Heinrich Himmler the head of the SS would want only the best across Germany to become
part of his group of paramilitary officers.
The SS would be responsible for the concentration camps, but Himmler himself wanted obedience,
respect but he would not tolerate any weakness at all.
But what is not as well known is that the Reichsfuhrer-SS would himself have a significant
issue as the Second World War came to an end.
He would at the end of the war try to broker peace with the Allies, and Hitler would be
furious when he heard of this.
He would strip Himmler of all his jobs and power, but Himmler had a secret that he was
harbouring from the Nazi dictator, and months before he had checked in to a sanitatorium
as he was having a mental breakdown.
But what is the story of the Madness of Henrich Himmler?
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For some reason Adolf Hitler seemed to keep Heinrich Himmler away from the leadership
of the army for a significant amount of time.
Heinrich Himmler was anything but a military general, but Hitler would make him an Army
Group Commander twice, and both times he would fail in this.
He was thrust into the dying embers of the Second World War in Europe, as in December
1944 he was made the Commander of the Army Group Upper Rhine.
His soldiers were responsible for defending the Rhine in the Alsace-Lorraine Area.
The army group would later in January 1945 launch Operation North Wind, the final major
German offensive in Western Europe.
The intention was to ease the pressure for the retreating divisions who were leaving
the front line from the Ardennes Offensive, but it did not work out and did fail.
Himmler was not in charge of the planning of the offensive, and he was not in particular
involved with the execution of the operation.
His failures in this were largely ignored as Hitler would then thrust Himmler into the
heart of the Eastern Front.
In late January 1945, he was appointed the Command of Army Group Vistula.
Now this was a very high profile and pressure job for Himmler and he was in control of the
army group which was put together from elements of Army Group A from the failed and battered
Soviet Vistula Oder Offensive, Army Group Centre which had been battered in the East
Prussian Offensive, and a number of new formations and mackled together soldiers.
It was formed to protect Berlin and the German capital from the Soviet armies who were advancing
from the Vistula River.
Himmler had a complete lack of understanding of military tactics, and during one formation
he formed soldiers near to Danzig, and instead of running a line which went north to south
to fight the Russians from the east, he from an east to west line.
Over 500,000 were part of Army Group Vistula, and this was a huge job for Heinrich Himmler.
It was his job to defend the heart of the Nazi regime and Hitler’s capital from the
Soviets.
He would establish his headquarters on a special train known as the Steiermark and he would
not leave this.
It was based at Deutsche-Krone and he would run most of his life from the train.
The train was not fitted with the equipment needed for a military commander, and Himmler’s
orders rarely made it to the front line.
He never also went to the front to meet his soldiers, and it was clear at this time in
the war and hi life that things were going rather badly.
The advancing Russian soldiers would ignore the defensive set up of the inept Himmler,
and because of this they battered the German soldiers and went south towards Berlin.
Heinz Guderian would visit Himmler to speak to him about the military failings, but when
he got there he caught Himmler who had a cold and was feeling sick.
He was a man who at this point was working only 4 hours a day, and he must have known
that the German war effort was failing.
He was completely failing as a military commander, and Heinz Guderian would then request someone
else take control of an operation with Himmler relieved of command.
Himmler at this time was falling from grace and he was under a great deal of pressure
and he knew that Hitler’s relationship with him was getting rather strained.
Himmler’s mental health and physical health was deteriorating and he was struggling to
cope with the stress and the fact he was being seen as a failure.
Himmler became very anxious and he was not in the right mind frame to give decent reports
to Hitler and this was in the final months of the war.
Hitler was inside of his bunker and was planning a battle which would lead Germany to victory
smashing the onslaughts of the Soviet army.
But when the counter attacks were failing to stop the Soviets heading towards Berlin,
Hitler would completely turn on Himmler and he accused him of desertion and with this
on the 20th March 1945, Hitler replaced Himmler with Gotthard Heinrici as the Commander in
Chief of the Army Group Vistula on the Eastern Front.
But Himmler then went on the run, and he claimed that he was ill and a week before this he
had abandoned his position and post and he had retired to a sanitorium.
He was under the care of his doctor Karl Gebhardt, and Himmler the mighty head of the SS was
now inside of Hohenlynchen Sanatorium.
This was a site where many SS doctors worked and conducted medical experiments and here
was Himmler inside of a place which was for recovering soldiers to rest up and recover.
Hohenlynchen was a site where many SS soldiers would go to recover from the tribulations
of the front line, and they would recover from conditions there such as shell-shock,
and also wounds that they would have sustained in battle.
Gebhardt would establish some shocking experiments there involving different patients whose limbs
were deliberately broken, and it was a barbaric site and the horrors of the hospital would
later result in Gebhardt being sentenced to death.2 Whilst here Himmler would escape from
the war effort and he would sign one agreement on the 12th March 1945 whilst inside the Sanatorium.
He signed a secret document saying that when the allies approached, the concentration camps
would not be destroyed, that white flags would be flown over the camps and would be handed
to the Allies, that the killings would stop, and that inmates would not be evacuated.
The agreement signed between Himmler and his physician Felix Kersten saved 60,000 lives.
Himmler during the war especially in the final days would try and save his own skin a number
of times, and he tried to portray himself as a hero who would try to save the lives
of many, despite the SS and his organisation being the perpetrators of the holocaust who
were responsible for the deaths of 6 million.
But inside of the sanatorium, Himmler would also be resting and its claimed that he was
on the verge of a breakdown, but he would whilst here plot to usurp Hitler and to begin
to plan peace talks with the Allies.
He tried to negotiate a separate peace with the Western Allies to save his skin, but this
failed and then in the final moments of the war Himmler would go on the run before he
was captured by the British Army and he would then take his life inside of captivity under
rather strange circumstances.
But inside of Hohenlynchen Sanatorium, Heinrich Himmler was said to have been recovering because
of the fact he was struggling with the effects of being made a commander.
He was a man who was not a military officer and he’d never really had any real experience
in the military.
To give him command of the struggling war effort was a strange decision by Adolf Hitler,
and it was clear Himmler could not hack the stresses of military command.
He would have a breakdown and he would check in to the medical facility as he claimed he
was ill, but he was deemed as a burden to Germany by high ranking field marshals at
the end of the Second World War.
What was shocking is that it was only 96 days from when Himmler was appointed the Commander
of Army Group Vistula to the day that Hitler died inside of his bunker, and then 8 days
later Germany would surrender.
What was strange was that Hitler decided to give Himmler another chance despite the fact
he was from early on a complete failure with regards to military matters, but Himmler’s
breakdown and fleeing to the sanatorium was a shocking and feeble act for one of History’s
most evil men.
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