Heinrich Himmler (October 7, 1900 - May 22, 1945) was born near Munich, Bavaria, Germany and became one of the most powerful people in Nazi Germany. Born into a middle class family, he was the son of a Bavarian schoolmaster and attended Landshut High School. Afer graduating Himmler joined the 11th Bavarian Regiment and fought in the First World War, by the end of which he had become an officer cadet in the German Army.
In 1918, after Germany's failed war attempt, he became active in the Freikorps, a private army of ex German Army senior officials resentful of Germany's loss of the war and committed to defending the borders against invasion from the Red Army. He then joined the extreme right-wing National Socialist German Worker's Party (NSDAP, also known as the Nazi Party) in 1923, where he played a significant role aiding Adolf Hitler in the Munich Putsch, the Party's failed attempt at a nationwide right wing revolution.
Despite this failure and Hitler's subsequent prison sentence, Himmler was still a devout follower of Hitler, convinced that he was the messiah sent by God to lead Germany to greatness, and had the long term job of organising Nazi Party propaganda. In 1928, after marrying and becoming a chicken farmer, Himmler joined the Sturm Abteilung, or SA, but a year later was promoted by the newly freed Hitler to lead his personal bodyguard, the Schutzstaffel or SS. This was thought by many simply as a reaction by Hitler to Himmler's kind words and not as a reflection on Himmler's military capabilities.
He mananaged to develop the SS into the strongest para-military organisation in the Third Reich. In 1929 when he was appointed to lead the SS it had only 280 members but by 1933 when the Nazi Party rose to power in Germany it had 52,000 members, even though Himmler reveiwed each membership application to ensure that all members were of Hitler's "Ayrian" 'master race'. With Hitler's permission, the SS acquired vast police powers in Germany itself and the occupied territories and it also gained primary responsibilities in the areas of security, intelligence gathering, and espionage.
Himmler's army was not the largest army in Germany, however, but was second only to the SA. Both Himmler, and another of Hitler's right hand men, Hermann Goering, agreed that the SA and its leader, Ernst Röhm were beginning to pose a threat to the German Army and the whole Nazi leadership of Germany itself. Röhm had strong socialist views and believed that although Hitler had sccessfully gained power in Germany, the 'real' revolution had not yet begun, leaving some Nazi leaders with the belief that Röhm was intent on using the SA to administer a coup. With some persuasion from Himmler and Goering, Hitler began to feel threatened by this prospect, and agreed that Röhm must die. He delegated the task of administering this death to Himmler and Goering, who, along with Reinhard Heydrich, Kurt Daluege and Walter Schellenberg, happily carried out the execution of Röhm and numerous other senior SA officials, in what became known as The Night of The Long Knives.
Himmler now had total control over internal German military as the SS was now the principal force in the Reich. In 1936 Himmler gained yet more power as Hitler handed the control of Germany's secret police force, the Gestapo over to him. In 1940 Himmler slightly reorganised the SS and turned it into the Waffen-SS which by six months numbered over 150,000 men.
In the Second World War the SS's Death's Head Unit was given the task of organising and administering Germany's regime of Concentration Campss and eventually, Death Camps. The SS had to find Jews, gypsies, homosexuals and communists and any other culture or race deemed by Hitler to be either 'sub human' or in opposition to his regime, and place them within their Concentration and Death Camps. Himmler now became one of the main architects of the Holocaust, using elements of mysticism and a fanatical belief in the racist Nazi ideology. By 1944 Himmler's SS numbered over 800,000 members, all of whom had to be dedicated to death and destruction in carrying out one of the most horriffic atrocities ever committed.
By 1944 Himmler was delegated to sorting a dispute between the German government intelligence organisation, called the SD (Sicherheitsdienst), and the German military intelligence organisation, the Abwehr. Himmler resolved the issue by simply disolving the Abwehr into the SD in what became known as the July Plot.
The ever failing, increasingly desperate Nazi regime then placed Himmler in charge of the German Army while it was facing the oncoming United States Army in 1944, and in 1945 preceded to make him switch borders to make him face the Eastern oncoming communist Red Army. Himmler, however, lost faith in his army, and came to the realisation that if the Nazi regime was to have any chance of survival, Germany would need to seek peace with Britain and the United States. After Hitler discovered this ideology, however, and found Himmler attempting to make radio and postal contact with the Allies, his arrest was ordered.
Before his arrest, Himmler cleverly took up a disguise as a dead local village policeman but was recognised and captured on May 22nd in Bremen, Germany, by an advancing British Army officer. When the war was ended, Himmler was scheduled to stand trial with other German leaders as a major criminal of war, but committed suicide by swallowing a cyanide capsule before interrogation could begin.