Longerich Peter. Heinrich Himmler: A Life
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nationalsozialistischen Konzentrationslager, vol. 4: Flossenbu
¨
rg, Mauthausen, Ra-
vensbru
¨
ck (Muni ch, 2006), 473–520; Bernhard Strebel, Das KZ Ravensbru
¨
ck.
Geschichte eines Lagerkomplexes (Paderborn, etc., 2003).
189. Doc. PS-1992 (A), lecture to a Wehrmacht course on national politics, 15–23
January 1937, published in IMT, vol. 29 ,pp.206 ff., quotation 222.
190. Orth, System, 32 and 38 f.
191. Ibid. 40 ff.
192. Doc. PS-1992 (A), published in IMT, vol. 29, pp. 206 ff., quotation 217.
193. BAB, NS 19/4004, speech at a Gruppenfu
¨
hrer meeting in Munich in the
leaders’ quarters of the SS-Standarte Deutschland, 8 November 1937.
194. Hermann Kaienburg, ‘Vernichtung durch Arbeit’. Der Fall Neuengamme. Die
Wirtschaftsbestrebungen der SS und ihre Auswirkungen auf die Existenzbedingungen
der KZ-Gefangenen (Bonn, 1990), 72.
195. Schulte, Zwangsarbeit, 103 ff.
196. On the date when the agreemen t was made see ibid. 112. It is no longer
possible
to
discover who took the initiative, Speer or Himmler (details ibid.
n. 86).
197. Ibid. 114 ff.; on these businesses see also Hermann Kaienburg, Die Wirtschaft
der SS (Berlin, 2003), 454 ff., and Michael Thad Allen, The Business of
Genocide: The SS, Slave Labor, and the Concentration Camps (Chapel Hill,
NC, 2002), 58 ff.
198. There are overviews of prisoner conditions in Drobisch and Wieland, System,
106 ff. and 205 ff., and in Orth, System, 54 ff.
199. BAB, NS 19/1542, letter to Gu
¨
rtner, 16 May 1938.
200. Ibid. 31 May 1939. On the hanging of Emil Bargatzky on 4 June 1938 see
Stein, ‘Buchenwald-Sta mmlager’, 336.
201. Doc. PS-1992 (A), lecture to a Wehrmacht course on national politics, 15–23
January 1937, published in IMT, vol. 29 ,pp.206 ff.
202. BAB, NS 19/4006, 29 January 1939.
203. Kaienburg, ‘Sachsenhausen-Stammlager’, 48.
204. Doc. PS-1992 (A), lecture to a Wehrmacht course on national politics, 15–23
January 1937, published in IMT,
vol. 29,
pp. 206 ff., quotation 221. For
references to Himmler’s visits to concentration camps see BAK, NL 1126/7,
diary entry for 15 February 1935 (KZ Lichtenburg). According to Drobisch
and Wieland, Himmler also visited Lichtenburg at the end of May 1938,
System, 303. According to Wildt, ‘Terminkalender’, Himmler was in Sach-
senhausen on 30 September 1937.
205. Walter Janka, Spuren eines Lebens (Berlin, 1991), 60 ff. BAK, NL 1126/7, diary
entry of 16 February 1935: Sachsenburg. On this visit see Baganz, Erziehung,
278.
206. Blank, ‘Hakenkreuz’, 3. Blank dates the visit to 10 October 1942. On the
dating see BAB, NS 19/3959.
810 endnotes
207. Account by retired Landtag deputy Ludwig Soswinski, published in Doku-
mentationsarchiv des o
¨
sterreichischen Widerstandes, ‘Anschluß’ 1938. Eine
Dokumentation, ed. Heinz Arnberger et al. (Vienna, 1988), 539 f.
208. Reinhard V ogelsang, Der Freundeskreis Heinrich Himmler (Go
¨
ttingen, etc.,
1972), 88 f.; Drobisch and Wieland, System, 303 f.; NS 19/1396, note for
Himmler concerning the planned visit by journalists, 1 March 1938.
209. Wegner, Politische Soldaten, 112.
210. Ibid. 97.
211. Ibid. 103.
212. Orth, System, 62 f.
213.BAB,NS19/1652,Fu
¨
hrer edict of 17 August 1938 concerning the armed
units of the SS; words added: draft of 3 June 1938 with alterations made by
Himmler on 10 June 1938; W egner, Politische Soldaten, 112 ff.
214. Doc. PS-1992 (A), lecture to a Wehrmacht course on national politics, 15–23.
January 1937, publish ed in IMT, vol. 29, pp. 206 ff.,
quo
tation 231.
215. Ibid. 228.
216. Himmler, Geheimreden, 25 ff., quotation 31.
217. Wegner, Politische Soldaten, 104.
218.BAB,NS19/4005,SpeechtoaGruppenfu
¨
hrer meeting in Munich, 8 November
1938.
219. Wegner, Politische Soldaten, 120 ff. The author shows in detail how this
restriction could be got round.
220. Ibid. 124 f.; Charles W. Sydnor, Soldaten des Todes. Die 3. SS Division
‘Totenkopf’ 1933–1945 (Paderborn, etc., 2002), 30 f.
221.BAB,NS19/4005, speech to a Gruppenfu
¨
hrer meeting in Munich, 8 November
1938.
222. The post of Higher SS and Police Leader was created by a decree of the Reich
Interior Minister’s of 13 November 1937 (BAB, NS 19/2850, here also
further orders affecting the HSSPF). Ruth Bettina Birn has researched them
thoroughly in Die Ho
¨
heren SS- und Polizeifu
¨
hrer. Himmlers Vertreter im Reich
und in den besetzten Gebieten (Du
¨
sseldorf, 1986).
223. Speech of 8 November 1938,
in
Himmler, Geheimreden, 25 ff., quotation
26.
224. On the creation of the HSSPF see Birn, Die Ho
¨
heren SS- und Polizeifu
¨
hrer, 10 ff.
225. Wilhelm, Polizei, 93 ff. This was the purpose of the following edicts of the
RFSSuChdDtPol: 18 January 1938,inRMBliV 1938, cols. 157 ff.; 24 March
1938,inRMBliV 1938, col. 537 (after the Anschluss with Austria); 4 March
1938,inRMBliV 1938, cols. 390 f.; 23 June 1938,inRMBliV 1938, cols. 1089
ff. (for the security police); 12 November 1940,inRMBliV 1940, col. 2167
(further concessions on admission to the SS for members of the order police).
226. Buchheim, ‘SS’, 102 .
227. Edict of the RFSSuChdDtPol of 10 May 1937, announcement of a Fu
¨
hrer
decision of 16 January 1937,inRMBliV 1937, col. 758.
endnotes 811
228. Werner Best, Die deutsche Polizei (Darmstadt, 1940), 96.
229. Buchheim, ‘SS’, 111 f.
230. See below pp. 353 ff.
231. See below p. 312.
232. RMBliV 1938, col. 2132a, Order of the RFSSuChdDtPol, 12 December 1938.
233. See below pp. 485 ff.
234. BAB, NS 19/4004, 16 January 1937.
chapter 10
1. Statistisches Jahrbuch 1937, 15; Statistisches Jahrbuch 1938, 16.
2. Statistisches Jahrbuch 1938, 107.
3. BAB, NS 19/4003, speech at the Gruppenfu
¨
hrer meeting in Dachau,
8 November 1936.
4. BAB, NS 19 /4005, speech at the Gruppenfu
¨
hrer meeting in Munich,
8 November 1938.
5. BAB, NS 19/4007, speech to the officer corps of the Leibstandarte on the
evening of the Metz conference, 7 September 1940, published as doc. PS-
1918,inIMT, vol. 29 , pp. 98 ff., quotation 107.
6. Mayerhofer, ‘Der Sippenorden’, SS-Leitheft, 9/2 (1943), 14–17. On the SS as
an order see Ackermann, Himmler, 97 ff.
7. BAB, NS 19/4003, speech of 8 November 1936.On18 February 1937 he
declared to the Gruppenfu
¨
hrer that his intention was, ‘perhaps in a decade to
bring together SS und police in one body’ (NS 19/4004).
On 8 November
1937,
in his speech to the Gruppenfu
¨
hrer on the occasion of the second year
of his ‘Ten-Year Plan’, he expressed the hope ‘that in ten years we shall be an
order and not only an order of men but an order of clan communities’ (NS
19/4004, final passage, also published in Himmler, Geheimreden, 61).
8. Buchheim, ‘SS’, 201 ff.; Dienstkalender, 33 ff. (esp. the Personal Staff).
9. BAB, NS 19/3901, SS order of 9 November 1936.
10. Elisabeth Kinder, ‘Der Perso
¨
nliche Stab Reichsfu
¨
hrer-SS. Geschichte, Auf-
gaben und U
¨
berlieferung’, in Heinz Boberach and Hans Booms (eds), Aus der
Arbeit des Bundesarchiv s. Beitra
¨
ge zum Archivwesen, zur Quellenkunde und Zeit-
geschichte (Boppard a. Rh., 1977), 379–97, 383.
11. Kinder, ‘Der Perso
¨
nliche Stab’, 381.
12. BAB, NS 19/3901, Order concerning the reorganization of the system of
command within the whole of the SS. The intention was to guarantee
uniform command arrangements in the regions by subordinating the SD-
Oberabschnitte and the Race and Settlement Office to the Oberabschnitts-
fu
¨
hrer in each case.
13. BAB, NS 2/3 Order from the chief of the RuSHA 19/35, 10 April 1935; cf.
Heinemann, Rasse, 69 f.
812 endnotes
14. Heinemann, Rasse, 99; BAB, NS 2/86, order of the RFSS of 1 August 1938.
15. Buchheim, ‘SS’, 202 f. On the administration of the SS in this period see
Schulte, Zwangsarbeit, 62 ff.
16. Aronson, Heydrich, 202 ff.
17. For a detailed account see Schulte, Zwangsarbeit, 247 ff.
18. Buchheim, ‘SS’, 205.
19. Schulte, Zwangsarbeit, 76 ff.; further details can be found in BAB, NS 3/465 and
468, SS budget plans for 1935 and 1938.In1935 the General SS received more
than a million Reich marks in the form of membership dues and extraordinary
payments by non-party comrades in the SS; in 1938 840,000 Reich marks were
expected. Payments by sponsori ng members amounted to 5,544,000 Reich
marks in 1935, 4,800,000 in 1936 and 1937, and then 3,960,000 in 1938.
20. Vogelsang, Freundeskreis, 22 ff.
21.
BAB,
BDC, SS-O Keppler.
22. Vogelsang, Freundeskreis, 52 ff.
23. On the meetings see ibid. 78 ff.
24. Ibid. 136.
25. Ibid. 88 f., also Wildt, ‘Termin kalender’, 681.
26. Vogelsang, Freundes kreis, 92 ff.; draft speech for 12 Dezember 1943 (IfZ, NO
5637).
27. A list is printed in the appendix to Vogelsang, Freundeskreis, 139 ff., taken from
IfZ, NI 9971. In Himmler’s appointments calendar for 8/9 February 1937 there
is the first known list with 38 names, to which Wildt (‘Terminkalender’, 679)
alludes.
28. Vogelsang, Freundeskreis, 108 ff.
29. Ibid. 101 ff.
30. BAB, R 2/12 1172a; see Schulte, Zwangsarbeit, 98 ff., and Kaienburg,
Wirtschaft,123 ff. and 137 ff.
31. For the most detailed account of these enterprises see Kaienburg, Wirtschaft,
159 ff. and 185 ff. On the early SS businesses see also Allen, Business, 31 ff.;
Enno Georg, Die wirtschaftlichen Unternehmungen der SS (Stuttgart, 1963), 12;
and
Schulte, Zwangs
arbeit, 93 f.
32. These were Franz Nagy, the sculptor Theodor Ka
¨
rner, and Bruno Galke, who
was the man responsible in the Personal Staff for, among other things, the SS
businesses. Albert Knoll, ‘Die Porzella nmanufaktur Mu
¨
nchen-Allach. Das
Lieblingskind von Heinrich Himmler’, in KZ-Außenlager. Geschichte und Erin-
nerung, Dachauer Hefte 15 (Dachau, 1999), 116– 33; Gabriele Huber, Die
Porzellan-Manufaktur Al lach-Mu
¨
nchen GmbH. Eine ‘Wirtschaftsunternehmung’
der SS zum Schutz der‘deutschen Seele’ (Marburg, 1992), 12 ff.
33. Huber, Porzellan-Manufaktur, 46.
34. Ibid. 27,in1940.
35. Knoll, ‘Porzellanmanufaktur’, 120.
endnotes 813
36. Himmler to Pohl, 26 September 1939, published in Heinrich Himmler,
Reichsfu
¨
hrer! . . . Briefe an und von Himmler, ed. and intr. by Helmut Heiber
(Stuttgart, 1968), no. 52 .
37. Huber, Porzellan-Manufaktur, 44 ff.
38. Ibid. 51 ff.
39. On the course in national politics see doc. PS- 1992 (A), in IMT, vol. 29,
pp. 206 ff. It took place from 15 to 23 January 1937. For the speech to the
Gruppenfu
¨
hrer see BAB, NS 19/4005, 8 November 1938, published in
Himmler, Geheimreden, 25 ff.
40. Schutzstaffel, 3. In his speech of January 1937 he said that the coming decades
would mean a ‘battle to the point of annihilation of those subhuman enemies
I have mentioned throughout the world against Germany as the core nation of
the Nordic race, against Germany as the core nation of the Germanic nation,
against Germany as the bearer of culture for humanity. They will mean the to
be or not to be of white men, of which we are the leading nation’ (IMT, vol.
29,pp.206 ff., quotation 234).
41. In his speech at the Reich Peasants’ Rally of 1935 Himmler had asserted that
‘our common and eternal enemy, the Jew’ was responsible for the violent
Christianization of the Saxons, the Spanish Inquisition, the witch hunts, and
the outbreak of the Thirty Years War (Schutzstaffel, 5).
42. BAB, NS 19/4012, speech to the conference of Reich chief propaganda
officials, 26 January 1944 .
43.
BAB,
NS 19/4009, speech in the Haus der Flieger, 9 June 1942, published in
Himmler, Geheimreden, 145 ff., here 147. On the battle between Asia and
Europe see also NS 19/4009, speech at the SS officers’ training college
( Junkerschule) at Bad To
¨
lz, 23 November 1942, and NS 19/4014, speech to
representatives of the German judiciary in Kochem, 25 May 1944; ibid. speech
in Sonthofen, 21 June 1944.
44. ‘This struggle is a conflict [ ...] of two leader classes or leadership classes, on
the one hand the leadership of the subhumans: Jews, commissars and polit ruks,
who are convinced to their core of their ideology, fanatical supporters of this
doctrine of destruction, for this idea of an Asian empire, and in reality prepared
to use ultimate and brutal means for the sake of this conviction. [ . . . ] This is a
battle of ideologies, as was the battle with the Huns at the time of the
migrations, as was the battle throughout the Middle Ages with Islam, where
not only religion was at stake but also a battle of the races.’ BAB, NS 19/4014,
speech to the Oberabschnittsfu
¨
hrer and chief officers in the Haus der Flieger, 9
June 1942, published in Himmler, Geheimreden, 145 ff., quotation 150. For the
term ‘politruk’, see below Ch. 12,n.92.
45. BAB, NS 19/4014, speech in Sonthofen, 21 June 1944.
46. Ibid. speech in Sonthofen, 24 May 1944. In his Vienna speech of 1939 he had
already spoken of the ‘unfortunate doctrine of an Asianized Christianity’
(BAB, NS 19/3666, published in Himmler, Geheimreden, 51). On 16 Septem-
814 endnotes
ber 1942, in a speech made in his headquarters at Hegewald, he imputed to the
church typically ‘oriental’ concepts (NS 19/4009).
47. BAB, NS 19/4005, speech at the Gruppenf u
¨
hrer meeting in Munich, 8 No-
vember 1938, published in Himmler, Geheimreden, 25 ff., here 9. In the same
speech, however, Himmler also spoke of the future ‘Germanic’ Reich (ibid. 38
f.). The topos of the ‘Greater Germanic state’ can be found in a speech he made
at the end of 1940 (NS 19 /4007, undated). ‘Greater German ia’ was th en
invoked above all in his speech in Posen on 24 October 1943 (NS 19 /4011),
as well as in Sonthofen on 24 May 1944 (NS 19 /4014). Cf. Frank-Lothar Kroll,
Utopie als Ideologie. Geschichtsden ken und politisches Handeln im Dritten Reich
(Paderborn, 1998), 217 ff.
48. BAB, NS 19/4012, speech on the occasion of the conference of Reich chief
propaganda officials, 26 January 1944.
49. BAB, NS 19/4009.
50. BAB, NS 19/4007, speech to the Gauleiters, 29 February 1940, also published
in Himmler,Geheimreden, 116 ff., quotation 125.
51. BAB, NS 19/4013 ,
sp
eech in Sonthofen, 5 May 1944: ‘Out of countless
millions of possibilities, two who share in the inheritance of the blood came
together in some kind of embrace which reunited the few drops of Aryan
blood so copiously lost in this territory of Russia–Eastern Europe–Asia, as
much of this genetic material, which alone is capable of organizing and giving
organized leadership, as is needed to produce a dangerous Attila or Genghis
Khan or Stalin or Lenin from a brutal Asian unrestrained by any moral feeling.
Woe to the European, Germanic, Aryan human beings every time that over
there such a one has emerged, capable of organizing and leading armies and
powerful forces made up of this mas s of subhumanity.’
52. As in his speech in Posen on 4 October 1943 (BAB, NS 19/4010), also
published as doc. PS-1919 in IMT, vol. 29, pp. 110 ff., esp. pp. 145 f.; also
his speech in Posen of 6 October 1943 (ibid.), published in Himmler, Geheim-
reden, 162 ff., esp. 169.
53. For this reason I consider Kroll’s attempt (Utopie, 209 ff.) to interpret this vision
of the world as a more or less coherent whole and largely independen t of its
timing as not entirely convincing, as this necessarily involves disregarding
changes over time and smoothing over blatant contradictions. Kroll’s correct
observation that, for example, Himmler’s ideology of a Greater Germanic
Reich conta ins ‘a considerable measure of pragmatic political calculation’
(p. 219) should have led, in my opinion, to a deconstruction of these texts,
whereas Kroll’s analysis is directed towards reconstructing a vision of the world
that probably never existed in such a clear and abstract form as this.
54. See above, pp. 218 ff.
55. See above, p. 220.
56. BAB, NS 19/4011, 16 December 1943. On Waralda see also the speech of 26
July 1944, published in Himmler, Geheimreden, 215 ff., 217.
endnotes 815
57.NARA, T 580/150/229, RFSS to Wu
¨
st, 28 May 1940.
58. BAB, NS 19/3670 (undated).
59. BAB, NS 19/4013, 26 November 1944.
60. Himmler to Pohl and Mu
¨
ller, quoted from the report ‘Ta
¨
tigkeit der Zeugen
Jehovas in der Neuzeit: Deutschland’, Jahrbuch der Zeugen Jehovas (1974 ),
66–253, here 196 f.
61.On6 January 1943 Himmler ordered that Jehovah’s Witnesses under arrest
should be made to work in SS households (Garbe , Widerstand, 451). He offered
‘Bible students’ to, among others, his old friend Rehrl and also to a farmer in
Valepp, where he owned an alpine hut; see Mu
¨
hldorfer, ‘Fridolfing’; Johannes
Wrobel, ‘Valepp/Schliersee (Bauer Marx)’, in Wolfgang Benz and Barbara
Distel (eds), Der Ort des Terrors. Geschichte der nationalsozialistischen Konzentra-
tionslager, vol. 2: Fru
¨
he Lager, Dachau, Ems landlager (Munich, 2005), 522 f. From
March 1944 to April 1945 Himmler had a work detail of twenty prisoners carry
out construction work on air-raid shelters on his property in Gmund. Margar-
ete Himmler observed the progress of the work and complained about the
prisoners’ poor perf ormance; one of them died while at work. See Hans-
Gu
¨
nter Richardi, ‘Der gerade Weg. Der Dachauer Ha
¨
ftling Karl Wagner’, in
Dachauer Hefte 7, 52–101,
esp. 52 ff.
Wagner w orked there from March to April
1944.
62. BAB, NS 19/3947, 21 July 1944, published in Ackermann, Himmler, 305 f.
63. BAB, NS 19/4003, speech at the Gruppenfu
¨
hrer meeting in Dachau, 8 No-
vember 1936. On ancestor worship cf. Ackermann, Himmler, 64 ff.
64. BAB, NS 19/4003, speech at the Gruppenfu
¨
hrer meeting in Dachau, 8 No-
vember 1936.
65. BAB, NS 19/4004, speech at the Gruppenfu
¨
hrer meeting in Bad To
¨
lz, 18
February 1937. On this matter see also Ackermann, Himmler, 68 ff.
66. BAB, NS 19/2241, 25 February 1937.
67. Karl August Eckhardt, Irdische Unsterblichkeit. Germanischer Glaube an die Wie-
derverko
¨
rperung in der Sippe (Weimar, 1937). Himmler had at first reversed his
original agreement to have a special edition of the book printed for the SS,
upon which Eckhardt, deeply offended, withdrew his suggestion to found an
institute; Eckhardt to Wolff, 9 December 1937. Hi mmler and Eckhardt dis-
cussed the matter, however, after which the plans for the institute were realized
(see also the correspondence in the same file).
68. On Himmler’s view of history as ‘eternal recurrence’ see Kroll, Utopie, 245 ff.
69.
Se
e Klaus von See, Deutsche Germanenideologie. Vom Humanismus bis zur Ge-
genwart (Frankfurt a. M., 1970); Rainer Kipper, Der Germanenmythos im
Deutschen Kaiserreich. Formen und Funktionen historischer Selbstthematisierung
(Go
¨
ttingen, 2002); Joachim Heinzle, Die Nibelungen. Lied und Sage (Darmstadt,
2005).
70. Published in Ackermann, Himmler, doc. no. 8, 253 ff. (undated).
816 endnotes
71. See Michael H. Kater, Das ‘Ahnenerbe’ der SS 1935–1945. Ein Beitrag zur
Kulturpolitik des Dritten Reiches, 4th extended edn. (Munich, 2006), 95 f. and
108 f.
72. As Kroll notes (Utopie, 23 6 f.).
73. On Himmler’s re-Germanization of the early Middle Ages see in particular
ibid. 237 ff.
74. BAB, NS 19/4004, speech in Bad To
¨
lz, 18 February 1937.
75. BAB, NS 19/4003, speech by Himmler in Quedlinburg cathedral, 2 July 1936;
Himmler, Schutzstaffel, 5.
76. Himmler, Schutzstaffel, 12.
77. Hitler did not, however, name Charlemagne but rather praised ‘those great
German emperors [ ...]whowith a merciless sword and disregarding the fates
of the individual tribes strove to bring more German people together’ (Parteitag
der Freiheit. Reden des Fu
¨
hrers und ausgewa
¨
hlte Kongressreden am Reichsparteitag der
NSDAP 1935 (Munich, 1935), 123, closing address). On Hitler’s vigorous
rejection of criticism of Charlemagne see Tagebu
¨
cher Goebbels, 15 November
1936.
78. H. W. Scheidt, ‘Die Christianisierung Germaniens im Lichte nationalsozialis-
tischer Geschichtsbetrachtung’, SS-Leitheft, 3/5 (1937 ), 58–62,
quotat
ion 60.
79. BAB, NS 19/4014, speech to Wehrmacht officers in Sonthofen, 24 May 1944.
Similar comments are to be found in his speech at a conference of Oberbu
¨
r-
germeister and senior local government officials that took place on 12 and 13
February 1944 in Posen: Charlemagne was, he said, the first ‘great uniter of the
Reich’ (BAB, NS 19/4012). See also the ideological training materials issued by
the Reichsfu
¨
hrer-SS: In the booklet entitled Rassenpolitik (‘Racial Policy’)
issued by the SS Main Office (Berlin, 1943) there is on p. 42 the still somewhat
ambivalent statement: ‘And however much we reject Charlemagne’s methods
of compulsion in individual cases, we must acknowledge that he made the
Europe of his day into a powerful unit.’ Erza
¨
hlte Geschichte, Part 3 (Berlin, no
date), the textbook for German lessons intended for SS members of German
ethnic groups and Germanic units, did not make heavy weather of it, celebrat-
ing Charlemagne as ‘the uniter of Europe’ (29 ff.).
80. Heinrich Himmler, Rede des Reichsfu
¨
hrers-SS im Dom zu Quedlinburg am 2. Juli
1936 (Magdeburg, 1936).
81. In the SS-Leithefte of 1937, on the occasion of the memorial celebrations for
Henry, the comparison of Henry and Hitler was once again explicitly made.
See H. Lo
¨
ffler, ‘Der Gru
¨
nder des Ersten deutschen Reiches’, SS-Leitheft, 3/4
(1937), 52–5:
‘He erected his Reich
on the same founda tion on which a
thousand years later Adolf Hitler also erected his Third Reich: on a free
peasantry rooted in the soil and on an army ready for service’ (p. 55). In
view of this persistent interpretation of the medieval emperor, the assertion
that Himmler had regarded himself as a reincarnation of the emperor seems
misplaced.
endnotes 817
82. The journal Germanien, which was edited by the Ahnenerbe, pro duced a
special number on Henry I in 1936, for which Himmler wrote a preface.
83. Das Schwarze Korps of 1 July 1937.
84. Tagebu
¨
cher Goebbels, 3 July 1937.
85. Documents on the celebrations, which were accorded a great deal of space in
the newspapers, can be found in BAB, NS 19/3901 and NS 19/3666.
86. BAB, NS 19/397, cost-sheet for King Henry celebrations of 1942, 1943, and
1944; note by Brandt from 19 August 1944, who considered it more than
questionable whether ‘the dignity of the King Henry celebrations and more
particularly living conditions in the fifth year of war are compatible with the
expenditure of 300 Reich marks on alcohol for a group of 21 people’.
87. See e.g. his speech of 24 May 1944 (BAB, NS 19/4014). In the ideological
training materials issued by the Reichsfu
¨
hrer-SS and the SS Main Office the
opportunity was taken to give particular prominence to Frederick II and Henry
the Lion: see booklet Rassenpolitik, 51, and also Erza
¨
hlte Geschichte, Part 3,
pp. 48 f.
88. BAB, NS 19/3666, prin ted in Himmler, Geheimreden, 50 f. In the SS-Leithefte
of 1937 Herm
ann Lo
¨
ffler,
who worked in the Race and Settlement Main
Office, praised the order for its ‘policy of re-Germanization’ and ‘ext ension
of living-space in the east’; see ‘Der Deutsche Ritterorden’, SS-Leitheft, 3/6
(1937), 67–78, quotation 67.
89. BAB, NS 19/4014, speech in Sonthofen, 24 May 1944;NS19/4015, speech in
Grafenwo
¨
hr, 25 July 1944, and speech made at the army training grounds at
Bitch, 26 July 1944. See also the ideological training materials produced by the
Reichsfu
¨
hrer-SS: the booklet entitled Rassenpolitik conveys a positive image of
Bismarck (91 ff.), as does the textbook for German lessons Erza
¨
hlte Geschichte,
Part 3, pp. 74 ff., which, without going into the difference between ideas of a
smaller and greater German unification, states plainly on p. 79 that ‘Adolf
Hitler is completing Bismarck’s work’. Prussia is praised in the article ‘Pre-
ußentum und Weltanschauung’, in SS-Leitheft, 10/3 (1944), 25 – 7. On Himm-
ler’s view of Prussia see Kroll, Utopie, 242 ff.
90. See e.g. Hitler’s comments, made in Himmler’s presence in February 1942,on
the primitiveness of the Teutons (Adolf Hitler, Monologe im Fu
¨
hrer-Hauptquar-
tier 1941–1944. Die Aufzeichnungen Heinrich Heims,
ed.
Werner Jochmann (Bin-
dlach, 1988), 263 f.). On his rejection of ‘cultic nonsense’ as practised by
Himmler, see below, p. 293.
91. Kater, ‘Ahnenerbe’, 22 ff. This study, a doctoral dissertation of 1966 first
published in 1974, has now appeared in its 4th edition and remains essential
reading on the SS scientific organization. Additional information can be found
in Heather Pringle’s The Master Plan: Himmler’s Scholars and the Holocaust (New
York, 2006).
92. Kater, ‘Ahnenerbe’, 26; on Wirth see ibid. 11 ff., also Ingo Wiwjorra, ‘He rman
Wirth—Ein gescheiterter Ideologe zwisch en “Ahnenerbe” und Atlantis’, in
818 endnotes
Barbara Danckwortt et al. (eds), Historische Rassismusforschung. Ideologen,
Ta
¨
ter, Opfer (Hamburg and Berlin, 1995), 95–112.
93. Kater, ‘Ahnenerbe’, 26 f.
94. According to its ordinances (NARA, T 580/207/733) its purpose was to
research ‘intellectual prehistory’, as Wirth usually described his own
programme of research.
95. On Sievers see Kater, ‘Ahnenerbe’, 28 ff.
96. Ibid. 37 ff.
97. Ibid. 41 ff.
98. Ibid. 60.
99. Ibid. 58 ff. See also NA RA, T 580/128/47, correspondence between Himm-
ler/Ahnenerbe and Wirth. This reveals that at least until 1942 Wirth received
funds from the Ahnenerbe.
100.NARA, T 580/207/733,ordinancesof11 March 1937; cf. Kater, ‘Ahnenerbe’, 58.
101.NARA, T 580/128/47,Wu
¨
st to Himmler, congratulations on 7 October
1937.
102.
Kater, ‘Ahn
enerbe’, 40 f., 64 ff., and 91.
103.NARA, T 580/207/733,ordinancesof1 January 1939; cf. Kater, ‘Ahnenerbe’, 92.
104. Ibid. 53 ff. and 70 ff.
105. The Ahnenerbe Memorandum of 1939, an expensively produced work that
was distributed to prominent members of the SS, names 34, but not all
existed; cf. Kater, ‘Ahnenerbe’, 112.
106. Ibid. 45 f.
107. Ibid. 76 ff.
108. Ibid. 75 f.
109. Ibid. 95 . This was the immediate consequence of Himmler’s journey to Italy
in 1937 (see below pp. 397 ff.). The department was later named Research
Centre for Classical Studies.
110. On the excavations se e Kater, ‘Ahnenerbe’, 80 ff. The popular science journal
Germanien gave its readers regular updates on the SS’s archaeological projects.
111. Kater, ‘Ahnenerbe’ , 95 ff.
112. Ibid. 211 ff.
113. Ibid. 86 f.
114. Ibid. 87 and 127 f., and 265 f.
115. For a survey see ibid. 87 f.
116.
In
the early summer a first ‘annual conferenc e’ was held in Kiel and designed
as an exhibition particularly highlighting folklore and prehistory; see ibid.
104 ff. and 113 ff.
117. As Kater comments, ibid. 121.
118.NARA, T 580/128/47,Wu
¨
st to Sievers, 9 January 1938; cf. Kater, ‘Ahne-
nerbe’, 122.
endnotes 819