Heinrich Himmler : A Life (149 page)

80
. Heinrich Himmler,
Rede des Reichsführers-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. Löffler, ‘Der Gründer des Ersten deutschen Reiches’,
SS-Leitheft
, 3/4 (1937), 52–5: ‘He erected his Reich on the same foundation 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.

82
. The journal
Germanien
, which was edited by the Ahnenerbe, produced a special number on Henry I in 1936, for which Himmler wrote a preface.

83
.
Das Schwarze Korps
of 1 July 1937.

84
.
Tagebücher 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 Reichsführer-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
Erzählte Geschichte
, Part 3, pp. 48 f.

88
. BAB, NS 19/3666, printed in Himmler,
Geheimreden
, 50 f. In the
SS-Leithefte
of 1937 Hermann Löffler, who worked in the Race and Settlement Main Office, praised the order for its ‘policy of re-Germanization’ and ‘extension 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; NS 19/4015, speech in Grafenwöhr, 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 Reichsführer-SS: the booklet entitled
Rassenpolitik
conveys a positive image of Bismarck (91 ff.), as does the textbook for German lessons
Erzählte 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 ‘Preußentum und Weltanschauung’, in
SS-Leitheft
, 10/3 (1944), 25–7. On Himmler’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 Führer-Hauptquartier 1941–1944. Die Aufzeichnungen Heinrich Heims
, ed. Werner Jochmann (Bindlach, 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, ‘Herman Wirth—Ein gescheiterter Ideologe zwischen “Ahnenerbe” und Atlantis’, in
Barbara Danckwortt
et al
. (eds),
Historische Rassismusforschung. Ideologen, Täter, 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 NARA, T 580/128/47, correspondence between Himmler/Ahnenerbe and Wirth. This reveals that at least until 1942 Wirth received funds from the Ahnenerbe.

100
. NARA, T 580/207/733, ordinances of 11 March 1937; cf. Kater,
‘Ahnenerbe’
, 58.

101
. NARA, T 580/128/47, Wüst to Himmler, congratulations on 7 October 1937.

102
. Kater,
‘Ahnenerbe’
, 40 f., 64 ff., and 91.

103
. NARA, T 580/207/733, ordinances of 1 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 see 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 conference’ 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, Wüst to Sievers, 9 January 1938; cf. Kater,
‘Ahnenerbe’
, 122.

119
. Ibid. 122.

120
. Ibid. 130 ff.

121
. Ibid. 137.

122
. Ibid. 273 ff.

123
. Ibid. 88.

124
. Ibid. 147 ff.

125
. Ibid. 170 ff.

126
. Ibid. 216, 218 ff., and 227 ff.

127
. On this see Kater’s summing up, ibid. 353 ff.

128
. Brigitte Nagel,
Die Welteislehre. Ihre Geschichte und ihre Rolle im
‘
Dritten Reich’
(Stuttgart, 1991); Kater,
‘Ahnenerbe’
, 51.

129
. NARA, T 580/194/165, 19 July 1936; Nagel,
Welteislehre
, 72 f.

130
. Facsimile of the letter of 21 June 1938 to Heydrich, in Samuel A. Goudsmit,
Alsos: The Failure in German Science
(London, 1947), 116;Nagel,
Welteislehre
, 74.

131
. NARA, T 580/150/229, Brandt (Personal Staff RFSS), to the Ahnenerbe, 5 December1940, and the answer from Scultetus, 15 May 1941.

132
. Ibid. Brandt to Sievers, 10 September 1941.

133
. BAB, NS 19/3042, 26 June 1942. The Cosmic Ice Theory was based on the assumption that in the course of its history the earth had ‘captured’ several planets, which later collapsed.

134
. BAB, NS 19/1705, published as Appendix 28 in Nagel,
Welteislehr
e; on this incident see ibid. 84 ff.

135
. BAB, NS 21/327, Sievers to Brandt, 7 August 1942, published as Appendix 38 in Nagel,
Welteislehre
.

136
. See above p. 77.

137
. BAB, NS 19/212, Field HQ to Schellenberg, 23 February 1945. After the war Wulff wrote an account of his activities:
Tierkreis und Hakenkreuz. Als Astrologe an Himmlers Hof
(Güntersloh, 1968).

138
. Himmler,
Schutzstaffel
, 11 f.

139
. BAB, NS 19/3165, Adjutant of the RFSS, 17 January 1943, to Rifleman Albrecht in the SS hospital in Hohenlychen. Himmler told the latter, when he enquired, to study astronomy. When the SS man contacted him again the adjutant replied by sending him additional information about Himmler’s observatory plans.

140
. On the background to these ‘theories’ see
Mythos Tibet. Wahrnehmungen, Projektionen, Phantasien
, ed. Art and Exhibition Gallery of the Federal Republic of Germany in association with Thierry Dodin and Heinz Räther (Cologne, 1997); Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke,
Die okkulten Wurzeln des Nationalsozialismus,
2nd edn. (Graz and Stuttgart, 2000). See NARA, T 580/186/366, Himmler to Wüst, Director of the Ahnenerbe, 25 October 1937, with approving comments on the latter’s statement on the book by Sigurd Wettenhovi-Aspa,
Fenno-Ägyptischer Kulturursprung der Alten Welt.
Kommentare zu den vorhistorischen Völkerwanderungen
(Helsinki, 1942). In the letter Himmler makes the assumption that Finns and Egyptians, and also Chinese and Japanese, were once nations colonized by an ‘elite from Atlantis’.

141
. IfZ, PS-2204, note on file about a discussion with Hitler on 1 November 1935.

142
. Heinz Corazza,
Die Samurai. Ritter des Reiches in Ehre und Treue
(Berlin and Munich, 1937); cf. Ackermann,
Himmler
, 68.

143
. BAB, BDC, SS-O Schäfer. Schäfer was born in 1910. He had written two books about the expedition begun in 1934 that collapsed in the highlands of central Tibet, making it necessary for him to turn back in difficult circumstances:
Unbekanntes Tibet. Durch die Wildnisse Osttibets zum Dach der Erde
(Berlin, 1937), and
Dach der Erde. Durch das Wunderland Hochtibet. Tibetexpedition 1934/36
(Berlin, 1938). In the foreword to
Unbekanntes Tibet
he acknowledged Himmler’s support. On this whole subject see Reinhard Greve, ‘Tibetforschung im SS-Ahnenerbe’, in Thomas Hauschild (ed.),
Lebenslust und Fremdenfurcht. Ethnologie im Dritten Reich
(Frankfurt a. M., 1995), 168–99.

144
. Peter Mierau offers the most detailed account in
Nationalsozialistische Expeditionspolitik. Deutsche Asien-Expeditionen 1933–1945
(Munich, 2006), 311 ff.; see also Greve, ‘Tibetforschung’, 171 ff., Christopher Hale,
Himmler’s Crusade: The True Story of the 1938 Nazi Expedition into Tibet
(London, 2003), and Kater,
‘Ahnenerbe’
, 211 f.

145
. BAB, NS 19/2709, Himmler to Schäfer, 7 September 1939. In this letter Schäfer had to put up with severe criticism from the Reichsführer, because he had spoken to Admiral Canaris about his mission and thus was putting its secrecy at risk; Schäfer to Himmler, 3 November 1939, on the state of preparations (ibid.). The enterprise failed not least because of the financial cost, put by Schäfer at 2–3 million Reich marks (letter to Wolff, 6 April 1940, ibid.). On the mission see Greve, ‘Tibetforschung’, 177, Kater,
‘Ahnenerbe’
, 212, also Mierau,
Expeditionspolitik
, 365 ff.