ABSTRACT
The personality of Heinrich Himmler (1900-1945), the Reichsführer SS, has been an enigma to students of the Third Reich. The German historian Helmut Heiber poses the paradoxes confronting the scholar who would understand the man:
Who was the true Heinrich Himmler? The petty schoolmaster who distributes report cards to his students? Or the writing-desk murderer whose total balance is just short of ten million people? Or the man of honor who controls millions of marks yet deducts 150 marks for a wristwatch from his salary? Is he the subordinate who can only quakingly stand before his Führer? Or the commander who tries to move his men to hold out until the end with smart orders of the day? The administrator who in rational terms built up an uncannily effective apparatus? Or the believer in occult and magic who accepted counsel and advice from seers? The moralist who is speechless at the sight of smut literature on an SS leader's desk? Or a possessed man whose self-created "mission" drove him beyond the pale of human210kind? Perhaps a vegetable gardener who seeks to return to the natural life? The leader of knights who always has his men close to his heart? 1
Heiber thus invokes apparent inconsistencies and contradictions in personality and behavior to suggest what he terms "the especially many faces" of Himmler, which cannot be integrated.