution, its implications for those present, and its long-term significance for Germany.

Himmler was captured, though not identified on May 22, along with his Waffen SS aides, Werner Grothmann and Heinz Macher.

Brandt watched from inside the wire at the Westertimke detention camp when Himmler was brought in with his aides on May 23, 1945.

Himmler also gained authority over all of Germany's uniformed law enforcement agencies, which were amalgamated into the new Ordnungspolizei ( Orpo: Order Police ), which became an agency of the SS under Kurt Daluege.

Fearful of an internal overthrow, the forces of Himmler and the Gestapo were unleashed on the opposition.

Himmler and Heydrich had greater bargaining power, as they were allied with Frick's old enemy, Göring.

Himmler continued his plans to colonise the east, even when many Germans were reluctant to relocate there, and despite negative effects on the war effort.

Himmler modified a variety of existing customs to emphasize the elitism and central role of the SS ; an SS naming ceremony was to replace baptism, marriage ceremonies were to be altered, a separate SS funeral ceremony was to be held in addition to Christian ceremonies, and SS-centric celebrations of the summer and winter solstice were instituted.

Himmler placed particular importance on the death's-head rings ; they were never to be sold, and were to be returned to him upon the death of the owner.

Margarete, by then living in Gmund with her daughter, learned of the relationship sometime in 1941 ; she and Himmler were already separated, and she decided to tolerate the relationship for the sake of her daughter.

Himmler adopted the doctrine of Auftragstaktik (" mission command "), whereby orders were given as broad directives, with authority delegated downward to the appropriate level to carry them out in a timely and efficient manner.

By the mid-1930s, Hitler ’ s most powerful subordinates were Hermann Göring, as head of the Four Year Plan for crash rearmament, and Heinrich Himmler, head of the SS and police apparatus.

50 stills from the filming in Krün near Mittenwald were later found and from these, surviving prisoners were able to identify 29 camp inmates who worked for Riefenstahl and were then deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau in the first weeks of March 1943 following Himmler ’ s December 1942 decree.

On 17 June 1936 all police forces throughout Germany were united, following Hitler appointing Himmler as Chief of German Police.

These uniforms were rarely worn after the war began, however, as Himmler ordered that the all-black uniforms be turned in for use by others.

After the war began, Himmler ordered the uniforms to be turned in and many were then sent west to be used by Germanic-SS units such as the ones in Holland and Denmark.

His positions were taken over by Ernst Kaltenbrunner in January 1943, following a few short months of Heinrich Himmler personally running the RSHA while searching for Heydrich's replacement.

Hitler's chief lieutenants, Göring and the SS chief Heinrich Himmler, took this and other comments by Hitler at this time ( most of which were not recorded, but were attested to at postwar trials ) as authority to proceed with a definitive " final solution of the Jewish question " ( Die Endlösung der Judenfrage ) involving the complete removal of the Jews from the German-occupied territories.

Himmler had initially been a supporter of Röhm, arguing that the charges of homosexuality against him were manufactured by Jews.

According to Geoffrey J. Giles ( mentioned earlier ) the SS, and its leader Heinrich Himmler, were particularly concerned about homosexuality.

Both the SD and the Gestapo were departments under Heydrich's control who answered to Himmler as both Chief of the German Police and Reichsfuhrer-SS, but the Kripo kept a level of independence as its structure was longer-established.

Heinrich Himmler and Hermann Göring at the meeting to formally hand over control of the Gestapo ( Berlin, 1934 ).

As facilitator and overseer of the concentration camps, 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.

Himmler was antisemitic by the time he went to university, but not exceptionally so ; students at his school would avoid their Jewish classmates.

During his second year at university, Himmler redoubled his attempts to pursue a military career.

Himmler admired Röhm because he was a decorated combat soldier, and at his suggestion, Himmler joined his antisemitic nationalist group, the Reichskriegsflagge.

Upon the resignation of SS commander Erhard Heiden in 1929, Himmler assumed the position of Reichsführer-SS with Hitler's approval ; he still carried out his duties at propaganda headquarters.

Himmler expected that each SS marriage should produce at least four children, thus creating a pool of genetically superior prospective SS members.

In March 1933, less than three months after the Nazis seized power, Himmler set up the first official concentration camp at Dachau.

Himmler and Heydrich wanted to extend the power of the SS ; thus, they urged Hitler to form a national police force overseen by the SS, to guard Nazi Germany against its many enemies at the time — real and imagined.

Himmler expected that it would take twenty to thirty years to complete the plan, at a cost of 67 billion Reichsmarks.

Heydrich calculated the number of Jews to be killed at 11 million, and told the attendees that Hitler had placed Himmler in charge of the plan.

In August 1941, Himmler attended the shooting of 100 Jews at Minsk.

Himmler visited the camp at Sobibor in early 1943, by which time 250, 000 people had been killed at that location alone.

Himmler established his command centre at Schneidemühl, using his special train, Sonderzug Steiermark, as his headquarters.

By this time Himmler, who had been under the care of his doctor since 18 February, had fled to a sanatorium at Hohenlychen.

* Heinrich Himmler at the Holocaust Research Project

* Register of the Heinrich Himmler Papers, 1914-1944 at the Hoover Institution Archives

Himmler at Henry's grave, 1938

However, the inability of Himmler to persuade Hitler to cease his support of Bormann, the defection of SS generals such as Obergruppenführer Ernst Kaltenbrunner, the Chief of the Reichssicherheitshauptamt and his powerful subordinate Gruppenführer Heinrich Müller, head of the Gestapo, to Bormann, soon persuaded Goebbels to align himself with the Secretary to the Führer at the end of 1944, thus accepting his subordinate position.

Leni Riefenstahl with Heinrich Himmler at Nuremberg in 1934