01x03 - Heinrich Himmler

[bunniefuu]

NARRATOR:
They seem like ordinary men,

articulate, educated, civilised.

But they will turn into
depraved, twisted monsters.

They will commit acts
of unimaginable cruelty

for which they will feel
no shame or remorse.

Here is true evil.

Heinrich Himmler,

one of the most evil men
in human history,

begins as a mild-mannered,
bookish intellectual

who loves tradition,
country pursuits and nature.

He will become one of
the most terrifying champions

of the Third Reich,

a monster even by n*zi standards.

No name is more associated
with n*zi atrocities

than that of Himmler.

Himmler will help
to define n*zi ideology.

(CROWD CHEERS)

MAN: More than most
of the other n*zi leaders,

Himmler is an ideologue

and he's really interested
in ideas and systems of belief

and creating a whole new culture,
particularly for the SS.

The transformation of Himmler
into a n*zi monster

is the story of the total collapse of
morality and civilisation in Germany.

MAN: The story of Heinrich Himmler

gives real insight into
how Nazism evolved,

how, in 20 years, a civilised
European humanist country

descends into such barbarism
and darkness.

Heinrich Himmler is as close as
any human has ever been to true evil.

In July 1942, Heinrich Himmler
is inspecting Auschwitz-Birkenau.

He is delighted, smiling in approval.

It is everything he had hoped for.

Everything he had envisioned.

In this camp alone,

more than a million people will be
m*rder*d, most of them Jewish.

But how did Himmler
and the men around him

come to the twisted conclusion

that this human slaughter
was the right thing to do?

How could any human be capable
of such monstrous cruelty?

20 years earlier,
Nazism is virtually unheard of.

And the man who will be
one of its greatest heroes,

Heinrich Himmler,

is just taking his first steps
towards moral oblivion.

Heinrich Himmler
is from a traditional

middle-class conservative
Catholic family.

Himmler's strict parents
bring up their children

to respect
the old rural German values

of order, love of nature,
community and tradition.

Himmler comes from a deeply
conservative background.

He holds almost medieval views
about the roles of women,

about the roles of the people,

and about what Germany
should be like.

When Himmler goes to university,
he studies agricultural science.

As part of his course,
he works on a farm

in the small mountain town
of Fridolfing.

Agriculture is more than
an economic activity to Himmler -

it is an expression of a traditional
German culture and life

which he fears is dying out.

He goes hiking
in the Bavarian mountains,

he attends farming and craft shows,

and is an active member
of the folk community.

For Himmler, this is the ideal
that he's been looking for.

He's in communion with nature,
the land, the German people

that he's believed so much
and read so much about.

And it's here that he
really gets interested

in the idea of blood and soil.

'Blood and soil' is the rallying cry
of Germany's Volk, or folk movement.

They believe
that communities are organic -

people, like plants, grow out of
the soil and belong to the land.

Like plants and animals, people are
the result of breeding and evolution.

MAN: 'Blood and soil' ideology
is very important to Himmler,

and it becomes the foundation
for his world view, his politics.

He embraces it fully.

But in the 1920s, age-old
rural German values are under threat

from Germany's fast-expanding cities.

To the dismay of the Volkists,

German peasants, who were once
legally tied to the land,

are now free to move.

They migrate in ever increasing
numbers to the cities

in search of money,
excitement and freedom.

Rural conservatives like Himmler
are appalled.

In the cities,
there is a corrupt mingling

of sexes and classes and races.

Cities pose a mortal threat

to the traditional German values
he holds dear.

SHAWCROSS: To Himmler,
Weimar society is anathema.

It encapsulates everything

that he thinks is wrong
with modern, liberal democracy.

He sees it as loose, as amoral,

as everything
that Germany shouldn't be.

The cities are the product
of capitalism,

and for capitalism
the Volkists blame the Jews.

For centuries, European Jews
have been banned from owning land,

forced to find other ways
to make a living,

so they tended to live in cities
and to work in business.

80% of Germany's department stores
were owned by Jews.

To Himmler, the Jews represent

everything that's wrong
with Germany, as he sees it,

under the Weimar Republic.

They're linked to capitalism.
They're linked to modernity.

They're linked to all of the things

that National Socialism
will bring an end to.

Himmler has to stop his postgraduate
agricultural studies

when his parents
are unable to support him.

In 1922, he is reduced to
working as an assistant clerk

in a fertiliser factory.

He is poor, weedy,
unattractive and bitter.

His social life revolves around
his parents and their friends.

MAN: He is a very
unprepossessing character.

He's as far from a physical Aryan
specimen as it's possible to get.

In his young days, he suffered
constantly from ill health.

But Himmler is about to find some
meaning and direction in his life.

He comes across a small
new political party in Munich,

which seems to echo his views.

It is the National Socialist
German Workers' Party -

or n*zi Party.

It opposes Jewish capitalism

and promises to take Germany
back to traditional values.

An enthusiastic young Himmler signs
up to its paramilitary organisation,

the SA, or Brownshirts.

LEVINE: He's nothing like most
of the members of the SA,

who were tough guys - you know,
they were street fighters.

And he's nothing like that at all.

I mean, he's... he's the wimpy kid.

He's lacking a sense of manliness,

a sense of potency,
a sense of effectiveness.

And so, by joining
this organisation here,

he is just papering over the cracks.

He can pretend to be what he's
never going to be in real life.

Himmler may not be a tough guy,

but he is clever and zealous,

and graduates to Hitler's
new personal protection squad,

the SS.

To begin with, the SS is just a small
unit within the Brownshirt army.

But when the ambitious Heinrich
Himmler takes charge in 1929,

he decides to build the SS
into something bigger.

REMY: When Himmler becomes active
in the SS,

it is a very small organisation -
only about 300 officers.

It is not yet anywhere near
the gigantic institution

that it becomes later on.

But Himmler is absolutely dedicated,

and he's given a large degree of
autonomy to build this organisation,

which is answerable directly
to Adolf Hitler.

Himmler starts to recruit
more SS men.

But in the early 1930s,

it is still dwarfed in size
and importance by the Brownshirt SA,

which has a staggering
three million members.

It was important for Hitler
to have a private army,

but it grew and it grew and it grew,
and it got away from him

to the point where
it was actually larger

than the Wehrmacht -
the actual German army.

(CROWD CHEERS)

The SA Brownshirt army
has its own politicians.

It is funded directly by the state.

The Brownshirts are fiercely loyal
to their leader, Ernst Roehm,

who is Hitler's main rival
in the n*zi movement.

LEVINE: You have Ernst Roehm -
he's the head of the SA -

becoming more and more powerful
in his own right.

And Hitler wasn't
going to have that.

So, first of all,
he speaks to Roehm, and he says,

"I can't have this happening."

But Roehm is above any kind
of criticism at this point.

And so Hitler takes matters...
to another level.

(SPEAKS GERMAN)

MAN: For Himmler and Hitler, Roehm
represents everything they're not.

He's very overweight,
he's h*m*,

he's seen as being very sybaritic,

a somewhat sort of
Lucian corruptor figure.

And so, therefore, they see
the Brownshirts, and Roehm,

as something that needs to be
expunged, got rid of.

A list of key SA leaders is drawn up.

Himmler gets Hitler to invite them,
along with Roehm,

to a high-level meeting
at the town of Bad Wiessee.

With the Brownshirt leadership
in one place,

they're sitting ducks.

June 30th, 1934.

At six in the morning, while
the SA top brass are still in bed,

Himmler's men storm their hotel.

Some SA leaders
are shot there and then.

Many more, including Roehm,
are arrested

and later shot without trial.

The Night of the Long Knives
is a brutal purge.

Hitler removes all opposition
within the party.

Heinrich Himmler is now free

to build his own
n*zi state security empire.

LEVINE: With Ernst Roehm
out of the way,

Himmler's able
to expand his power base.

MAN: The Night of the Long Knives

is where Himmler really
wins his spurs as a n*zi.

It's where he demonstrates to Hitler
his absolute and blind loyalty.

And as a result, he's rewarded
almost immediately.

Hitler allows Himmler
to build up the SS.

It will no longer be
a small bodyguard unit.

The SS takes charge
of n*zi intelligence.

And a new SS military wing is formed,
the SS-Verfuegungstruppe.

This will soon become known
and reviled across Europe

as the Waffen-SS.

Himmler wants the SS to be

the greatest military machine
on the planet, bar none.

In order to bring this about,
he decides to curate very carefully

the kind of people that make it
into this elite fighting force.

So, he believes in kind of selection

and he wants to take only the people
who have the purest German blood.

To choose and cultivate
his SS supermen,

Himmler will use the same techniques
of plant and animal breeding

he learned as a student.

REMY: To join the SS,

you had to meet
very rigorous racial standards -

your background, your parentage.

Himmler favoured
a certain physical appearance -

the stereotypical tall,
blond hair, blue eyes.

Himmler has a very specific
and unique vision for the SS.

This is not just going to be
a police force or an army.

For him, it transcends all of that.

This is going to be the embodiment
of the Herrenmensch.

This is where the new Aryan race
finds its champions.

And to ensure the super breed
continues and improves,

Himmler issues his
Engagement and Marriage Order.

GREEN: It wasn't just
the individuals

who were making up the SS
that Himmler carefully vetted -

it was their wives as well.

He had such control
over their lives,

he wouldn't let them marry anyone

unless they conformed
to certain standards.

Like breeder animals,
potential SS wives

must meet standards of appearance
and physical and mental health.

Himmler even demands
gynaecological and other examinations

to test for child-rearing potential.

If the proposed wife
is judged to be unlikely

to be capable of rearing a child

she is sent for hormone treatment
at the SS's expense.

If the treatment proves successful,
Himmler will approve the marriage.

Himmler asserts puritanical
control upon the SS.

Himmler sees this as a revival
of the Teutonic Knights

which was a 12th-century
military order

which came to represent
the essence of Germanness.

Good breeding was always the boast
of Europe's aristocracy.

They were bred
to be naturally superior.

It was in the blood.

And it was this absurd
genetic snobbery

that inspired n*zi eugenics.

Himmler and many SS officers
were obsessed with,

fascinated with,
the British aristocracy.

For SS trainees, there was
a whole etiquette manual

that was modelled on how the British
aristocracy deported itself -

how they dressed,
how they addressed each other,

how one held a champagne glass
properly to toast.

Himmler is trying to build
a new aristocracy.

It's to be a very particular
Germanic type,

but it will be
the new aristocracy of Germany.

(SHOUTS IN GERMAN)

Like medieval knights,

recruits to Himmler's SS
pledged their allegiance on a sword.

Himmler sees them as a new
romantic order of Aryan warriors.

He even gives the SS
their own castle, in Wewelsburg.

Himmler imbues the castle
at Wewelsburg

with all sorts of imagery
and symbolism

of the great medieval
German King Heinrich,

because by then,
Himmler has come to believe

that he is the reincarnation
of King Heinrich.

LEVINE: You have
these two sides to Himmler

and, by extension,
two sides to the SS.

One is the brutal pragmatism
of running this organisation.

And the other is a sort of
quasi-religious mysticism

that underpins
Himmler's beliefs, and the SS.

Himmler's after
his own religion of Aryanism.

Under the Nazis, ancient
pagan festivals are revived,

echoes of a primitive golden age

before the warlike German spirit
was weakened

by the soft, sentimental morality
of Christians and Jews.

SHAWCROSS:
The morality that we have,

this liberal Judaeo-Christian
inflected morality,

that is what's evil,
that's what needs to be stamped out,

because that
is what prevents greatness.

Himmler rejects Christianity
and embraces new-age pagan mysticism.

Himmler has a real passion
for the occult.

He's into the mumbo jumbo.

He's into the astrology.

He's into all these
old legends and myths.

He's into various artefacts

that he thinks
will literally bring power.

In 1935, Himmler sets up a group
within the SS called the Ahnenerbe.

The Ahnenerbe will spend millions
sending people around the world

trying to prop up Himmler's
occult beliefs.

He sends teams off to Tibet

to discover whether Tibet
was once a German colony.

There are people investigating

whether the Buddha
was, in fact, German.

One of Himmler's lead gurus
and inspirations in the Ahnenerbe

is a man called Wiligut,

who is an insane lunatic obsessed
with this German prehistory.

And Himmler first meets him
at a conference

on Nordic questions
and Nordic history.

But he brings him into the Ahnenerbe

and promotes him to become
its most recognisable figure.

Wiligut says he is descended
from Aryan priest kings.

He says the German race
goes back to 230,000 years BC,

when giants roamed the earth

and there were three suns in the sky.

Unfortunately for Himmler,
it becomes widely known

that Wiligut had spent some time
in a mental asylum,

where he'd been sectioned.

So, reluctantly,
Himmler has to let him go.

It's all nonsense.

It's all crap, fundamentally.
It's just crap.

And the one person who thinks
it's crap, actually, is Hitler.

Hitler delivers a speech denouncing
occultism as a distraction.

Himmler is told
he has serious work to do.

Hitler intends to purge
Germany and Europe of Jews.

And to do it will be the job
of Himmler and his SS.

Heinrich Himmler, head of the SS,
sees his power grow still further

when, in 1934, he takes charge
of the German secret police,

the Geheime Staatspolizei -

known across Germany as the Gestapo.

The Gestapo is declared
above the law,

unaccountable to the courts -

a perfect instrument
of state terror.

(g*nshots)

When we look at the Gestapo,
it tells us a lot

about the relationship between the
German public and the n*zi regime.

The Gestapo was always
a relatively small organisation

in terms of the number
of its personnel.

After the w*r, many Germans
wanted the world to believe

that they lived in constant terror
of arrest and harassment

and interrogation and
imprisonment by the Gestapo.

The truth is that the vast
majority of non-Jewish Germans

never met a Gestapo officer.

They never had any contact
with the Gestapo.

The Gestapo also
benefited from the fact

that a considerable number
of Germans

were willing to inform on
each other,

to denounce each other
to the Gestapo.

And I think political loyalty

explains why Germans
inform on each other.

CROWD: Sieg Heil!

By the late 1930s,

Himmler is the most powerful man
in the n*zi state machine,

second only to Hitler.

Himmler has risen
to extraordinary heights.

He's now the head of the Gestapo,
he's the head of the police,

he's the head of the SS,
and he's the head of the SD.

He's almost
made himself bulletproof.

But Himmler does not seek power
for its own sake.

He wants to use it
to turn back the clock,

to restore Germany to its
idyllic pre-capitalist past

of happy, smiling peasants
working the land.

Himmler and the n*zi Volkists
are nature lovers.

They send soldiers
into the countryside

to plant trees
and establish nature reserves.

The Nazis promote vegetarianism
and herbal remedies

and pass laws to protect animals.

Himmler's SS even has
its own supply of organic food.

Himmler wants to bring Germany's
corrupted urban masses

back to the countryside.

To do this, in 1931, he opens
the SS Race and Resettlement Office.

To run it, he appoints
Richard Walther Darre.

GREEN: Richard Darre
was an important ideologue

who came to be
very close to Himmler,

and he believed in
the 'blood and soil' ideology.

More than anything,
he believed in racial segregation,

wanted to forge together a body
of people who were racially pure,

and he believed that
would make them stronger.

Urban workers are urged
to return to the land

with the offer of free plots.

Existing small farmers
are forbidden from selling land,

effectively tying them
once more to the soil.

But Germany's population
has swelled in recent decades.

To resettle them,
the Nazis will need more land.

They call it living space,
or 'lebensraum',

and they will get it
by taking Poland.

Their ultimate goal
is to expand into Poland,

transform Poland into
living space for the German race.

So, what does that mean
for the Polish population?

The Nazis' objective
is to destroy Poland -

to destroy the Polish state,
Polish culture.

From an ideological perspective,

one of the key missions for Himmler

was around the Volksdeutsche,
the German people,

the race of German people,
who were spread over Europe,

and he wants to see
them all reunited.

They have to be brought together
into a greater Reich.

Key to this plan for the
Volksdeutsche is to resettle them,

so all of the lands that have
been cleared to the east,

the former Slavic lands,

are going to be handed over

and dedicated to this new vast world

of the Volksdeutsche,
the German people.

Genocide in Eastern Europe

will create space
for Himmler's rural utopia.

To get the ball rolling,
Himmler offers half a million Germans

a fresh start
in the newly conquered territories.

The Race and Resettlement Office
checks their backgrounds

and grants them land -

land taken from the genetically
inferior Polish population.

But this presents
a eugenics dilemma.

Over the years, many Poles
and Germans have interbred.

Himmler wants to spare
any Aryans living in Poland.

If you were deemed to be
of, you know, the Aryan pedigree

or looked like you were,

they would measure the gap between
the eyes and size of the skull.

One of the most diabolical
things the SS does is,

if a Polish family had children
that fit the racial stereotype,

those children would be
taken from that family

and they would be given,
as a form of adoption,

to German settler families
moving into Poland.

Around 200,000 Polish children are
declared to be Aryan by the Nazis,

taken from their parents,
and sent for re-Germanisation.

GREEN: As for the children who
didn't conform to those features,

they were often sterilised.

While a few Polish Aryans are spared,

Slavic poles, and in particular
Jewish Poles, are not.

Himmler is now fulfilling
his lifelong ambitions

of uniting the German people.

And he's also weeding out
the toxic elements

of the lesser races
and the lesser cultures.

The fact is Heinrich Himmler
has terrifying plans

to change the racial
landscape of Europe.

It is with n*zi
ethnic cleansing in Poland

that the story
of the Holocaust begins.

(SPEAKS GERMAN)

TRANSLATOR: "The Jewish race
is to be exterminated,"

says every party member.

That's clear.
It's part of our program.

Elimination of the Jews.
Extermination.

Right, we'll do it.

This was the Final Solution,

and it was to be carried out by
Hitler's most trusted men - the SS.

The elimination of Europe's Jews
starts in Germany.

To begin with, Jews have
their assets confiscated,

and some are forced to seek refuge
in other countries.

Himmler's policy
of deportation is brutal.

Longstanding members
of the community

are uprooted and forced to flee.

These people are refugees.

But, ultimately,
they are the lucky ones.

(INDISTINCT SHOUTING)

What happens next is seen
in this disturbing footage.

Himmler's SS men begin dragging Jews
out of their homes,

beating them, stripping them
and herding them into ghettos.

When the ghettos become too crowded
and difficult to control...

...they are sent to newly built
concentration camps.

WALTERS: Dachau was the first
concentration camp in n*zi Germany.

It's distinct from a prison.

It's a place where you send enemies
of the state, enemies of your party.

These aren't crimes
in traditional terms,

but they are crimes
in the n*zi state.

Jews, opponents of the Nazis
and others

are rounded up and locked away.

It's a place where the n*zi party
puts its Jews, its communists,

its h*m*, its gypsies.

People that aren't the right sort
of people in the n*zi mindset.

The regime makes the existence
of concentration camps

known to the public.

This is deliberate.

The idea here is to publicise
the existence of the camps

as a warning,

as an unspoken indirect warning
to the public.

The SS builds the first camps

and the SS becomes the administrator

of what becomes a vast system

of, ultimately, some 20,000 camps

in Germany
and in German-controlled Europe.

For Himmler, the camps serve
another important function -

to realise his dream
of genetic and racial cleansing.

Natural selection suggests
that genetically inferior strains

should die out.

Himmler, the plant-breeding
scientist,

will apply a twisted version
of this logic to the human race.

Dachau becomes a place
not just of incarceration

but also a place of horror,

because within days,
Jewish prisoners start dying.

Public prosecutors had demanded
an explanation for these deaths,

but Himmler has established
his own SS courts.

The SS will be judge, jury
and executioner -

free to k*ll as they see fit.

Heinrich Himmler's plans
to eradicate undesirables

from the growing German Empire

will need a new kind
of military unit.

And, so, he creates a special
SS task force, the Einsatzgruppen.

The job of the Einsatzgruppen
was brutally simple.

It was to m*rder people.

Let's not put any finer point
on it than that.

The Einsatzgruppen follows
the German army as it pushes east.

REMY: The first important element
of the Final Solution

is the Einsatzgruppen,

is the mobile execution squads
that follow the regular German Army,

first into Poland
and then into the Soviet Union.

These are SS units
and their job is to m*rder Jews,

but also Soviet political officers,
Soviet citizens, Roma people.

The mentally and physically
handicapped were another target.

The man Himmler puts in charge
of his Einsatzgruppen death squads

is Reinhard Heydrich.

GREEN: Hitler himself
refers to Heydrich

as "the man with the iron heart"

and he's pretty widely
considered to be

the cruellest and the most brutal

of all the high-ranking
n*zi officers.

Heydrich is the son of a classical
composer and music teacher.

He is no mindless thug.

Nor are the officers
in his Einsatzgruppen.

They are doctors and lawyers
and teachers.

Half of the Einsatzgruppen's senior
officers have postgraduate degrees.

They are respected figures
of authority

and their job is to persuade
and reassure ordinary troops

that mass m*rder is scientifically
and morally justified.

Though Christianity holds
that human life is sacred,

according to n*zi environmentalism,

humans are no more important
than plants and animals.

Himmler's victims
are just diseased nature.

The Jews are weeds. They must be
ripped out and destroyed.

These brutal unspeakable acts
are actually the logical conclusion

to his way of thinking.

This is what justifies his actions

and it's thought out and
it's planned and it's systematic.

At the start of the k*lling,

a n*zi lawyer, Bruno Muller,
shows his soldiers what they must do.

He singles out a woman and her child,

takes his g*n
and shoots them both dead.

(g*nsh*t)

Within just three days,
his Einsatzgruppen unit

will sh**t 24,000 Jewish men,
women, children and babies.

What's remarkable
about the Einsatzgruppen

is just quite how small
they actually are.

In total,
over the entire course of the w*r,

no more than 3,000 men will be
employed in the Einsatzgruppen.

And, yet, they m*rder
nearly two million people.

REMY: They are responsible for
the first major k*lling stage

of the Final Solution.

And some historians now refer to
this phase of the Holocaust

as the Holocaust by b*ll*ts.

In 1941, Himmler visits Minsk

to witness one of the many
Einsatzgruppen massacres.

The soldiers have developed
their preferred k*lling techniques.

Victims are forced to kneel
or stand over a mass grave.

This saves the bother
of handling them.

Himmler has never seen a dead body
before and almost faints.

What's worse, the scale
of the killings

seems to be affecting his men.

GREEN: Himmler goes to inspect

the bloody activities
of the Einsatzgruppen

and, um, he clocks quite early on
that there's a bit of a problem.

Despite the reassurances
of their officers

that what they're doing
is scientific,

the troops are beginning to crack.

REMY: One of the problems for the SS

is that the mobile
execution squads' k*lling

of hundreds of thousands of people

begins to take
a significant psychological toll

on the executioners.

The soldiers
are marching into villages,

slaughtering everyone -
men, women and children.

The relentless m*rder,
the total barbarism,

is beginning to send them mad.

So horrific were the scenes
that they encountered,

pretty much on a daily basis,

that they begin to
turn to alcohol abuse,

they began to become depressed.

The suicide rate is very, very high.

So, these brutal K*llers are
beginning to buckle under the weight

of the work that Himmler
is expecting them to do.

Himmler realises that a new form
of mass m*rder must be devised -

something more efficient or clinical,

something that will, to some degree,
shield the murderers themselves

from the full realisation
of what they're doing.

GREEN: If the whole thing
was institutionalised

and it was done
in a more impersonal way,

then people are going to be
absolved of blame.

The conclusion Himmler reaches

is that the whole thing
has to be mechanised.

The Nazis were already using carbon
monoxide from car exhaust tailpipes

to gas groups of people.

This method of k*lling
will now be taken to the next level.

The Nazis turned to the German
chemicals industry,

who were pioneers in the manufacture
of poison gas in World w*r One.

And Himmler devises a plan

that will culminate in the most
brutal and horrific slaughter

in human history.

On October the 13th, 1941,

Heinrich Himmler gives the orders
for the construction of Belzec,

the first of several
purpose-built extermination camps.

He then decrees that the Jewish
populations of Eastern Europe

should be rounded up,
loaded onto trains

and sent to the death camps.

The Jews of Western Europe
will be next.

(WHEEL SQUEAKS)

There was one particular camp
that Himmler had his eye on.

It was one of the largest camps.

It already had
an I.G. Farben factory there.

And in 1942, he turned it into
something far, far greater,

something that everybody knows the
name of now, and that was Auschwitz.

The full horror of what happened
in the death camps

only becomes known to the world

when Allied soldiers enter them
in the closing weeks of the w*r.

What they find is carefully recorded.

Their films contain
the most disturbing images

ever captured on camera.

Death is everywhere.

NEWSREEL: The living dead.

At first, they were
not known to be alive

among the corpses
with whom they lay

in indescribable filth.

Some were not more than a few hours.

All were once
men of dignity and courage.

The cameras go inside
the gas chambers.

The plaster on the walls
bears the imprints of hands -

the hands of those about to die,

clawing hopelessly,

trying to escape the gas.

They film abandoned crematoria

where the SS tried to destroy
the evidence of their barbarism.

In Auschwitz-Birkenau,
Himmler demands

not one, but eight
giant gas chambers

and 46 ovens.

His SS guards work around the clock,
murdering their Jewish prisoners.

The rate of m*rder is incredible.

In each chamber, 2,000 people
can be m*rder*d every 90 minutes.

The victims know what is coming,

or else they sense it.

Children cry out.

Their mothers hold them tight
as the gas enters the chambers.

When you start reciting the numbers
k*lled in the Holocaust,

it's almost meaningless.

You have to really stop
and think about it.

The numbers of people k*lled
just in Auschwitz-Birkenau

were 1.3 million people...

...in this one place.

And of those,
1.1 million of them were Jewish.

There's no doubt Heinrich Himmler

was the chief architect
of the Holocaust.

He was the man
who put the most thought

into how people could be k*lled
on a massive industrial scale.

He was the person
with the responsibility.

He was the person...

...with the obscene imagination,

who was able to carry it out.

In July 1942, Himmler is given a tour
of Auschwitz, his flagship camp.

He is given a demonstration of
the newly installed gas chambers.

Himmler is delighted
with the work of his SS men.

Later, at the Nuremberg trials,

a n*zi orderly
describes his daily work.

MAN: It took
from three to 15 minutes

to k*ll the people
in the death chamber,

depending upon climatic conditions.

We knew when the people were dead

because their screaming stopped.

After the bodies were removed,

our special commandos
took off the rings

and extracted the gold
from the teeth of the corpses.

Gold worth millions of dollars
is plundered from the bodies.

The Nazis hoard the clothing
and possessions of their victims.

Their hair is used to weave socks
for soldiers on the front.

Tattooed skin is removed
to make lampshades.

Around six million Jews,

millions of Russian prisoners of w*r,

millions of Polish people and Serbs,

and countless hundreds of thousands

of disabled people,
gypsies and others,

are k*lled.

It's very, very difficult
to estimate

exactly how many people were k*lled
in the Holocaust.

We'll never know a precise figure.

But something like
11 million people were k*lled.

The death camps
are the ultimate expression

of Himmler's twisted ideas -

his crackpot mysticism,
his hatred, his racism,

his eulogising of the German people.

It's all concentrated
into the death camps

and they are the ultimate
expression of his vision.

But just as Himmler is sending
millions to their death in the camps,

the tide of w*r is turning.

By 1943, the Nazis
are running out of everything -

manpower, food, supplies.

And ironically, it is
the barbaric actions of Himmler

that ensure the Nazis will lose.

On Himmler's orders, vast resources

which might have been used
to fight the w*r

are being used, instead,
to m*rder Jews and others.

It is Himmler who murders
in their millions

the very farmers
and workers in eastern Europe

who might have fed and sustained
the n*zi w*r machine.

It is Himmler's SS who butcher
innocent Russian people

who might otherwise have risen up

against their own
communist oppressors.

It is Himmler and his men committing
the most shocking acts of inhumanity

who ensure that every decent country
in the world turns against them.

In the end, it is these very acts
of calculated savagery

that will cost the Nazis the w*r

and Himmler his life.

By the end of 1944,
seven million Russian troops

are heading towards Germany's
eastern border.

The American and British armies

are closing in from the west.

As the Allies advance, Himmler
considers how his eugenics program

is likely to be seen
by the rest of the world.

(BABY CRIES)

They won't understand
his higher moral justification.

They won't listen to Himmler's
scientific arguments

about nature and evolution.

They will just see the mountains
upon mountains of bodies.

It's pretty obvious to Himmler
that the game is up, all is lost,

but he has trouble
accepting his fate.

He has trouble with the idea

that he's just going to go down
as a mass m*rder*r,

be imprisoned and possibly ex*cuted.

So, he begins to see
all the prisoners,

so the Jewish people
in the concentration camps,

as bargaining chips.

WALTERS: And one of the bargains
was to say that,

"I will release all the prisoners
in my concentration camps" -

trying to make himself look
sort of munificent and grand.

But no Allied government
wants to be seen

making sordid bargains
with the Nazis.

Now Himmler panics.

He orders his SS to stop
k*lling Jews.

The concentration camps
will be evacuated.

To save his own skin,
Himmler will stop the Holocaust.

He orders the release
of around 1,000 Jews,

who are sent by train to Switzerland
and handed over to the Red Cross.

Himmler meets with a member
of the World Jewish Congress

and says he wants to make peace
with the Jews,

claiming that Auschwitz
is merely a crematorium,

disposing of the bodies of people
who died of typhus.

Himmler's attempts to present himself as a
humanitarian at the end of the w*r beggar belief.

Did he really think the Allies
would fall for this?

Himmler realises that
the writing is on the wall,

that Germany probably
isn't going to win the w*r.

But what she might be able to do
is to not lose it,

um, and that Germany could, indeed,

maybe have some sort of arrangement
with the Allies,

uh, that she won't be conquered.

With the Allied forces
making advances on all fronts,

Himmler asks the Swiss government
to approach the Allies on his behalf,

in the vain hope of making a deal.

But Himmler's sinful,
disgusting crimes

are about to catch up with him.

As Himmler is trying to make
these deals with the Allies,

Auschwitz, of course, has been
liberated by the Russians

and the worldwide media
has been reporting

the slaughter that went on there.

So, no-one is under
any illusions, by this stage,

that Himmler is anything
other than an evil butcher.

WALTERS: When Himmler realises

that this supposed act of mercy
is just a total waste of time,

he then gets incredibly vengeful

and shows his true murderousness.

He orders prisoners
in Dachau, Flossenburg,

all to be summarily ex*cuted.

This just shows the sort of

awful, vindictive, evil,
small-mindedness of the man

that if he can't get his own way,
he'll just k*ll everybody he can.

It's like a child
knocking over his sandcastle

on the beach at the end of the day,

but doing that with a human life,
and many human lives.

NEWSREEL: Belsen - where the victims
of the crooked cross

died in their tens of thousands.

Grim pictures.

Now we can see
the incontestable truth.

Belsen had been guarded
by SS men and SS women.

Our most unpleasant task

has been making the SS,
of which there are about 50,

bury the dead.

Up to press, we've buried
about 17,000 people.

As Himmler's crimes
are revealed to the world,

news of his failed attempt
to strike a deal with the Allies

reaches Hitler.

LEVINE: When Hitler learns
what Himmler's done,

he first of all strips him
of all his titles,

and he's got a lot of titles.

He then calls him a traitor
to his country and a traitor to him.

And, of course, for Himmler,
this isn't just a job.

This is everything he is,
everything he stands for.

It's his religion, it's his life,
it's his identity.

And it's shattered.

Rejected by Hitler,

exposed as the butcher of millions
of innocent people,

and with the Allies closing in,

Himmler now flees.

He disguises himself
as an ordinary soldier,

adopting the name
Sergeant Heinrich Hitzinger.

Days later, Sergeant Hitzinger
is captured

by a unit of British soldiers.

But the face of Heinrich Himmler
is too well known

and he is quickly exposed.

With the world watching,
Himmler is taken by British troops

for interrogation in Luneburg.

But concealed in his uniform
is a cyanide capsule.

Before he can be questioned,

Himmler bites on the vial

and within minutes, he is dead.

NEWSREEL: An ignominious end to the
most evil life recorded in history.

It's a pity for the world that somebody
didn't do it for him when he was born.

His body is dumped nearby,
in an unmarked grave.

Himmler, the champion of organic
farming and herbal medicine.

Himmler, who promotes handicrafts
and new-age mysticism.

Himmler, who values nature
more highly than humanity.

Himmler, the radical
environmentalist,

who finds in science a rational
justification for mass m*rder.

As close as any human has ever come

to being truly evil.