Heinrich Himmler ( beside prisoner ) visiting the Dachau Concentration Camp in 1936

Adolf Eichmann and Heinrich Himmler knew Gemma was Fiorello's sister and ordered her held as a political prisoner.

Himmler ( front right, beside prisoner ) visiting the Dachau Concentration Camp in 1936

Himmler admitted who he was, and Selvester had the prisoner searched.

It is known that British intelligence agents, including Kim Philby, did not believe the Lüneburg prisoner was Himmler.

John Jr. was a prisoner of the infamous Colditz and taken in April 1945 as one of the " Prominente " to be used as a bargaining chip as the end of the war approached by Himmler and the SS.

Upon realizing that the war was lost, Himmler attempted to go into hiding.

In November 1918 — while Himmler was still in training — the war ended with Germany's defeat, denying him the opportunity to become an officer or see combat.

After the war, Himmler completed his grammar-school education.

Himmler, declaring that the war in the east was a pan-European crusade to defend the traditional values of old Europe from the " godless Bolshevik hordes ", attracted volunteers from all over Europe for the Waffen-SS.

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.

As head of the Reserve Army, Himmler was now responsible for prisoners of war.

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.

With Hitler preoccupied with the war, Himmler focusing on the " final solution to the Jewish question " in eastern Europe, and with Hermann Göring ’ s position declining with the failure of the German Air Force ( Luftwaffe ), Goebbels sensed a power vacuum in domestic policy and moved to fill it.

This trio – Goebbels, Himmler and Speer – became the real centre of German government in the last year of the war, although Bormann used his privileged access to Hitler to thwart them when he could.

Goebbels saw Himmler as a potential ally against Bormann and in 1944 is supposed to have voiced the opinion that if the Reichsführer-SS was granted control over the Wehrmacht and he, Goebbels, granted control over the domestic politics, the war would soon be ended in a victorious manner.

He was one of the main architects of the Holocaust during the early war years, answering only to, and taking orders from, Hitler, Göring, and Himmler in all matters that pertained to the deportation, imprisonment, and extermination of Jews.

Unlike the other SS antagonists, Deathshead does not believe in the occult and would prefer to arm the Nazi war machine using advanced technology, but has been ordered to provide his creations to Operation Resurrection by Himmler himself.

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.

Himmler worsened his own position when he attempted to hold a military command during the last months of the war and proved totally incompetent as a field commander.

Even so, Göring was reported to have disliked Himmler to the last days of the war and even turned down honorary SS rank since he did not want to be subordinate to Himmler in any way.

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.

This last activity had been expressly forbidden by Heinrich Himmler, as he had wanted this property to be contributed to the German war effort.

After which Ernst Kaltenbrunner was named Chief by Himmler on 30 January 1943, and remained there until the end of the war.

Himmler had at least one conversation with a known oppositionist when, in August 1943, the Prussian Finance Minister Johannes Popitz, who was involved in Goerdeler's network, came to see him and offered him the support of the opposition if he would make a move to displace Hitler and secure a negotiated end to the war.

It is possible that Himmler, who by late 1943 knew that the war was unwinnable, allowed the plot to go ahead in the knowledge that if it succeeded he would be Hitler's successor, and could then bring about a peace settlement.

Wolfgang G. Schwanitz notes that in his memoirs Husseini recalled that Heinrich Himmler, in the summer of 1943, while confiding some German war secrets, inveighed against Jewish " war guilt ", and, speaking of Germany ’ s persecution of the Jews said that " up to now we have exterminated ( in Arabic, abadna ) around three million of them ".

Towards the end of the war Himmler ordered that Wewelsburg castle should become the " Reichshaus der SS-Gruppenführer " ( Reich-House of the SS-Gruppenführer ).

Numerous future members and leaders of the Nazi Party had served in the Freikorps, including Ernst Röhm, future head of the Sturmabteilung, or SA, Heinrich Himmler, future head of the Schutzstaffel, or SS, and Rudolf Höß, the future Kommandant of the Auschwitz concentration camp.

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

Himmler appointed Theodor Eicke, a convicted felon and ardent Nazi, to run the camp in June 1933.

Himmler, Ernst Kaltenbrunner, and other SS officials visiting Mauthausen concentration camp in 1941

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

On 21 April, Himmler met with Norbert Masur, a Swedish representative of the World Jewish Congress, to discuss the release of Jewish concentration camp inmates.

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.

The camp commander responsible was demoted by Himmler to the regular rank of soldier and sent to the Hungarian front ; he died there in 1945.

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.

On April 11, 1945 Himmler agreed to have the camp handed over without a fight.

On 13 October 1941, SS and Police Leader Odilo Globocnik ( headquarters in Lublin ) received a verbal order from Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler to start immediate construction work on the first Aktion Reinhard camp at Bełżec, in the General Government, Poland ( operational March 1942 ).

Begun on June 17, 1940, the camp was completed the following year and named after Niederhagen Forest, the name Himmler had given to the forest outside the castle several years earlier.

Heinrich Himmler, then Chief of Police of Munich, officially described the camp as " the first concentration camp for political prisoners.

Heinrich Himmler, Chief of Police of Munich, officially described the camp as " the first concentration camp for political prisoners.

Himmler is talking to Franz Ziereis, camp commandant.

Also during the same month, Himmler set up the first official concentration camp at Dachau.

Höss testified that Himmler visited the camp in 1942 and " watched in detail one processing from beginning to end ".

Following Hitler's 22 August 1943 order for Heinrich Himmler to use concentration camp workers for A-4 production, 107 inmates arrived at Nordhausen from Buchenwald on 28 August 1943, followed by 1, 223 on 2 September.

Heinrich Himmler, then Chief of Police of Munich, officially described the camp as " the first concentration camp for political prisoners.

He succeeded Arthur Liebehenschel, considered by Himmler to be too " soft " with the prisoners, as the third and final commandant of Auschwitz from May 11, 1944 until the final dissolution of the camp in early 1945.

During the earlier part of the fighting in the Soviet Union, the RSHA also had operational control of certain Waffen-SS units which Himmler had withheld from the Army High Command ( OKH ); these units, the 1st and 2nd SS Infantry Brigades and the SS Cavalry Brigade, were formed from former Standarten of the Totenkopfverbände or concentration camp service.