“It is one of those things that is easily said. ‘The Jewish people is being exterminated,’ every Party member will tell you, ‘perfectly clear, it’s part of our plans, we’re eliminating the Jews, exterminating them, a small matter.’
“Altogether we can say: We have carried out this most difficult task for the love of our people. And we have suffered no defect within us, in our soul, or in our character.”
These two gruesome comments are from the diary of Heinrich Himmler, which has recently been revealed in a military archive, in Podolsk near Moscow in Russia. The diary was first found by the Red Army after the War and was kept in the war archives; the journal consists of some 1000 pages full of gruesome details of war crimes committed by the Fuhrer’s right-hand man.
In one of the entries Himmler boasts about taking a massage before ordering the extermination of ten Polish people, and in another part, he writes about collapsing after the brains of a Jewish victim got splattered on him during a mass execution.
The diary contains the details about Himmler’s affairs from 1938, just before the war, up until 1944, before things turned upside down for the Nazi leader and he had to make a run for his life. The journal disappeared after the war and has now surfaced after researchers found it undamaged in the Russian Military Archives in Podolsk.
The arch-architect of the Nazi Death Camps was making notes after a speech to SS Group Leaders, in occupied Poland on the 4th October 1943. The bone-chilling notes clearly lay out the Nazi’s preoccupation with the extermination of the Jewish nation, along with all others that did not meet their view of Aryan purity, and horrifyingly indicate that the Nazi hierarchy felt no remorse at what they were doing.
The notes then continue, as though nothing of any great importance had been said, to describe how he returned to Berlin on his private train. The release of these documents, following the disclosure of photographs and other personal documents belonging to Himmler and found in Israel, adds to the grim picture of this man and his psychotic outlook. These diaries, captured by the Russian forces at the end of WWII, have been lying forgotten in the archive for more than 70 years. They were the personal diary of Himmler for the years 1938, 1943 and 1944.
The diary is more of a service calendar then a personal record of affairs, however, it does contain a few references to Himmler’s private life as well. The entries in the diary mostly contain meetings, places, dates, and often details of his decisions of executing orders for the extermination of captives, mainly Jewish people. The records clearly reveal the sheer lack of empathy in this monstrous character. He mercilessly carried out heinous crimes, without any remorse or regret.
All the books make for stomach-churning reading, with the 1938 volume containing details of a “comradely” lunch held on the 9th March at the Dachau Concentration Camp. On the 10th March, he visited the Sachsenhausen concentration camp near Berlin in the company of Joseph Goebbels and on the 14th March he again enjoyed luncheon at Buchenwald concentration camp.
On the same day, he writes in his journal, “Tea and agreement to become godfather to his son,” after dining with Fritz Sauckel, a local Nazi leader who would be condemned to hang by the Nuremberg Court for organizing slave labor.
Himmler avoided being tried at Nuremberg as he committed suicide before being brought to trial. He had been captured by a British patrol on the 21st May 1945 after being stripped of his titles and being booted from the Nazi Part for taking part in secret talks with the Allies. Himmler is buried in an unmarked grave on Luneburg Heath.