Heinrich Himmler: Letters from a Mass Murderer

An unprecedented dive into the private life of one of the most important figures of the Third Reich: Heinrich Himmler For a long time, it was thought that Heinrich Himmler's letters to his wife, along with other documents belonging to the Reichsführer-SS, were lost. However, several decades after Himmler's suicide and the end of World War II, the letters were found in Tel Aviv, Israel. Organized by Michael Wildt and Katrin Himmler, the officer's great-niece, they constitute an unprecedented exploration of the private life of one of the most important figures of the Third Reich. Heinrich Himmler and Marga Siegroth met in 1927, sharing anti-Semitism and a dream of living in the countryside. They had a daughter, Gudrun, two years later. The texts contained here reproduce letters from Himmler and Marga, excerpts from the couple's and Gudrun's diaries, and postcards. Depicting the daily life of a seemingly ordinary family—the father working outside the home, the mother taking care of the house, the daughter struggling in school—these writings expose the Nazis' staunch racism and anti-Semitism, their wartime privileges, and their terrifying belief that the Final Solution was nothing less than the right thing to do. They are an important historical record of the brutality of the Nazi regime hidden behind its petty-bourgeois facade.