Original subtitles

- [Narrator] It is too easy to cast

all the blame for the Holocaust on one man,

Adolf Hitler, the leader of Nazi Germany

and the man who has now come to personify true evil.

However, no one man could truly achieve

such horrors on their own.

From the start of his political career, he had allies,

people who would flock to his cause

and would ultimately help propel him

to a stage where he could inflict

such cruelty on the world.

There was Hermann Goring,

commander of the German air force, the Luftwaffe,

Joseph Goebbels, the Third Reich's minister for propaganda,

and Heinrich Himmler, the head of the vaunted SS

and one of the chief architects of the Holocaust

against the Jews and anyone else who did not fit

his vision of a pure Germany.

In today's documentary,

we will delve into this terrifying figure of history

and explore the career of a man who,

on both ideological and practical levels,

is literally responsible for the deaths of millions.

This is the story of one of the true monsters of history.

Welcome to "Wars of the World."

(dramatic music)

(pulsating music)

Early life.

Heinrich, or Heinrich in German, was born in Munich

on October 7, 1900, into a conservative,

middle-class Bavarian family.

His father was a teacher,

while his mother devoted herself

to their Roman Catholic faith,

but both of them had close ties

to the then-ruling German monarchy,

with Heinrich, taking his name from his godfather,

Prince Heinrich of Bavaria.

When it came to his schooling,

the young Heinrich Himmler proved to have a keen intellect,

doing well in his academic studies

while he attended the cathedral school

in Salvatorplatz before attending

the grammar school in Landshut,

where his father was the deputy principal.

However such European grammar schools of the day

emphasized that boys demonstrate

their prowess physically as well as mentally,

and sadly for the young Himmler,

this was an area where he struggled.

He was prone to bouts of ill health throughout his life,

especially concerning stomach pains

that inhibited his athletic performance.

In his first year at the Salvatorplatz school,

he missed around 150 days due to illness,

prompting his father to take measures

to prop up his son's education,

such as lessons during summer holidays.

However, when he was well,

his classmates noted that he would

often exercise vigorously,

possibly in the belief that it would fight off

such ailments from returning.

But nevertheless, they persisted throughout his school days.

It is known that Heinrich's father expected

a lot from all his children,

and it has long been speculated that these stomach pains

were probably the result of stress

from this incredible paternal pressure.

His classmates often noted that the young Himmler was

always rather awkward in social gatherings,

but from his diaries,

which he began taking meticulously from age 10,

we can see that he was a keen observer of people.

He would write down his thoughts on topics,

including Imperial Germany's growing economic

and military power in the lead up to World War I

and the relationship between religion and sex,

which reflected his own questions on sexuality

as he entered puberty.

Heinrich was too young to join the German Army

When the First World War broke out in the summer of 1914.

And he would have to wait one more year

to join his school cadet corps,

where he would be prepared for eventual military service.

During this time, like many boys of his age

and class, he heard the stories

of the glorious campaign against Germany's enemies

and wished very much to be a part of it.

However, he was dismayed that in the towns

around his school, there seemed to be less enthusiasm

for the war than he would have liked,

which possibly emphasized the naivete

of the young teenage Heinrich Himmler.

Even as that initial patriotic mania

that swept through Germany during the early stages

of the war began to subside,

Himmler remained excited with the prospect

of earning himself glory, commanding troops into battle,

and was envious of his older brother

who reached military age in July of 1915,

and immediately joined up.

Himmler seemed oblivious to the suffering

that was going on as a result of the war,

even when it began to affect his own family.

The once-privileged Himmlers saw their influence wane

as, like every other family rich or poor in Germany,

they had to live under the restrictions placed

on them, such as rationing.

Perhaps the biggest hit to the family was

when Prince Heinrich, Heinrich Himmler's namesake

and godfather, was killed in battle,

which cut off the family's access to the aristocracy

and severely limited their future prospects and influence.

Yet, despite all of this, Heinrich Himmler continued

longingly playing soldier in the cadet corps

and then pretending to go into battle

with his friends in the fields around the school,

where, as Heinrich recorded in his diary,

they achieved such imaginary feats

as capturing 1,000 Russian soldiers almost single-handedly.

It would not be until late 1917

that he would finally join the German Army

as an officer candidate.

But the war would end in November of the following year

without Heinrich completing his training.

Having missed out on the war,

he instead completed his grammar school education

before attending Munich's technical university,

where he studied agricultural techniques.

It was at this time that Heinrich Himmler

began writing in his diaries

on the topic of German-Jewish relations.

Antisemitism had long lingered under the surface of German

society since the country's birth in 1871

but primarily took the form of social isolation,

with there being very little

in the way of interaction between those

of the Jewish community and the rest of Germany.

At the university, Heinrich and his classmates

always separated themselves from their Jewish classmates,

creating a perfect environment for Germans

to view the Jewish population as different

and not true Germans.

Thus, when the war was lost

and a scapegoat was needed,

many Germans reignited their antisemitism

and took to blaming the Jews.

In August of 1923,

Himmler's political ideologies led him to the small,

but growing, National Socialist German Workers Party.

Himmler had joined the Nazis.

The SA and the SS.

(dark music)

From the outset, the Nazi Party fell back

on the experiences of the militaristic mindsets

that prevailed in its upper echelons.

Forming the blueprints for when they would

eventually come to power,

the Nazi Party adopted uniformed departments

with specific roles.

One of the most significant in the early days

was the Sturmabteilung, or Storm Detachment,

but more commonly known by the abbreviation of the SA.

The SA wore brown uniforms to distinguish them

and adopted military ranks and discipline

while they conducted their duties

in providing security at Nazi rallies and meetings.

Later, they adopted a more aggressive role,

actively attacking opposing political groups,

in particular those in support

of Germany adopting communism.

And the often public brawls that resulted

left an impression on the general public

that the SA were nothing more than a criminal gang or mob.

Having missed out on fighting in the war,

Himmler was attracted to the military environment

of the SA and so signed up to join them.

But just like in the military,

there were elite units within their ranks.

And one of these was the Saal-Schutz,

which translates into hall security.

But its members were known as the SS.

The SS had the important task of providing security

for party meetings at their headquarters in Munich.

But like the SA at-large, its role evolved

as the Nazi Party's fortunes rose

and then fell in spectacular fashion in 1923,

when Hitler attempted to seize power

in the failed Beer Hall Putsch.

The unit was largely disbanded

while Hitler was briefly in prison

but was reestablished upon his release.

Hitler now wanted a bodyguard unit

to assume direct responsibility for his safety,

as he suspected there were opponents to him

throughout the party, in particular amongst the SA.

It was soon renamed the Schutzstaffell,

or Protection Squadron, in 1925.

And a new member was absorbed into its ranks,

Heinrich Himmler.

The SS was initially commanded by Julius Schreck,

a trusted friend of Hitler.

But within a year, he was replaced by Joseph Berchtold,

one of the founders of the SA.

However, he swiftly became frustrated

by having to come under command of the SA.

And so he delegated many of his duties

to his second in command Erhard Heiden.

Heiden eventually replaced Berchtold in March of 1927

and appointed Himmler as his own deputy

at a crucial time in the SS's history,

as the force was in decline,

thanks to it being overshadowed by its parent organization.

It was also around this time that Himmler met his wife,

Margarete Boden, and after a brief relationship

where they exchanged letters with one another,

they married in July of 1928.

Margarete was seven years older than Himmler,

but they had similar interests.

She was also a known antisemite,

as in one of her letters to her husband

she made negative remarks about a Jewish doctor

before describing all Jews as being the same.

Himmler's excellent organizational skills,

coupled with Heiden's strict discipline,

meant that the SS were saved from oblivion

by proving their worth to Hitler,

and perhaps more importantly, their loyalty.

To achieve this, Himmler oversaw the establishment

of an intelligence agency within the SS

to monitor groups such as the Freemasons,

the communists, and the Jewish political groups of Germany,

all of whom were potential stumbling blocks

in the Nazi's rise to power.

Himmler eventually dictated every detail of the SS's

day-to-day operation, right down to their uniforms,

which distinguished them from the brown shirts in the SA.

But they were not yet the famous black ones.

In January of 1929, Himmler's work was recognized by Hitler,

and he was appointed as Heiden's replacement

after it was announced he was standing down.

In official documentation,

Hitler stated that Heiden was leaving the SS

for reasons related to his family.

However, it has long been suspected

that Himmler either deliberately

or unintentionally gained favor with Hitler over Heiden.

Either way, Himmler was now the Reichsfuhrer-SS

on the eve of the party's great breakthrough

in German politics.

Nazis in power.

(tense music)

The best political weapon is the weapon of terror.

Cruelty commands respect.

Men may hate us,

but we don't ask for their love;

only for their fear.

Himmler.

On September 14, 1930, the German people went to the polls.

Hitler's trial following the Beer Hall Putsch

had catapulted him and the Nazi Party into the limelight.

This, coupled with his famously hypnotic personality

and their message of restoring Germany's prestige

following the humiliating terms of the Versailles Treaty

after World War I, meant that their support base grew

exponentially in the late 1920s.

During these elections, the number of seats

the Nazis occupied in the German Reichstag rose

from 12 to 107.

However, this was still not enough to legally take power.

Nevertheless, they were now a formidable political force.

But this new-found power brought with it new problems

for the Nazi leadership.

The SA essay demanding that some of its leaguers

occupy the newly won seats,

but Hitler refused, leading to resignations

of senior SA figures in protest.

The frustrations of the SA with the party

they were formed to protect only worsened

and was often vented on the SS men,

especially when it was discovered

that Himmler had ordered his SS intelligence personnel

to start monitoring SA meetings.

Over the coming months,

the SA openly turned on the party,

and the SS found itself protecting Nazi leaders

from other Nazis.

Himmler would later claim that the SA rank and file

were loyal Nazis, but they had been corrupted

by a power-hungry cabal at the top of the SA leadership.

The crisis only seemed to end

when Hitler appointed himself

the official head of both the SA and SS,

which appeared to bring the former back into line.

However, the whole affair left a deep impression

on the future German leader.

It taught Hitler that the SA could not be wholly trusted,

while Himmler and the SS were of unquestioning loyalty.

Himmler hoped that the experience would finally free

the SS from the shackles of being subordinate

to the SA and even declared as much

at the height of the crisis.

But following the appointment of Ernst Rohm

to handle the day-to-day running of the SA,

Rohm issued a formal order that solidified Himmler's

subordinate status to him.

Himmler would not be content with this

and was determined to distance his elite SS

from the SA in every way possible.

He enforced special rules of conduct

that were aimed at perpetuating the view

that the SS were akin to medieval knights,

being of nobility and honor,

compared to the often less reputable lifestyles

of the SA members,

many of whom displayed more disreputable traits,

such as drunkenness, womanizing, and homosexuality.

All of which were considered big taboos by the Nazis.

Rohm himself was a gay man.

Although he managed to hide this from other Nazis

by dismissing rumors as mere propaganda

by opposition groups.

For his part, Rohm tried to repair the rift

between the SA and SS

by clearly defining each department's duties.

And when these duties would cross over,

authority would fall

to the highest ranking member of either.

However, within months, the SS again found itself having

to suppress SA dissenters during a virtual repeat

of the crisis a year earlier.

The rift had only grown as Himmler outlined his plans

for the SS to become more than

just an elite bodyguard unit,

but the very best of Nazi society itself,

when they eventually seized power.

He explained that the SS would become a premier military

fighting unit in combat

while its members in everyday life

would embody national socialism in all aspects,

including their genetic purity.

But this would not be confined solely to members.

Any future wives would have to meet the same stringent

criteria, or the SS man in question would have

to be dismissed.

As Germany sunk into the Great Depression,

more and more flocked to the Nazi cause,

seeing them as their savior

on their promises of restored greatness,

with Himmler being elected to the Reichstag in 1930.

The SA more than doubled to over

a quarter of a million men in 1931 alone.

But while the SS also grew,

it was actually at a slower rate

than Rohm or Hitler would have liked

because of Himmler's stringent entry requirements.

Himmler was little concerned, however,

since he believed that his men,

who rose to just 10,000 in the same period,

were of such a high caliber that they could achieve

feats far beyond anything the SA was capable of.

At the same time, Himmler founded a department

given the task of safeguarding the racial purity of the SS,

while members soon began to adopt

their now-familiar black uniforms for the first time.

Meanwhile, the SA continued their war

in the streets against the communists and anti Nazis.

It should be noted that the SA and SS were by no means

the only political parliamentary force

at work in Germany at the time,

but their uniformity and effectiveness elevated

their public perception.

In early 1932, with the Nazi Party still making

gains politically, although not enough

to legally seize power,

the SA engaged in violent street battles

with pro-communist groups, leading to many deaths.

This prompted the newly elected government,

under President Paul Von Hindenburg,

to outlaw both the SA and SS in April of 1932.

But this did little to stop their function.

And deaths continued, leading many to speculate

that Germany would soon be plunged into civil war.

Finally, on January 30, 1933,

after much political turmoil and negotiation,

Adolf Hitler legally became chancellor of Germany.

Both the SA and SS, which were now agencies

of Germany's federal government,

carried out torchlit parades

through Germany in celebration of their triumph.

(pulsating music)

Nazi Germany.

Almost overnight, the world seemed to change for Germany.

For Heinrich Himmler, the Nazis coming to power

finally allowed him to mold his beloved SS

into the new aristocracy of Nazi Germany,

the purest and the best

of their ideologically driven society.

But it was not enough to simply dictate how the men

of the SS and their families should look,

act, and even think.

They had to be protected from the outside threats

to their Nazi elites, be they racial or political.

And for his part, Himmler had to make sure

that his SS was still of use to Hitler

given Hitler's newfound power.

Therefore within months,

Himmler found himself looking for a suitable location

at which he could imprison such threats to Hitler,

and by association, the SS.

In March of 1933, he inspected an unused munitions factory

north of Munich, and decided it could be reconstituted

as a prison camp for political prisoners.

The camp would take its name from the nearby medieval

township known as Dachau.

It would become the first Nazi concentration camp.

Many of the prisoners themselves would be forced

to build the facilities at Dachau,

with the original aim for it being

to hold around 6,000 inmates.

Both Himmler and his deputy, Reinhard Heydrich,

seized more and more control of the country's police forces.

And this allowed them to round up anyone

who opposed Nazi rule,

and in doing so prevent the feared civil war

and cement Nazi authority.

An arson attack on the Reichstag building,

which Hitler decreed was part of a communist takeover plot,

resulted in President Hindenburg restricting

many civil liberties, declaring a national emergency,

which only relaxed legal restrictions

on Himmler's crackdowns.

One of those arrested was Erhard Heiden,

Himmler's former commander in the SS,

who had been accused of colluding with Jewish businessmen

and being a, as the Nazis termed it, practicing homosexual.

He was murdered on orders from Himmler.

At Dachau, Himmler appointed Theodore Eicke

as the commander of the prison,

who was himself a convicted criminal

but also a dedicated Nazi.

Under Eicke's leadership, Dachau became the blueprint

for how future concentration camps would be run.

But while the mass exterminations in gas chambers

had not yet begun, deaths at the camp

from violence and disease were frequent.

Shortly after the Nazis came to power,

Hermann Goring established a new secret police organization

from the remanence of existing ones.

Dubbed the Gestapo, an abbreviation

of the German words for secret police,

the organization was tasked

with exposing opponents of the new regime

and gathering intelligence on anti-Nazi groups.

On April 20, 1934, Hitler appointed Himmler

to take command of the organization,

since he and the SS were by now wholly involved

in the protection of the new order.

So it seemed a logical decision.

Hitler was pleased with Himmler's work

and soon promoted him, making him the equivalent rank

to anyone in the SA.

But this did not please the leaders of what should

still have been the SS's parent organization.

In fact, the SA leadership was growing frustrated

once more, feeling left out in the new order,

compared to how close Himmler and the SS were to Hitler.

It did not help that Hitler himself did not wholly trust

the SA anymore after their revolts in 1933.

And that the SA was still seen by the wider public

as a group of thugs, starting fights,

and even riots in the streets,

which embarrassed Hitler and caused friction

with President Hindenburg.

By early 1934, the SA's leader, Ernest Rohm,

was making more and more demands of Hitler,

which included the SA taking over the army,

which was still under the constraints

of the World War I peace agreement,

the Treaty of Versailles.

Hitler knew he did not yet possess

the political capital for such an act.

And so the SA were becoming a problem

that had to be taken care of,

and he knew just the man to help him do it.

Himmler and his SS once again served Hitler's will.

And beginning on June 30th,

they began making arrests of leading SA men,

who were then either shot or sent to prison.

In prison, Rohm was visited by Theodore Eicke,

who gave him a pistol with a single round in it,

instructing him to kill himself.

When he refused, demanding Hitler come

and personally shoot him, Eicke

and his deputy opened fire and killed him.

The SA was now destroyed,

tarnished with leaders labeled as traitors and executed.

Their exact number who died in the event

now remembered as the Night of the Long Knives is unclear,

as during the operation, many SA men were shot on sight,

such as Edmund Heines, who was discovered in bed

with an 18-year-old SA man when the SS entered.

The official figure is 85,

but some historians argue that it was much, much higher.

The rank and file of the SA now had to find new lives

in Nazi Germany, while the power and prestige

of Himmler's SS seemed to only grow.

And this allowed them to concentrate more

on what they viewed as the cleansing

of Germany's undesirables,

such as communists, homosexuals, and, of course, Jews.

Purging the undesirables.

(dark music)

By the time the Nazis had come to power,

their hatred for the Jews had become akin

to a runaway train,

which no one in or outside of the Nazi Party could stop.

Hitler, Himmler, and all their followers were convinced

of Jewish betrayal and the sabotage of Germany

achieving victory in World War I.

Therefore, they wasted little time in stamping out

this group of so-called undesirables.

In January of 1933, Germany's total population was

in the region of 67 million people,

excluding Germans who lived outside of the fatherland

in the newly redrawn map of Europe after 1918.

Of this number, the Jewish population numbered

just 523,000 or naught point 83 percent of the population.

It is needless to say that to the Nazis

the Jews were nothing more than a convenient scapegoat

for their cause.

An ethnic minority who could be used to focus

the anger and resentment of post-war Germany,

without them having the sufficient numbers to resist.

While certainly there was this element to it,

we also have to remember the protective measures

Himmler put in place for his SS

to truly gauge the Nazi mindset concerning the Jews.

For Himmler and other senior Nazis,

there was a clear distinction

between a Jewish man and a German man,

with the Jewish man being the inferior specimen.

Worse still for Himmler, in his mind,

the inferior Jewish blood could potentially pollute

a true SS man's bloodline.

Hence the stringent hereditary checks

before becoming a member of this elite social class.

It was unbridled, unadulterated racism

in its purest and most primal form.

This racism was so severe

it led to a level of paranoia

that we today would call simple insanity.

It is recognizing this fact that there was

almost an immediate mass emigration

of Jewish peoples from Germany

after January 1933.

Approximately 37,000, in fact, within just six months,

but that still left over half a million

to threaten the prospect of a racially pure Nazi Germany.

The Nazis began by organizing boycotts

of Jewish shops and businesses.

While the first formal restrictions were largely

administrative, Jewish civil servants lost their jobs

amidst the Law for the Restoration

of the Professional Civil Service,

which also covered the removal of Germans

who were seen as having unfavorable opinions

of Hitler and the Nazis.

Other professions soon followed,

including lawyers, judges, doctors,

and other healthcare professionals.

While a law concerning the overcrowding of German schools

allowed Nazis to exclude Jewish children from attending.

Eventually, the Nazis began clamping down

on Jewish culture itself,

preventing them from attending gatherings and celebrations,

as well as the ritual slaughter of certain animals

in accordance with Jewish dietary laws.

If any Jews broke these laws or were found trying

to conceal their heritage,

they would often find Himmler's Gestapo

knocking down their door.

And the punishments were becoming increasingly severe.

Eventually, in 1935,

the Nazis passed a law for the protection

of German blood and German honor,

which aimed to prevent intermarriage

between Jewish people and German people.

Because, remember, the Nazis did not view someone born

in Germany, raised in Germany,

educated in Germany, and having worked their entire lives

in Germany as German if they were Jewish.

They combined this law with the Reich Citizenship Law,

which declared that only those of German or related blood

were eligible to be Reich citizens.

Combined, these were known as the Nuremberg Laws.

It could be argued that Himmler wanted to go even further

by essentially arranging marriages for his men

with women who had the right genetic traits

to produce desirable offspring.

However, in the early years,

despite the Nazi Party's efforts to purge

the Jewish people from German culture,

it was often the German people who gave the most resistance.

In fact, as well as combating communists,

anti-Nazis, and Democrats,

the Gestapo under Himmler found itself investigating

opposition groups found within the Catholic Church,

especially after Pope Pius XI denounced Nazism

for its treatment of Jewish people.

The Gestapo also had to contend with teachers who opposed

the new education laws, professionals who came

to the defense of their Jewish colleagues,

and middle-class men and women who wanted Germany

to return to a more pre-war, aristocratic society.

Himmler's men broke up numerous groups

throughout 1934 and '35, including a handful

that were discovered to have been plotting

Hitler's assassination, which no doubt only reinforced

Hitler's belief that as long as he had Himmler

by his side, he would be safe from his enemies.

Many of those arrested by the Gestapo were placed

in what was euphemistically called protective detention,

where they would be held until they could join the growing

number of inmates at one of the equally growing number

of concentration camps.

If arrested by the Gestapo,

there was very little legal protection.

Given the ruthless efficiency

with which Himmler's men operated in Germany

and the consequences of arrest by the Gestapo,

terror became the most effective tool

at Himmler's disposal in forging

and protecting the ideal Nazi Germany.

In the belief of establishing such a nation,

he viewed anyone opposed to it in any way,

including the Germans, as the enemy.

As he would say in 1936.

"I know there are some people in Germany

who become sick when they see these black uniforms.

We understand the reason for this

and do not expect that we shall be loved

by all that number of people.

Those who come to fear us in any way

or at any time must have a bad conscience

towards the fuhrer and the nation.

For these persons have established

an organization called the Security Service."

The Nazis continued their crackdowns

on Jewish people within their borders,

including thousands of Jews being forced

into refugee camps in Poland.

Those who tried to get back into Germany

were reportedly shot by border guards.

After 17-year-old Polish Jew Herschel Grynzpan

shot a German official in France,

the resentments towards the Jewish people in Germany

that the Nazis had been fostering

finally erupted in November of 1938,

as Germans attacked Jewish shops and homes,

while the police only interfered

if German property was ever put at risk.

Now remembered as the Night of Broken Glass,

it served as a final warning to the remaining Jews

in Germany that antisemitism in Hitler's Reich

was not a passing phase.

In addition to purging Germany,

Himmler and several other leading Nazis also took

to researching for historical and anthropological evidence

of the Germanic peoples' genetic superiority.

Himmler's authority included the Ahnenerbe Organization,

which conducted numerous archeological digs across Europe.

Often the findings of the group were interpreted

in such a way by the group that they would prove

that the German people were examples

of the so-called master race and had been held back

by the impact of the impure peoples,

further solidifying the racism in Nazi Germany

for anyone who did not meet Nazi criteria.

Himmler and the SS were especially interested

in the medieval world,

but this was not at the expense

of Himmler's own religious belief,

something he insisted the men of the SS embrace.

However, he found his new order coming into conflict

with the Christian world

and in many ways began to form his own religion for the SS.

He would state, categorically in fact, quote,

"I have not tolerated an atheist in the ranks of the SS.

Every member has a deep faith in God,

in what my ancestors called in their language

waralda, the ancient one,

the one who is mightier than we are.

Himmler and the SS at war.

(somber music)

While the bulk of the German people's attention

on the role of Himmler and the SS

throughout the mid-1930s was focused

on their security roles,

when, of course, they weren't being Nazi poster boys

for propaganda purposes,

the SS was slowly adopting another role

that was focused on the threat

from outside Germany's boundaries.

Eventually known as the Waffen-SS,

this small military arm can trace its origins back

to a 120-man unit known as the Sonderkommando Berlin,

formed in March of 1933.

This number would swell several times over

by the end of the first year.

And all members pledged their support to Adolf Hitler

above all others, even if it should cost their lives.

Himmler was eager to have his SS men proving

their worth on the front lines of the future

battlefields that most in Germany knew

would eventually come

given the Nazi drive for Germany's restoration

as a superpower.

Having them fighting Germany's enemies

also played into Himmler's ideas of the SS being

the modern equivalent to ancient knights,

as well as concepts surrounding

German citizenship and manhood.

Not being a true military unit upon conception,

Himmler had to initially go to the army

for training and equipment.

This bred resentment amongst the army leadership,

who viewed the Waffen-SS as rivals,

particularly during the period before Hitler abolished

the military restrictions imposed on Germany

in the Treaty of Versailles.

These concerns would prove justified,

as in the coming war, the Waffen-SS would possess

some of the most modern equipment in the German Army.

As the 1930s drew on,

Hitler began expanding Germany's borders

back to pre-war boundaries,

such as in the Ruhr and Czechoslovakia,

while the Western Allies milled around with their response.

Himmler's SS units joined the regular army

as they entered these countries,

and he hoped they would get to prove their

superiority in battle.

But the resistance never came.

By the summer of 1939,

Hitler confided in his top aides, such as Himmler,

his next goal, the invasion of Poland.

By this point, it was obvious to all

that such open hostility against a neighboring country

would spark another major European war

with Britain and France.

While the Soviet Union threat had been neutered by Berlin,

at least for the foreseeable future

thanks to clandestine secret meetings

in which they carved up Eastern Europe.

In an effort to justify the invasion,

not just to the world but the German people themselves,

Himmler and his second in command Heydrich,

conceived an operation which would provide

them with just such an excuse.

Dubbed Operation Himmler, SS soldiers dressed up

in replica Polish Army uniforms

and staged a number of border skirmishes

with Germany's border forces.

Despite Polish denials that they had anything to do

with these skirmishes, the German people

were suitably motivated for war

when the German army crossed into Poland

on September 1, 1939.

While the invasion did spark war with Britain and France,

the Western Allies could do little to stop Poland's fall,

which took just one month to complete

with the Soviet union invading the east

of the country as per their agreement with Germany.

For Himmler personally, the absorption of this new land

into the greater German Reich

expanded the scope of his operations

in maintaining the security and, of course,

purity of the German people.

From their paranoid, insane, racially motivated perspective,

Poland was infested with undesirables

that needed to be cleansed

if the German people were to develop their new territory

for the good of Nazi Germany.

Unlike in the proceeding years,

there were fewer places for Poles and Jews

to be deported to,

and so the only option was for them to be housed

in ghettos and concentration camps.

But even then, some were going to have to be removed

from the equation to allow such places

to cope with the Nazi demand.

For this role, Himmler turns

to the SS Einsatzgruppen or task force.

Under Himmler's instruction,

the Einsatzgruppen began their killings almost immediately.

Lands earmarked for German development were cleansed

of Poles, Jews, Romany peoples, intellectuals,

and anyone with a physical or mental disability.

How they were to be killed

Himmler left up to his men's initiative.

But the most common method was by shooting.

The Einsatzgruppen were by no means alone

in these atrocities.

Such was the scale of killing that they had to enlist

the help of the regular German Army and air force,

the Luftwaffe, and even Polish collaborators to assist them.

Ordinary German soldiers joined in the shootings

while German pilots strafed and bombed large pockets

of refugees, many of whom were crowding the roads

trying to flee the onslaught.

However, the German military was not

as enthusiastic as their SS counterparts,

with army generals writing to Hitler asking

that their men be spared these duties,

as it was damaging their morale.

Some 65,000 civilians were killed

in this initial orgy of blood,

much to the satisfaction of Himmler.

By 1940, the killings were scaled back,

but the Nazi leadership had decreed that Poland would be

cleansed entirely of the Jews,

although how was still unclear.

In the meantime, the SS began rounding up

the survivors and herding them

into squalid ghettos in Polish cities.

As for Polish leaders and soldiers who were being held

by the SS until it was decided what to do with them,

they were held at a Polish Army barracks

that had been taken over and turned into a prisoner camp.

Its name was Auschwitz.

Before long, the war spilled over into Western Europe

and the Waffen-SS were finally locked in a duel

with formidable opponents,

exactly what Himmler had dreamed of to prove

his supermen's worth.

On May 10th, the SS joined in the assault

on then-neutral Holland,

overpowering the Dutch border guards

and allowing the German Army to flood into the country,

bypassing France's main defensive line.

A week later, they were successful in repelling

an Anglo-French tank assault at the battle of Arras,

despite their anti-tank guns proving wanting

against the thick armor of British tanks.

One of the most prestigious of the Waffen-SS was

the unit Liebstendarte Adolf Hitler,

formed out of Hitler's personal bodyguards

and eventually growing to become

the most elite army division.

On May 28, 1940 members

of the second battalion Liebstendarte

herded 80 Allied soldiers into a barn

near the village of Wormhoudt.

Once inside, the SS men threw in a few hand grenades,

which detonated, killing most instantly.

A handful of survivors were left

to simply die from their wounds,

but some were eventually saved from death

by regular German Army medics

who came across the carnage.

By the summer of 1940,

most of mainland Western Europe was under German occupation.

And this meant Himmler and his men,

especially the Gestapo, were now having to protect Germany

from occupied lands.

Lands which would grow again in the coming year

as the war expanded.

Once again, the usual crackdowns

began against the undesirable elements,

while more and more concentration camps were assembled

to house the growing numbers of prisoners

in the Nazi's clutches.

But Hitler knew the advantages of enlisting collaborators

to the Nazi cause and authorized Himmler

to begin recruiting new SS members

from the occupied lands,

providing, of course, they met the physical

and genetic requirements.

In order to form these new foreign battalions,

Himmler relaxed the background requirements needed

to become a member of the SS,

but it was still something of a feat to be accepted.

Nevertheless, over 40,000 Belgians

and 20,000 French, among others, would serve

in the Waffen-SS.

At the very height of the war,

after Hitler had withdrawn from his agreement

with the Soviets and launched Operation Barbarossa,

over half of the entire Waffen-SS would be non-Germans,

but every unit would still be commended by German officers.

As the Germans pushed into the Soviet Union,

the Waffen-SS recruited many nationalists

and anti-Soviet groups into their ranks

from countries like Ukraine.

A unique unit was the Tiger Legion,

one comprised of some 4,500 Indian nationalists

who joined the SS to fight the British

when India was still under the British Empire.

One of the smallest foreign units,

but also one of the most notorious,

was the British Free Corps,

made up of 54 ex-British Army soldiers captured

in combat who were recruited on the promise

they would be fighting communism.

Only 54 men would serve in this unit,

but they will have enormous propaganda value to the Germans.

After the war, the surviving members were pursued

by British authorities,

with one member, John Amery, being hung for high treason.

When the SS joined in the invasion

of the Soviet Union in 1941,

Hitler promised that no one fighting for the German Army

would ever have to answer for their actions

in fighting the Soviets

because in his mind, no war in the east

could ever be fought along civilized lines.

Essentially, the SS and the German Army were given

a free hand to murder, loot, and rape.

But for Himmler, the invasion saw his work

towards cleansing Europe increase.

The old methods were too inefficient,

and he had to find alternative and faster methods

to orchestrate his plans of genocide.

(somber music)

The Jewish question.

Himmler said, on the topic of antisemitism, quote,

"Antisemitism is exactly the same as delousing.

Getting rid of lice is not a question of ideology,

it is a matter of cleanliness.

In just this same way, antisemitism for us

has not been a question of ideology

but a matter of cleanliness."

Less than a month after the start

of the invasion of the Soviet Union,

Himmler was appointed by Hitler to assume

full and exclusive responsibility for security

and race resettlement operations

in the occupied Soviet Union.

This included the physical annihilation

of the Jewish population.

Like in Poland in 1939,

large swaths of land were to be cleansed

of undesirables for their eventual use

by the German people to power the greater German Reich.

However, not all of the local population

were killed or displaced.

In fact, Himmler was keenly aware

that there were individuals in these lands

that had desirable traits for Germany,

specifically regarding children who had not yet

been corrupted by their parents' own ideology.

He said, "Obviously in such a mixture of peoples,

there will always be some racially good types.

Therefore, I think that it is our duty

to take their children with us,

to remove them from their environment,

if necessary by robbing or stealing them.

Either way, we win over any good blood

that we can use for ourselves

and give it a place in our people.

Or we destroy that blood."

The Einsatzgruppen immediately went to work

on shooting thousands of people

and burying them in mass graves,

but it was a time-consuming affair.

Another method that saw wide use were gas vans.

These were vans with airtight compartments

in the back where carbon monoxide

from the vehicle's engine would be fed in,

suffocating the victims inside.

Gas vans had been in use since 1939

to euthanize sick and infirm patients in Polish hospitals.

But again, this method could not murder

in the numbers needed to be effective

for Hitler's ambitions.

Himmler traveled into occupied Soviet territory

in late 1941 to observe his men at work

in eradicating the Jewish population.

According to SS-Obergruppenfuhrer Karl Wolff,

his unit was inspected by Himmler

at one of their so-called special actions outside Minsk.

Recounting the experience later, he said,

"And there an open grave had been dug,

and they had to jump into this and lie face down.

And when a certain number had already been shot,

they had to lie on the people who had been shot.

And Himmler had never seen dead people before,

and in his curiosity, he was leaning over this pit,

a sort of triangular hole and looking in.

While he was looking in,

Himmler had the deserved bad luck,

from one or another of those that had been shot in the head,

that he got a splash of brains on his coat.

And I think it also splashed onto his face.

And he became very green and pale.

He wasn't actually sick,

but he was heaving and swaying

and stumbled back from this pit.

Then I led him away."

In December of 1941,

Hitler tasked Himmler and the SS

with the final solution to all the Jews of all of Europe,

their total and utter eradication.

Hitler, Himmler, and Heydrich concocted their plans

to either gas, shoot,

or work their Jewish prisoners to death

until they were nothing more than a memory

on the continent.

After briefing leading Nazi figures

at conference in Wannsee,

Heydrich was traveling in an open-top car

in occupied Prague when he was assassinated

by Czech resistance fighters under British control.

In retribution for this killing,

Hitler and Himmler settled on razing the town

of Lidice to the ground.

During the Lidice massacre,

199 men were shot, 195 women deported

to concentration camps, and 81 children

eventually killed in gas vans,

while another eight were adopted by German families.

Finally, in Heydrich's honor,

Himmler dubbed the stepping up

of the extermination of the Jews Operation Reinhard.

Himmler's organizational skills were again put

to good use for the Nazi cause

as he plotted the extermination of Jewish people,

Romany people, Slavs, homosexuals,

and anyone deemed inferior.

In Poland, four extermination camps,

Auschwitz being the most famous,

began their killings using the gas Zyklon B

with incredible efficiency by mid-1942.

Under Operation Reinhard,

almost 2 million Jews were murdered

up until November of 1943 in Polish camps.

There was never even a hint of remorse

or regret from Himmler,

emphasizing the true cruelty and insanity of Nazi ideology.

On the contrary, he viewed the task as not only necessary,

but even noble, as he would say

while the killings were taking place,

"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 is part of our plans.

We are eliminating the Jews, exterminating them.

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,

within our soul, within our character."

For some of the unfortunate souls within his grasp,

an even crueler fate befell them,

being used in Nazi medical experimentation.

SS doctors treated the prisoners at extermination camps

as genetic material for their twisted experiments

for the betterment of the German people.

As well as investigating diseases

and their possible cures,

their experiments were designed to push the very limits

of human endurance, such as extreme heat or cold.

It is a curious contradiction in their ideology

that Nazi doctors, who had gone to such efforts

to prove the genetic inferiority of peoples

such as the Jews, would use them for such experimenting,

since by their own definitions,

they were not people to the Nazis.

But while Himmler was cleansing the interior

threats to the Reich, the Waffen-SS

and the rest of the German people were focused

on the exterior threat as 1944 loomed

and the beginning of the end finally began.

(somber music)

The beginning of the end.

Hitler's leadership through much of the early period

of the war could be described as one gamble after another.

On several occasions,

he came into conflict with his most trusted generals

over Germany's war plans.

The two most significant being the invasion

of the Soviet Union and the declaration of war

on the United States.

However, German forces were able to achieve

what was previously thought unthinkable

on numerous occasions,

thanks to superior tactics and weaponry.

But once America, Britain, and the Soviets were

fully engaged in the war, things began to change

thanks to the incredible industrial output

of weapons and war material the Allied powers

were able to achieve compared to Germany.

By 1944, it was the sheer weight of enemy numbers

that looked set to doom the Nazis.

But Hitler remained convinced that Germany's new weapons

then in development, such as the ME262 jet fighter,

would keep the balance in their favor.

But his generals were not so confident.

Many in the German leadership viewed Hitler

now as a problem because of his interference

at the strategic level,

something that only worsened after June 6, 1944,

when the Western Allies invaded Normandy.

A plot was thus devised to kill Hitler with a bomb.

On July 20th, Hitler was attending a briefing

when an explosive device detonated

under a thick wooden table that absorbed

much of the blast.

And in doing so, spared Hitler.

The German leader was furious

about the betrayal and equally

by Himmler's failure to uncover the plot

before the assassination attempt could be made.

Needing to save face, Himmler's Gestapo sprung

into action, arresting over 5,000 people

from Germany's upper echelons.

Around 4,900 of these people were executed

for being associated with the plots,

including one of Germany's top generals,

the Desert Fox Erwin Rommel,

who took his own life rather than be executed

so the Nazis could conceal his death

as him finally succumbing to his wounds.

Any lack of faith Hitler had in Himmler

after the assassination attempt

seemed to be repaired by these reprisals.

And Himmler gained yet even more power

in the Third Reich.

Hitler placed Himmler in charge of the army reserve

and made him responsible for prisoners of war

before appointing him commander in chief

of Army Group Upper Rhine by the end of the year.

Himmler was now a frontline military commander,

protecting the Reich from its enemies.

An ambition he had harbored since he was a boy,

but while he was an effective man in the offices of power,

this did not translate to him being a good military leader.

He frequently butted heads with more experienced generals,

leading to delays in operations,

which the Allies successfully exploited.

Himmler was also tasked by the Fuhrer to create

the Volkssturm, or People's Storm.

Akin to Britain's Home Guard,

the Volkssturm recruited the young

and the elderly into militias

to help repel the invasion of Germany.

Quote, "Our opponents have to learn to understand

that every kilometer of our country

will cost streams of blood.

Each city block, each village, each farmstead,

every ditch, every bush, every forest will be defended

by men, boys, old men, and, if need be, by women and girls."

Himmler.

Meanwhile, the Nazi elite that Himmler had created

continued their desperate fight

against the enemy on all fronts.

In December 1944, the Germans launched

their last great offensive of the war

aimed at the Ardennes Forest in Belgium.

Spearheading the assault would be

the Sixth SS Panzer Division,

who would use poor weather to deny the Allies

their powerful air cover,

but whose battle plan relied on capturing Allied supplies

to keep the advance going.

The offensive began on December 16th

and achieved great success on the first few days

of what history now remembers as the Battle of the Bulge.

On the second day of the offensive,

SS men rounded up 84 American prisoners of war

and massacred them near the town of Malmedy, Belgium.

Eventually, the weather would clear

before the SS could capture the Allied supply stocks,

and Allied aircraft blasted them back to their lines.

By February of 1945,

Himmler was beginning to reel from the pressures

of all the duties he had absorbed by this point,

particularly his military ones,

as he commanded troops on the Eastern Front

against the Soviets.

His inability to deliver on his promises of victory

to Hitler finally saw the pair's relationship

start to break down.

In all honesty, Germany's

situation was so dire at this point,

that not even the experienced German generals

could do much to change Germany's fate.

On the Eastern Front especially,

German soldiers began uttering words

to the effect of, "Enjoy the rest of the war,"

emphasizing the reprisals they could all expect

at the hands of the Soviet soldiers

when the peace came.

Himmler's nerves began to fail him.

And soon he began experiencing all the ailments

that had troubled him as a boy,

leading to him being taken to a sanatorium,

which was run by an old school friend of his.

While recuperating there,

Himmler concluded that Germany's only chance was

to negotiate a peace settlement with the Allies.

After leaving the sanatorium,

which was itself on the verge of being overrun

by the Soviets, Himmler met with Hitler

in his Berlin bunker on April 20th,

declaring his loyalty to the fuhrer

and wishing him a happy birthday.

It would be the last time the two men would meet in person.

The next day, Himmler did what must have seemed

unthinkable just five years earlier.

He met with a Swedish representative

of the World Jewish Congress,

Sweden having been neutral throughout the war,

and negotiated the release

of some 20,000 concentration camp prisoners.

During the talks, Himmler downplayed the exterminations,

claiming that many of the deaths the world were

increasingly becoming aware of as Germany

shrank away from its occupied territories,

were down to diseases at the camp.

Something that would eerily foreshadow

the claims of Holocaust deniers for years afterwards.

Of course, this was nonsense,

and Himmler and the Nazi Party's meticulous

records of their own crimes serve as irrefutable proof

of the murders they committed.

Over the next few days,

Himmler would meet with more Swedish delegates,

until on April 28th, the BBC broadcasted what was going on.

Hitler was again furious.

The once unquestioned faith Hitler had

in Himmler was shattered,

and Hitler described Himmler's negotiations

as the single greatest act of treachery in history.

(tense music)

Death of a devil.

Hitler wanted Himmler arrested.

But just two days later,

the fuhrer shot himself,

sparing Himmler for a short while longer at least.

Hitler appointed Admiral Karl Donitz as his replacement,

while stripping Himmler of his position and title.

Himmler offered his services to Donitz

as second in command of his new government,

wanting to negotiate peace with the Western Allies,

who he thought would then join what was left

of the German Army in waging a war

against the Soviet Union.

And while it was true that America

and Britain did not trust the Soviets and vice versa,

they had nonetheless carefully negotiated a plan

for ending the war without the two sides fighting

one another by mistake or intentionally.

Himmler's views were fanciful and unrealistic.

And he was denied a role in Donitz's government,

which was now suing for a unilateral ceasefire.

On the night of May 8, 1945, Germany surrendered,

and the war in Europe was over.

All that was left for Himmler to do now was try

and evade capture and certain death for the crimes

his men had carried out in his and the fuhrer's name.

Himmler was generally ill-prepared for life on the run,

save for a forged paybook under the name

of Sergeant Heinrich Hitzinger.

He and a few others fled blindly across Germany,

but they had no final destination planned

at any time since their own country was now broken

in half by two huge invading armies.

On May 21st, Himmler and two others were stopped

and detained at a checkpoint set up

by former Soviet prisoners,

making the prospect of them discovering who he really was

a terrifying one for Himmler,

who had been responsible for their conditions

during their imprisonments.

The Soviets transferred Himmler

to the British 31st civilian interrogation camp

near Luneburg on May 23rd,

where duty officer Captain Thomas Selvester

began a routine interrogation.

Himmler finally admitted who he was,

and he was soon transferred to the headquarters

of the second British Army.

Upon arrival, a British doctor conducted

a medical exam on him,

but when he attempted to examine the inside

of Himmler's mouth, the senior Nazi refused.

Despite repeated requests,

Himmler still would not open his mouth.

And so the doctor decided to force the matter.

Instead Himmler bit into a hidden potassium cyanide pill

and collapsed onto the floor.

Just 15 minutes later, he was dead.

He was soon buried in an unmarked grave near Luneburg

with the location being unknown,

thus preventing it becoming a shrine

for surviving or even future Nazis.

Like much of the story of Nazi Germany,

Himmler has become the source of fascination for historians

the world over as they try to understand the mentality

behind why Himmler and the SS carried out their atrocities.

Legends have emerged of things

such as Himmler's fascination with the occult

and have been blown up in importance by some

and in many cases overshadow reality.

But perhaps this is to be expected.

Perhaps it is easier for us to imagine some occult

fascination than for us to comprehend

that it was simply another human being

that orchestrated and committed such horrors.