Heinrich Himmler : A Life (10 page)

At the same time he devoured novels in which he saw representations of his ideal woman—
Poor Margarethe
by Enrica von Handel-Mazzetti for example, or Agnes Günther’s
The Saint and the Fool
.
¹²⁷
He also enjoyed books about the Nordic-Germanic heroes. Verner von Heidenstam’s novel about the Swedish king Charles XII impressed him as the ‘story of an iron man, who with his mind and will inspired a people up to the last day of his life and led each of these brave men on to be heroes—A man sorely needed in our time’.
¹²⁸
When he read Felix Dahm’s monumental novel about the Goths,
A Battle for Rome
, he was totally enthused by the ‘gripping and vividly written story of a splendid, fine and truly Germanic people’; ‘the perfidious Latins and feminine intrigues’ could make one ‘weep’, however.
¹²⁹

Rudolph Stratz’s novel
Light from the East
, about a nobleman of German descent in Estonia during the First World War opened up to him in
‘blindingly clear’ light a new perspective on the ‘terrifying east’. ‘If anyone wants to visualize the future’, this is a book he has to read. ‘It sheds light on the changing migrations in the east, the power and the inner strength of the Germanic peoples in the Baltic region, and about our own strength and weakness.’
¹³⁰

He was also impressed with Ernst Zahn’s
Women of Tannö
. In the novel the inhabitants of a village make the decision to have no more children in order to avoid passing on haemophilia, which is prevalent in the community, to the next generation. Himmler commented: ‘The fight against the power of the blood. How this battle is fought. From the most noble silence to the point of succumbing. An excellent novel.’
¹³¹

He read various historical books, preferring those that chimed with his nationalism. He found an edition of speeches made in 1848 to the Frankfurt Parliament interesting principally because of ‘analogies with the present-day revolution’.
¹³²
In August 1920 he was reading about the ‘Wars of Liberation’ against Napoleon
¹³³
and the First World War; a commemorative volume for German officers who were prisoners of war he devoured within a few days. He considered it a ‘monument to Germans’ emotional, intellectual and all-round competence [ . . . ] that edifies, elevates and is bound to inspire respect for what is essentially German’.
¹³⁴

At the turn of 1920/1 five novels of Conrad von Bolanden followed in quick succession. The author was a Catholic priest who, under a pseudonym, wrote historical works that were in equal measure aimed at a popular audience and written from a consistently Catholic perspective. It is clear from Himmler’s comments that he did not adopt this standpoint uncritically. He particularly disliked Bolanden’s anti-Protestant attitude, for he himself regarded it as a blessing that the confessional rift was being healed.
¹³⁵
He was also sceptical about whether, from his ‘purely Catholic’ standpoint, Bolanden had taken a sufficiently comprehensive view of the causes of the French Revolution.
¹³⁶
On the other hand he reacted enthusiastically to his polemic against the Freemasons; the fact that it was based on conventional Christian, rather than völkisch, arguments clearly did not concern him.
¹³⁷

When the work placement in Fridolfing came to an end in August 1921 he returned, strengthened in body and in self-confidence, to Ingolstadt, where he completed a further two-month placement at an engineering works. At the start of the winter semester of 1921/2 he resumed his studies at the Technical University in Munich.
¹³⁸

Himmler resumed his studies at the beginning of November 1921. He found a room at No. 9 Briennerstrasse conveniently close to the Technical University, to the University (where he also attended lectures), and to the State Library.
¹

Unlike during his first year of study, he now usually had his meals in his lodgings. His contacts with the Loritz family, which during his first stay in Munich had been an important fixed point in his life, were now reduced to irregular visits. Since his old friend Ludwig Zahler had in the meantime become engaged to Käthe Loritz, which on occasion was to put a great strain on his friendship with Käthe, Heinrich was quite glad that this new arrangement enabled him, when necessary, to avoid encountering his friend’s fiancée.
²

Himmler had still not succeeded in establishing his independence from his parents; indeed, he does not appear even to have made a serious attempt to do so. He made numerous purchases for his father
³
and received in turn regular parcels of food and clothing from his parents.
⁴
‘Good old Mummy sends me lots of goodies’, the 21-year-old gratefully noted in his diary at the beginning of 1922.
⁵
His correspondence with Ingolstadt was always as regular as before and Himmler, in his role as the conscientious son, continued to list all his tasks in minute detail,
⁶
portraying himself as a keen student. He was ‘doing what was required’.
⁷
Apart from that, he plunged into student social life with his typical commitment. He sang in the church choir,
⁸
revived his regular social contacts, particularly with acquaintances of his parents,
⁹
and took an active part in the General Student Committee (AStA), the student representative body of the Munich Technical University. He was a candidate in the AStA elections at the end of 1921 and his tenth place on the fraternity students’ list won him a seat.
¹⁰

He spent most of his spare time involved in the activities of his fraternity, the League of Apollo. From early afternoon onwards he was frequently to be found in his fraternity fencing-room. However, he does not appear to have found the fencing exercises, to which he devoted himself so assiduously, at all easy.
¹¹
He had to wait a long time for his first official duel, which had to be carried out in accordance with strict rules and which would qualify him to become a full member of his fraternity.

Nevertheless, he took part enthusiastically in the activities of the fraternity, which were dominated by complicated rules of honour and procedure involving endless debates about disciplinary matters and relations with other student fraternities.
¹²
He conscientiously visited sick and wounded members of the fraternity in hospital,
¹³
exploited the opportunity of getting to know the ‘old boys’ of the fraternity,
¹⁴
some of whom were influential figures, and enjoyed hospitality and assistance from other members, for example when travelling.
¹⁵

Despite this selfless commitment, he did not receive the recognition from his fellow students that he was seeking. In November 1921 his application to be made an officer was rejected, ‘because it’s believed that the fencing would not be in good hands and, in any case, I would be liable to be prevented by my father from performing the role’.
¹⁶
He does not appear to have been aware of the fact that, as a relatively recent member and without having taken part in a duel, he had applied for a post for which he was entirely unsuitable.

In February 1922 he applied for the office of ‘Fuchsmajor’ (who was responsible for the supervision of the new members), but once again without success. ‘On the one hand, I was hurt that I wasn’t elected,’ he confided to his diary, ‘but on the other hand, it’s very good. I’ve got more time. I haven’t cultivated people and so I’m not well liked. Why?—Because friendly types make comments about me because of my fencing and because I talk too much.’
¹⁷

When the elected candidate declined to serve Himmler proposed himself for the post to two fellow fraternity members, but again in vain. ‘I shall never mention the matter again’, he promised in his diary.
¹⁸
Evidently he was annoyed at his own behaviour, which his fellow fraternity members must have considered very importunate. His attempt in July 1922 to win the support of the League for an important change in the statutes also met with no success. When, at the end of the night-time session, the vote was called he found himself in the minority. He noted stubbornly: ‘Defeated according to the rules, but morally in the majority.’
¹⁹

This student had a full, indeed an overfull, diary of events to get through. Apart from various student and paramilitary activities, he was a member of several associations
²⁰
and liked going to cafés, pubs, and dance venues;
²¹
he also went to the cinema
²²
and accepted numerous private invitations. He was continually meeting acquaintances in the university district and evidently spent a lot of time ‘rabbiting on’, as he noted in his diary.
²³
But, however hard he tried, he failed to achieve the popularity he yearned for.

He also had little success in his relationships with women. While his brother Gebhard had a steady girlfriend and his best friend, Ludwig Zahler, a fiancée, Himmler had to face the fact that, as far as love and sex were concerned, he was getting nowhere.

It was not that he lacked interest. His diaries, especially during his second stay in Munich, reveal an increasingly active interest in the most varied aspects of sex and every conceivable problem that could arise in relations with the opposite sex, an interest that, on occasion, could be described as obsessive. There are numerous descriptions of women in his diary, often chance acquaintances or objects of desire observed from afar. At a concert in February, for example, the pianist, ‘a pretty woman’, ‘provoked all sorts of thoughts’. The relaxed atmosphere of the Munich Carnival also aroused his fantasy. At a Carnival party ‘Zipfchen’, a ‘true Rhinelander’, made a great impression on him. ‘Of course we used the familiar “Du” form the whole evening. She was a sweet girl, 19 years old with a childlike quality, and yet a mature woman with a hot-blooded temperament, easy going and rash and yet not bad (as she herself said). We got on marvellously.’
²⁴
Another Carnival acquaintance ‘had quite a bosom’.
²⁵
The girlfriend of a former comrade from the Landshut Free Corps period was ‘certainly a good girl. But sexy.’ When he took her home after an evening spent together because his acquaintance had to catch a train, he reflected: ‘I think I could’ve had her.’ But ‘home to bed’.
²⁶

Conversations with his friend Ludwig Zahler, often on long evening walks, helped Himmler to calm his surging passions. In January, he noted, they had ‘a long talk until 11 o’clock about sexual questions, abstinence, sexual performance’.
²⁷
Two days later the pair talked about adultery, and
two weeks later the whole gamut of issues was discussed: ‘sexual intercourse, contraception, abortion, the attitude of the individual and of the state. Lu’s attitude very laid back.’

Himmler, by contrast, had moral inhibitions. After a Carnival party he noted:

Only got home at 2 o’clock. Walked with Lu. We spoke about the dangers of such things. I have known what it’s like to be lying together in pairs next to each other, side by side. One gets into a passion where one has to summon up all one’s powers of control. The girls are then so far gone they no longer know what they’re doing. It’s the burning unconscious yearning of the whole individual for the liberation of a terribly strong natural instinct. That’s why it’s so dangerous for men and such a responsibility. One could do what one wants with girls and yet one has enough to do with controlling oneself. I feel really sorry for girls.
²⁸

After another, in his eyes, wild Carnival party he vowed to moderate his behaviour: ‘But it’s terrible how hot one gets on such occasions. Look at Mariele. She can’t help it, but one has to be sorry for girls. One can’t be too careful. 11.15 went home with Lu. Talked about it. To bed at 1 o’clock.’

In spring 1922 Ludwig was replaced by a new companion with whom to discuss sex. Alphons, the son of his landlady, Frau Wolff, was in Himmler’s eyes ‘a ladykiller. But he doesn’t go the whole way.’ Alphons even let him read letters from a girlfriend. ‘I find it interesting from a psychological point of view. One ought to get to know these kinds of people too.’
²⁹
In the end Himmler became Alphons’s ‘ghost-writer’ and composed his replies not only to his girlfriend (‘a deep, romantic, hot-blooded, but good girl’
³⁰
), but also to another acquaintance, a cabaret dancer called Fiffi.

Himmler seized the opportunity to attend one of her performances with Alphons, though they both told Frau Wolff that they were going elsewhere: ‘Supposedly in Annast. I am, after all, the virtuous youth. But none the less anyone ought to realize what we’re up to.’ Fiffi revealed herself to be ‘a very decent girl’.

Dancing for her is an art form in which she’s completely absorbed. Terrific taste. I got on with her really well. I talked about her dances and the others, and about her costumes. She doesn’t mind one expressing an opinion. She’s about 18 years old, a cute charming little thing, a virgin and good. She willingly accepts Alphons’s caresses, but only at the end, at the front door, does she give him a kiss as well
³¹
[ . . . ] It would be a great shame if this girl got into the wrong hands.

But a few months later this ‘charming little thing’ provoked his displeasure: ‘Smoked and chatted with Alphons. Fiffi has written an impertinent letter and returned his (our) letters.’
³²

Himmler preferred to look for an elevated kind of woman, an ideal female, the kind of woman who acquired an ever more prominent place in his thoughts and for whom, as was his firm intention, he wished to save himself. Käthe, Frau Loritz’s daughter, who was unfortunately already engaged to his best friend Ludwig Zahler, fulfilled all the preconditions for this role. One Sunday evening, in January 1922, he was alone with her in the Loritz flat. The atmosphere was tense: