Heinrich Himmler : A Life (155 page)

25
. BAB, NS 2/175, letter from SS Court, 23 June 1937.

26
.
Statistisches Jahrbuch der Schutzstaffel der NSDAP 1937
(sheet subsequently pasted in and classified as secret). According to this one of the 308 suffered the more severe form of exclusion, namely ‘expulsion’.

27
. BAB, NS 2/239, an unsent letter from Turner, head of RuSHA, to Himmler of 28 March 1944, refers to Himmler’s order of 1 November 1940.

28
. BAB, NS 47/33, order of 11 January 1940.

29
. BAB, NS 2/179. The head of the Race and Settlement Office could not make up his mind when issuing the corresponding guidance leaflet to reproduce precisely the instructions Himmler had given for gynaecological examinations.
Under the heading ‘Examination’ he put merely: ‘Thorough! Proceed sensitively in the case of women. Internal examination to be carried out only if necessary’ (ibid.).

30
. BAB, NS 2/280, RFSS, 30 August 1937.

31
. BAB, NS 2/52, RFSS to RuSHA, 21 April 1938.

32
. BAB, NS 2/55. On the procedure for approving marriage during the war see Schwarz,
Frau
, 38 ff.

33
. BAB, NS, 19/3479, 26 January 1940.

34
. BAB, NS 2/231, 22 March 1943.

35
. Letter from Heider of 3 June 1943; reply from Personal Staff (Brandt), 16 June 1943, published in Ackermann,
Himmler
, 266 f.

36
. BAB, NS 19/3479, head of RuSHA, comments on the August report from the Clan Office signed by Himmler.

37
. BAB, NS 19/3482, statistics of the Marriage Office in the RuSHA, January to June 1942.

38
. BAB, NS 19/3479, Personal Staff (Brandt) to Hofmann, 20 November 1941.

39
. BAB, NS 19/3480, Himmler to von dem Bach-Zelewski, 7 August 1940.

40
. Ibid. Personal Staff (Brandt) to the bridegroom, 27 January 1941.

41
. For example: BAB, NS 19/3483, Personal Staff to the RuSHA, 5 March 1943, concerning Hauptsturmführer B., who wished to marry an ethnic German. He was to be transferred from Warsaw and deployed ‘either in the Old Reich, in the occupied Russian territories or in one of the Germanic countries, Denmark, Norway, or the Netherlands’, but under no circumstances ‘in the General Government, in the Danzig–West Prussia Gau or in the Warthegau’. NS 19/3482, RFSS to the chief of the Order Police, 24 December 1941, concerning the marriage application of Oberwachtmeister S., who was evidently stationed in France. Himmler wished S. to be transferred immediately to Germany and the woman to move also so that she would be removed ‘from French influence’.

42
. BAB, NS 19/3483, RFSS to Hofmann, 30 November 1942. Further correspondence shows that these instructions by Himmler could not be put into effect; in the end he gave permission for the marriage even without these obligations (ibid. Brandt to Hofmann, 19 April 1943).

43
. Ibid. Himmler to the chief of the order police, 24 June 1943.

44
. BAB, NS 19/3978, letter to RuSHA, 24 October 1944.

45
. BAB, NS 2/275, letter to SS Hauptscharführer Heinrich, 15 February 1943.

46
. BAB, NS 19/3878, Himmler to Wolff re request from Hermann W., 23 March 1944.

47
. BAB, NS 19/3481, letter from Personal Staff to Betty F., 26 July 1941.

48
. Ibid. Brandt to the RuSHA, 10 October 1941. In the same file there is a case in which Himmler also instructed that Clauberg conduct an examination: marriage application M., letter from the Reich Medical Officer to the Personal Staff, 24 August 1941.

49
. BAB, NS 19/3483, Himmler to Genzken re the application by Hauptsturmführer Dr Kurt R. The same formulation can be found in Himmler’s letter to Stormtrooper Willi W., 30 November 1944 (NS 19/3478).

50
. BAB, NS 19/3482, Himmler to d’Alquen, 27 May 1942. Himmler had turned down the request once already on the grounds of the bride’s infertility.

51
. BAB, NS 19/3481, letter from the Personal Staff (Brandt) to Hofmann, 4 September 1942.

52
. BAB, NS 19/3483, letter to Jüttner, 27 September 1942.

53
. Ibid. Himmler to Kaltenbrunner, 17 June 1943. The transfer did not take place, however: Kaltenbrunner let Himmler know that B. had seen reason and promised ‘to look for a young and healthy marriage partner as soon as possible’ (ibid. 7 July 1943). Himmler agreed to the suggestion of leaving B. in (ibid. Brandt to Kaltenbrunner, 15 July 1943).

54
. Ibid. Himmler to Gertrud S., 30 January 1943, and also the note on the file from the Personal Staff of 6 November 1943 about a similar case. In the case of Stormtrooper Hans B. in 1944 he revised the negative decision he had at first made (BAB, NS 19/3478).

55
. BAB, NS 19/3219. These details emerge from the letter of 4 December 1942 from the fiancé, Sturmführer Lex, to the head of the Leadership Office.

56
. BAB, NS 19/3480, Clan Office to Brunhilde F., 27 May 1941.

57
. Ibid. Personal Staff (Brandt) to Jüttner, 24 May 1941.

58
. BAB, NS 19/3483, letter to Jüttner, 2 October 1943.

59
. BAB, NS 19/3478, letter of 1 December 1944 to the Marriage Office.

60
. Ibid. Personal Staff to the RuSHA, 6 August 1944.

61
. BAB, NS 19/3482, Himmler to Hofmann, 3 December 1942. See NS 2/59, communication from Hofmann to RFSS, 15 December 1942: after this disclosure Z. decided not to go ahead with the marriage.

62
. BAB, NS 19/3478, Himmler to RuSHA re request of H. M., 5 October 1944.

63
. BAB, NS 19/3483, Himmler to Hofmann re Frau K., 25 January 1943. A further example of Himmler’s correcting ‘ethnological’ assessments can be found in his letter of 29 December 1944, in which, by contrast with the position adopted by RuSHA, he categorized a woman from Latvia as ‘a woman originally of German descent capable of Germanization’ (NS 19/3478, re request of Unterscharführer W.).

64
. BAB, NS 19/3483, letter from Himmler re application of Hauptsturmführer Dr R., 26 February 1943.

65
. BAB, NS 19/3481, letter to HSSPF Rediess re the case of R., 6 February 1940. The Reich medical officer charged with carrying out the examination, however, retrospectively defended the result reached by the doctor (ibid. report of 12 February 1940).

66
. BAB, NS 19/3482, Brandt to RuSHA, 20 November 1942, application by Hauptscharführer Sch. On similar cases see NS 19/3978, Himmler to SS Leadership Office re the petition of Unterscharführer Fritz D., 10 March
1944 (after Himmler had concluded that the woman was ‘infertile’ he turned down the application, ibid. 20 July 1944); NS 19/3482, Personal Staff (Brandt), to Streckenbach re the request from J., 28 November 1942;NS 19/3483, Himmler to Eicke re Rottenführer S., 30 November 1942, und Personal Staff to Berger re request of SS man S., 9 March 1943 (this case was later settled positively in consideration of the petitioner’s two existing children).

67
. Ibid. Himmler to Berger, 9 October 1942.

68
. Ibid. RFSS to RuSHA re the request of Stormtrooper Erwin M., 20 February 1943.

69
. Ibid. letter of 22 June 1942 to RuSHA.

70
. BAB, NS 19/3684, Personal Staff (Brandt) to Ebner, with a copy to Grawitz, 4 August 1942. According to Brandt’s information the enquiry was occasioned by the case of a woman who at the age of 49 or 50 had had her third child; she had not begun menstruating until she was 19.

71
. BAB, NS 19/3482, Himmler to Unterscharführer S., 11 April 1942. In a similar case, where he had given consent, in spite of a sixteen-year age-gap, in view of the woman’s pregnancy, he prepared the future wife for the fact that, in the face of the inevitable failure of her marriage, she would have to find a ‘huge amount of wisdom, goodness, and generosity’ (NS 19/3978, letter of 27 August 1944 to RuSHA re the request of Unterscharführer H).

72
. BAB, NS 19/3482, Himmler to Frau R., 14 September 1942.

73
. On 15 February 1942 Hedwig Potthast gave birth to their son (
Dienstkalender
).

74
. BAB, NS 19/3483, Himmler to the head of the Personnel Office and head of the Race and Settlement Main Office, 9 December 1942. See also ibid. Personal Staff (Brandt) to Herff, 20 August 1943: ‘The Reichsführer-SS asks you to communicate to Untersturmführer F. his most severe displeasure at his unchivalrous behaviour unworthy of an SS man in the matter of his divorce in that without warrant he petitioned to have his wife declared solely at fault.’

75
. Ibid. letter of 12 January 1943 to the SS Leadership Office.

76
. Schwarz,
Frau
, 68.

77
. BAB, NS 19/4004, speech at the Gruppenführer meeting in Munich in the officers’ quarters of the SS-Standarte Deutschland, 8 November 1937.

78
. Himmler to Werner Lorenz, 16 December 1942, published in Himmler,
Reichsführer!
, no. 180. The admonition was given in case, as Himmler supposed, Frau Behrends was the ‘driving force behind the unhealthy ambition’ of her husband.

79
. BAB, NS 19/3142, 16 May 1944, published in Himmler,
Reichsführer!
, no. 314.

80
. Ibid. Pancke’s reply of 6 June 1944.

81
. BAB, NS 19/4003, speech at the Gruppenführer meeting in Dachau, 8 November 1936. See also BDC, SS-O Lorenz, Himmler to Kaltenbrunner, 19 June 1943, in which he tried to get to the bottom of rumours that the daughters of Obergruppenführer Lorenz behaved ‘with little decorum in the Red Cross’; the younger daughter in particular had been transferred several times ‘because everywhere she got too involved with the soldiers [ . . . ] I must gain a clear and unequivocal view of this matter’.

82
. BAB, BDC, SS-O Rösener, Rösener to Wolff, 22 April 1942.

83
. Ibid. Rösener to Himmler, 22 Juli 1943, responding to Himmler’s letter of 17 July 1943.

84
. BAB, BDC, SS-O Becker, letter from Becker of 13 February 1943 and Himmler’s reply of 20 February 1943.

85
. BADH, ZM 1668, file 13, comments of the RFSS on the occasion of the deliberations of the Expert Advisory Panel on Population and Racial Policy on 15 June 1937.

86
. BADH, ZM 1645 Akte 7, statement on the problem of ‘illegitimate children’, 28 April 1936. On Himmler’s attitude see also Ackermann,
Himmler
, 130 ff.

87
. BAB, NS 19/3973, principles of the Lebensborn organization, 13 September 1936.

88
. IfZ, Dc 012.017, statutes of the Lebensborn Association, 10 February 1938, published as a booklet without date or place of publication (1938).

89
. Georg Lilienthal,
Der ‘Lebensborn e.V’. Ein Instrument nationalsozialistischer Rassenpolitik
(Stuttgart and New York, 1985), 40.

90
. Ibid. 41 ff.

91
. IfZ, Dc 012.015, leaflet on admission to a Lebensborn Association home.

92
. Lilienthal,
‘Lebensborn’
, 47 ff.

93
. Ibid. 45 ff.

94
. BAB, NS 19/204, Lisamaria K., Lübeck, to Sturmbannführer of the Leipzig SS, copy sent via HSSPF Elbe to the Personal Staff, 20 July 1944.