Heinrich Himmler’s Personal Letters Exposed for First Time
Excerpts from the private letters and diaries of Heinrich Himmler, chief of the Nazi Gestapo and the SS, were published for the first time this weekend in Israeli paper Yediot Aharonot and the German paper Die Welt.
The archive “touches on one of the central questions that researchers of the Holocaust grapple with: how human beings could have carried out such an extreme ideology and persuaded so many people to follow them,” Avner Shalev, chairman of the directorate of Yad Vashem told the New York Times. “These were not monsters; they were human beings, however twisted.”
The archive contains hundreds of photographs, diaries and letters including notes from Himmler to his wife Margaret. “I am off to Auschwitz. Kisses, Your Heini,” reads one note. In another, Himmler declares his loyalty to Hitler writing: “Believe me, if Hitler tells me to shoot my mother — I’ll do that.”
The collection, which has been privately held in Tel Aviv for decades was formerly owned by Israeli artist and collector Chaim Rosenthal. Several years ago the collection was sold to the father of Israeli documentary filmmaker Vanessa Lapa. Her documentary about the letters “Der Anstaendige” (The Decent One), will appear at the Berlin Film Festival this February.
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning journalism this Passover.
In this age of misinformation, our work is needed like never before. We report on the news that matters most to American Jews, driven by truth, not ideology.
At a time when newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall. That means for the first time in our 126-year history, Forward journalism is free to everyone, everywhere. With an ongoing war, rising antisemitism, and a flood of disinformation that may affect the upcoming election, we believe that free and open access to Jewish journalism is imperative.
Readers like you make it all possible. Right now, we’re in the middle of our Passover Pledge Drive and we need 500 people to step up and make a gift to sustain our trustworthy, independent journalism.
Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Our Goal: 500 gifts during our Passover Pledge Drive!