Many of the most high ranking antagonists and players in the Second World War had their
family members involved in the deadliest conflict the world has ever seen. Adolf Hitler for
example had his nephews pressed into action in the German Army. His favourite nephew Heinz
Hitler was sent to the Eastern Front and he served as an officer, however he was then
captured by the Soviet Red Army. Inside of a Moscow prison he was tortured to death despite
being offered in a prisoner swap for Stalin’s son. But the conflict even came to the family
of the most prominent Nazis, and one man who was caught up and killed in the conflict was
Ernst Hermann Himmler, the younger brother of the Head of the SS, and one of the most
evil men in History Heinrich Himmler. However Ernst Himmler was killed in the final throws
of the Second World War defending the final part of the Third Reich in the Battle of Berlin.
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Ernst Heinrich Himmler was born on the 23rd December 1905 in Munich, and he was the third
and youngest son of Joseph Gebhard Himmler, a headmaster and Anna Maria Heyder. His siblings
were Heinrich Himmler, and also Gebhard Ludwig Himmler and Ernst was the youngest of the
Himmler boys. It’s assumed that he had a normal upbringing as his brothers also did,
and in 1928 Ernst Himmler completed a university course in electrical engineering. However
his brother had a different idea for his career. Heinrich Himmler had become an early activist
of the Nazi Cause, and he joined the SS being SS-number 168 and he had first achieved significant
leadership positions in the SS. Heinrich Himmler told Hitler of his plans to transform the
Ss into a loyal and racially pure elite fighting force, and with this Himmler was appointed
Deputy Reichsfuhrer SS, before he later then became the Head of the SS. Heinrich Himmler
had the support and close friendship of Adolf Hitler, and he rose to become one of the most
powerful men in Nazi Germany. It was his fighting force that eventually were the ones who carried
out the mass killings, executions and barbarism inside of the concentration camps. Himmler’s
rise was colossal, but his brother Ernst assumed a rather modest life inside of society. He
joined the Nazi party on the 1st November 1931, being member number 676,777. However
like many in 1933 he then joined the SS, and his brother Heinrich then helped him to obtain
a job in the Berlin Radio.
He was involved in many Nazi broadcasts and propaganda broadcasts, and then he quickly
through his brother’s links to the SS became one of the main people in the Reich Broadcasting
operations. He became a director of the radio broadcasts in Berlin, and with this he was
often given breaking stories and leaked news from his brother the Head of the SS to then
break to the whole of Germany. This close relationship with his brother allowed him
to get a number of exclusive pieces for the radio, and Heinrich Himmler supplied him with
internal information from the Nazi heirarchy. But inside of the SS he continued to thrive,
and he became an SS Sturmbannfuhrer in 1939. But ultimately Ersnt’ boss would be Joseph
Goebbels who was the one ultimately responsible for the propaganda broadcasts which were distributed
across the Third Reich. Goebbels’ strong rhetoric about Hitler and the enemies of the
Nazis would lead to the German population being verciferous supporters of the regime,
and along with institutions such as the Gestapo, there was very much danger for people in the
German society who went against Hitler and his government. This meant resistors were
dealt with heavily, but the radio throughout Hitler’s Germany and the Second World War
played a very key part in Hitler’s politics and propaganda. They even gave people free
radios across the nation because of this.
But as the Second World War was continuing and turning against the Germans, it is believed
that Ernst Himmler remained inside of the Berlin Radio. But as the end of the conflict
was looming, and the Germans heading towards defeat it was clear that the fighting would
soon erupt in Berlin, and that the German capital and the heart of Hitler’s government
would become a battlefield. Things at the time were very desperate and in 1944 Adolf
Hitler had called for the establishment of the Volksturm. This was a national militia
which would act as one of the last fighting forces of the Nazi German war effort. Inside
the Volksturm were conscripted men of between 16 and 60, who were not in a military unit.
This was one of the final elements of the total war effort, and Joseph Goebbels called
on them to overthrow the military strength of their enemy though their morale and force
of will. But ultimately the Volksturm were given very basic training, and many were given
basic weapons such as Panzerfausts. There was a weapons shortage at the time in the
war, and many members were forced to use their own uniforms and fight with anything they
can get their hands on.
Some members of the Volksturm were brave, for example in one example it was said that,
’in one village the Herbolzheim Volkssturm unit, with its customary composition of elderly
men and young boys under the influence of a few regular army soldiers, foolishly declared
the town a fortress and laid mines in the streets. As American troops approached in
midmorning on April 12, shots from the village rang out. Angered, the Americans commenced
a two-hour artillery barrage complemented by aerial attacks that gutted the town with
incendiary and high-explosive bombs. With their village engulfed in flames, the civilian
inhabitants, mostly the elderly, women, and children, fled in search of shelter to the
surrounding fields, all the while under American fire.’ But with the Volksturm, Ernst Himmler
was forced to take up arms and join the fighting detachment and with this he must have known
through his brother that there was an expectation for him to lay his life down in the final
battles of the Second World War for the Nazi German cause. His brother had already started
to flee during the Battle of Berlin and would try to negotiate peace to make his case a
little bit more favourable in the eyes of the Allies.
But the Volksturm saw a huge amount of action during the Battle of Berlin, and Ernst Himmler
fought inside the city he loved. This battle was hugely devastating for the German fighters
as they were heavily outfought by the Soviet Red Army who were more experienced and better
equipped. 60,000 Volksturm members formed 92 battalions, and they took the fight to
over 2.5 million soviet troops, who bombarded the city with heavy artillery. Many members
of the Volksturm looked for places to hide from the Soviet Army, and many tried to escape
certain death at the hands of the enemy. One of those men who wasn’t so lucky as to survive
was Ernst Himmler, the younger brother of the Head of the SS. During the fierce street
to street fighting, he was killed by the advancing Soviet Red Army, and it was known that he
was killed in a particular brutal part of the battle in the urban area, with every street
and house being significant on the battlefield. With this the youngest brother of Heinrich
Himmler was killed, and it’s not known whether Himmler learned of his brother’s death before
he later took his own life about being in captivity.
Ernst Hermann Himmler is the younger brother of the Head of the SS who died in the final
throws of the Battle of Berlin. His recorded date of death coincides with the end of the
final battle inside the heart of the Nazi heartlands, and with this the conclusion can
be reached that he was fighting until the final throws of the dice. Hitler had already
taken his life days before, but on the 2nd May 1945 Ernst Himmler was killed. The city’s
garrison then surrendered but fighting then continued in pockets of the city until the
end of the war in Europe came on the 8th May 1945. But Ernst Himmler was the younger brother
of one of the most evil men of the Second World War, and his brother inflicted so much
hatred and suffering as well as death during the most deadly conflict in history.
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