missile programme, it looked as if he was going to get his hands on a
substantial part of the armaments industry. However, his impact as head of
the Waffen-SS, Interior Minister, and organizer of armaments production
turned out in fact to be modest. The more the Third Reich came under
military pressure during the coming years, the more Himmler’s role became
reduced to that of head of a merciless terror machine.
This development began at the end of 1942, when he tried to bring the
south of France, which had just been occupied by German troops, under his
control. On 14 November, four days after the occupation, he instructed the
commander of the security police in France, Helmut Knochen, to send him
‘daily reports of arrests of politically dangerous elements and leading figures
in the previous regime. Every effort must be made to catch these dangerous
opponents.’
2
As always when he wished to enlarge his sphere of responsibilities or to
give it a new focus, he appealed directly to Hitler. On 10 December, in the
course of a long interview, he explained the situation in the south of France
to his Fu
¨
hrer, and why as radical a policy as possible was required to deal
with it. It was minuted that Himmler had been informed that
there are currently at least 1.5 million deadly enemies of the Axis living and moving
around freely in the previously unoccupied part of France, namely 600,000–
700,000 Jews, 500,000–600,000 anti- Fascist Italians, 300,000–400, 000 red Spa-
niards, around 20,000 Anglo-Saxon s, 80,000 Poles, Greeks, etc. They represent a
not inconsiderable threat to the supplies and security of the German–Italian
Mediterranean army. In addition, there are hostile French amounting to a number
many times larger than that and consisting primarily of communists, Gaullists, and
church people.
3
Hitler was impressed with this account of the situation. He instructed
Himmler, as the latter carefully noted, to ‘get rid of ’ the 600,000 to 700,000
Jews in France, including North Africa. The ‘red Spaniards’ were to be
‘made to work’, the Gaullists, English, and Americans were to be arrested,
and the Italians in the unoccupied area were to be deployed as forced labour
and their leaders locked up in concentration camps.
4
A few days later Himmler once again approached Hitler. He wanted the
whole of the French police force to be centrally organized under Bousquet,
the police secretary-general of the Vichy government. Moreover, what was
needed in order to ‘strengthen its effectiveness’ was for ‘every brave and
manly French policeman to have the absolute backing of his superior’
648 a new opportunity?