Heinrich Himmler: A Life

by Peter Longerich

Overview

As head of the SS, chief of police, 'Reichskommissar for the Consolidation of Germanness', and Reich Interior Minister, Heinrich Himmler enjoyed a position of almost unparalleled power and responsibility in Nazi Germany. Perhaps more than any other single Nazi leader aside from Hitler, his name has become a byword for the terror, persecution, and destruction that characterized the Third Reich. His wide-ranging powers meant that he bore equal responsibility for the repression of the German people on the home front and the atrocities perpetrated by the SS in the East. Yet, in spite of his central role in the crimes of the Nazi regime, until now Himmler has remained a colourless and elusive figure in the history of the period. In this, the first-ever comprehensive biography of the SS-Reichsf?hrer, leading German historian Peter Longerich puts every aspect of Himmler's life under the microscope. Masterfully interweaving the story of Himmler's personal life and political career with the wider history of the Nazi dictatorship, Longerich shows how skilfully he exploited and manipulated his disparate roles in the pursuit of his far-reaching and grandiose objectives. In the process, he illuminates the extraordinary degree to which Himmler's own personal prejudices, idiosyncrasies, and predilections made their mark on the organizations for which he was responsible - especially the SS, which in so many ways bore the characteristic hallmarks of its leader, and whose history remains both incomplete and incomprehensible without a detailed and intimate knowledge of its deeply sinister commander-in-chief.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780191619892
Publisher:	OUP Oxford
Publication date:	10/27/2011
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Sales rank:	318,689
File size:	21 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

Peter Longerich is Professor of Modern German History at Royal Holloway University of London and founder of the College's Holocaust Research Centre. He has published widely on the history of Nazi Germany and the Holocaust, including Holocaust: The Nazi Murder and Persecution of the Jews, also published by Oxford University Press, which is widely recognized as the standard account of the Nazi machinery of mass murder and the steps by which it unfolded.

Table of Contents

Abbreviatons and Glossary

Editorial Reviews

"[S]upremely enlightening." —Jacob Heilbrunn, The New York Times Book Review

"Splendid" - The Sunday Telegraph

"Longerich's study of Himmler's banal evil promises to bear the standard." —The Village Voice

"A masterpiece." —Richard J. Evans, author of The Coming of the Third Reich

"Peter Longerich, already the author of a distinguihed history of the Holocaust, has written a biography that tells us everything that the world could ever need to know about this most terrible, yet dreery, of Hitler's creatures....an authoritative record."—Max Hastings, NYORB

"A remarkable and wholly fascinating new book by Peter Longerich, a German historian who is among the world's leading scholars of the Holocaust and the Third Reich." —Jewish Journal

From the Publisher

This biography of one of the most evil creatures ever to walk the earth is thoughtful and perceptive…
—The Washington Post

Jonathan Yardley

…supremely enlightening…
—The New York Times Book Review

Jacob Heilbrunn

With access to new material, Longerich (Holocaust), professor of history at the University of London, delivers an exhaustive biography of the notorious Nazi. Himmler (1900–1945) grew up in a stable, middle-class family, entering adulthood deeply resentful of Germany’s defeat in WWI. Needy and self-critical, he was a good student and voracious reader whose belief in Aryan superiority was not rare in his generation. Joining the Nazis, he played a minor role in Hitler’s 1923 beer hall putsch. In 1929 Hitler appointed him head of the SS, a small organization of bodyguards which Himmler expanded to an elite force. The SS’s fierce loyalty to Hitler won Himmler command of all Nazi security (police, concentration camps, extermination camps, and mobile killing squads) when Hitler liquidated the rowdier, independent paramilitary SA in 1934. Longerich does not reveal why this modestly neurotic man committed so many unspeakable acts; his diligence may render earlier works obsolete, but he includes so many administrative details and political maneuvers that general readers may prefer the shorter (if not short) 2001 Peter Padfield biography. (Jan.)

Publishers Weekly

Noted Holocaust scholar Longerich (history, Royal Holloway, Univ. of London; Holocaust: The Nazi Persecution and Murder of the Jews) presents a thorough, well-researched, and clearly written account of Himmler's life and the history of the SS. Rather than providing groundbreaking new sources or research, this work reframes the existing materials by "integrating biography and structural history" to paint a fuller picture of the infamous Nazi leader and his organization. Longerich successfully weaves primary sources and reputable scholarship into a logical, comprehensive, and unified work. However, with a matter-of-fact tone, a structure more concerned with chronology and clarity than a dramatic arc, and nearly 1000 pages of text and endnotes, it will not appeal to readers of popular biography. VERDICT For popular readers, Katrin Himmler's The Himmler Brothers: A German Family History is a better choice. Scholars of Himmler and the SS at all levels will find this solid, inclusive book an excellent resource.—Audrey Barbakoff, Milwaukee P.L.

Library Journal

Exhaustive--and sometimes exhausting--life of the Nazi functionary who rivaled Adolf Hitler in power and influence. In disfavor for the last couple of decades, psychohistory finds a champion in Longerich (Modern German History/Royal Holloway University of London; Holocaust: The Nazi Persecution and Murder of the Jews, 2010, etc.), who puts Heinrich Himmler on the couch and finds in him a bundle of neuroses, including attachment disorder: "People who suffer from this kind of dysfunction acquired in early childhood frequently tend, while growing up and as adults, to attach very high expectations to personal relationships, though they cannot define these expectations precisely, and as a result they cannot be fulfilled." Be that as it may, and cold fish though Himmler was, he was methodical in building and maintaining his personal power. Weak and sickly, he nonetheless became commandant of Hitler's personal bodyguard, the "protection squad," building it from a small and elite guard into an organization to rival the size and power of the regular Wehrmacht, or army. Indeed, writes the author, one of the leaders of the attempted assassination of Hitler in 1944 reckoned "that a coup was unavoidable if the army were not to be at the mercy of the SS in the short or long term." Longerich credits Himmler with helping develop the misty Teutonic mythology that provided the mythic basis of the regime and the white-knight image of the SS. He also demonstrates, ably but in sometimes narrative-crushing detail, that Himmler was skilled in reading the signs of the growing radicalization of the regime and getting there first, adapting the SS every couple of years to changing conditions. Himmler was also adept at keeping his skin even while incurring Hitler's disfavor at times--especially at the end of the war, when he attempted to bargain his way, using Jews as pawns, into a separate accommodation with the advancing Allies. Admirably thorough and packed with facts, though often arid and mired in specifics. Readers may wish for a shorter, more pointed treatment, but, psychologizing aside, students of World War II will likely find this the last word on its immediate subject.

Kirkus Reviews