Heinrich Himmler : A Life (8 page)

Within the German student body, a significant portion of which leaned sharply to the right, there was at this time a strong tendency to mark themselves off from their Jewish fellow students and in fact to deny that these were truly German; or to put it more precisely, to base the definition of ‘German’ on ethnic criteria. Behind the debate surrounding the so-called duelling question there was therefore an attempt on the part of extreme right-wing students to enforce ethnic criteria throughout the network of
student fraternities. The German-speaking fraternities in Austria had already denied Jews duelling status as a matter of principle in the 1890s, and after the end of the First World War radically anti-Semitic students attempted to establish this principle throughout the fraternities. As a result Catholic members of fraternities experienced a fundamental conflict, as Catholic student organizations for reasons of principle resisted the marginalization of students of Jewish descent: though they were to a considerable extent also anti-Semitic in outlook, they explained their hostility to the Jews primarily on religious and cultural grounds rather than on racial ones.
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‘After dinner I had a conversation [ . . . ] about Jewishness, questions of honour and so on. A very interesting discussion. I was thinking about it on the way home. I think I am heading for conflict with my religion’, Himmler noted in his diary, revealing that although he sympathized with racial anti-Semitism he could not yet make up his mind to adopt fully a radical anti-Semitic position. ‘Whatever happens,’ the diary goes on, ‘I shall always love God and pray to him, and belong to the Catholic church and defend it, even if I should be excluded from it.’
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Three days later he and Ludwig Zahler had a discussion, again about ‘the principles of fencing, matters of honour, the Church etc.’.

At a Christmas celebration at which a cleric made a speech that, in Himmler’s view, was ‘a right old sermon’, his ‘inner conflicts of faith’ assailed him ‘as never before’. Again and again the ‘fencing matter’ reared its head, but then for the time being the crisis was past: ‘In the evening I prayed, although even before that I had more or less got over it. God will show me the way in all my doubts.’
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Himmler’s circle of friends in Munich consisted above all of Falk Zipperer and Ludwig Zahler, though the latter’s friendship with Heinrich’s brother Gebhard was closer. Even so, Heinrich spent much time with Ludwig and the two frequently had long discussions: ‘Ludwig came home with me and we looked at books together in my room and talked. He is a good man and a brother to Gebhard and me.’
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Falk, however, was in Heinrich’s eyes ‘a really nice, good friend and a great man of genius’.
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Their shared interest in writing poetry still bound them together. A popular ballad they jointly wrote for a charitable cause was even performed for friends.
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‘We began at
4.30, see programme. Everything went off brilliantly’, he noted with satisfaction. ‘The last number, when Lu and Käthe danced in rococo costumes, was charming. Then we had sandwiches and cakes. Then there was dancing.’ Himmler had attended a class to overcome his initial clumsiness.
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‘All the ladies were very nice, particularly Käthe, Mopperl, Friedl. Later Mr Küfner even poured schnapps. Lu and I chinked glasses (Cheers brother, we’ll always stick together). Then more dancing. After that forfeits with lots of kisses. At about 1.30 we went home. I am very satisfied with the evening. Lu and I can also be satisfied.’
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As a 19-year-old Heinrich also developed a considerable interest in two girls in his circle. At first he took a fancy to Luisa Hager, whom he had known since their shared childhood and admired for some time. The two corresponded and Himmler paid a striking number of visits to the family.
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The discovery that she too was a devout and practising Catholic filled him with enthusiasm. When he learned from an acquaintance that ‘sweet, well-behaved Luisa goes to communion every day’, it was ‘the nicest thing that’s happened to me all week’.
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And yet he did not make any real progress; as he repeatedly stated, Luisa did not ‘come out of her shell’.
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She was ‘really nice,’ he noted after an evening spent with her and friends, ‘but all the same not in the way I would like’.
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He discussed the matter at length with Gebhard: ‘If sweet young things knew how they worried us, they would no doubt try not to.’
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But he was also captivated by Maja, one of Frau Loritz’s daughters and Ludwig Zahler’s girlfriend. He confessed to being ‘happy to be able to call this marvellous girl my friend’.
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On a November evening he spent once more with Frau Loritz, ‘I talked the whole time with Fräulein Maja about religion and so forth. She told me a lot about her life. I think I have now found a sister.’
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The friends saw each other often, went to concerts
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and to the theatre
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together, visited museums,
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enjoyed the ice rink,
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and made music.
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In spite of the continuing tension of the political situation, economic problems, and food shortages the Munich students’ daily lives were relatively untroubled and pleasant. Heinrich recorded memorable moments in his diary: ‘Lectures began today. In the evening we sat together, arm in arm, until midnight.’
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The following day his mood was sombre: ‘In the evening we were in the room at the back. I was terribly serious and downcast. I think very difficult times are on the way, or is that not what these things mean?’ And he noted the thought that was to liberate him from his depressive
mood: ‘I’m looking forward to the fight, when I shall wear the king’s coat again.’ The evening then continued very harmoniously:

First Maja sang ‘Women’s love and pain’. She sang the songs with tears in her eyes. Ludwig doesn’t, I think, understand his darling girl. But I am not sure even of that for I don’t know him well enough. Later Gebhard and Käthe played the piano. Ludwig and I sat together in an armchair and Mariele and Maja sat on the floor leaning against us. We all embraced each other, partly out of love and partly out of brotherly and sisterly friendship. It was an evening I shall never forget.
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His affection for Maja did not remain simply brotherly, and Heinrich’s relationship with Ludwig, her boyfriend, became ever more complicated. ‘I understand Ludwig less and less. Poor Maja’, he wrote on 5 November in his diary: ‘I am sorry for him and even more for Maja, who is nice. Human beings are miserable creatures. The saying is really true: restless is the heart till it rests on Thee, O God. How powerless one is, unable to do anything.’ Heinrich was lovesick. He was engulfed by ‘oppressive thoughts and inner conflicts’, but his friends were not to notice anything.
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He intended ‘to be a friend to my friends, do my duty, work, battle with myself, and never let it happen that I lose control of myself,’ as the high-flown language of his diary puts it.
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His efforts never to lose control over himself were put seriously to the test in the middle of November at an ‘evening of hypnotism’ at the Loritz home, when he fended off the invited hypnotist ‘with all his powers of resistance’. Maja had a different experience: ‘He had poor, sweet Maja completely in his power. I was sorry to see her that way. I could have strangled the brute in cold blood.’
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The first plans to leave Munich behind and to move as a settler to the east emerged: ‘At the moment I don’t know for whom I am working. I work because it is my duty, because I find peace in work and I am working for my ideal of German womanhood, and with that ideal I will live out my life in the east, far from the beauty of Germany. I will struggle to make my way there as a German.’
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Heinrich began to learn Russian.
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Then once more the right way for him seemed to be to prove himself in ‘war and struggle’: ‘Gebhard, Lu, and I talked for a long time about how good it would have been if we had stayed in the army. Together in the field and so on. Perhaps I wouldn’t be here any more, one fighting spirit less. But I do not want to become weak and will never lose control of myself. In a few years perhaps I will have a chance to fight and to
struggle and I’m looking forward to the war of liberation and will join up as long as I can move a muscle.’
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The diary entries about time spent with Maja, mostly in their circle of friends, became more numerous. They read and played music together, had profound discussions about life, sometimes sat together hand in hand and parted with a kiss.
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In November, however, he was shocked to learn that Maja would be leaving Munich in January.
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At the end of November, after he had again had the opportunity to say a few words to her, he made the resolution: ‘Tomorrow I must know where I stand, for this situation is awful.’ The next day he did in fact meet her again, but did not manage to clarify matters as he had hoped: ‘After dinner until about 10.30 I helped Maja with her arithmetic. She was always thanking me profusely. Then home . . . ’
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Again he wanted to plunge into battle: ‘ . . . if only I had dangers to face, and could risk my life and fight, that would be ecstasy. Oh human beings, with their affections, their indeterminable longing, their hearts in conflict and turmoil, are pathetic creatures. And yet I am proud to fight this battle and am determined not to be defeated.’
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At the same time he noticed a growing distance on Maja’s part: ‘I don’t know if I am only imagining it or if it really is so. Maja did not behave to me as she has done up to now. Went home at 1.’
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Now he began to take a negative view of his chances with the object of his adoration.
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On 5 December, the night before St Nicholas’s Day, he was pleased about a gift he took to be from Maja: ‘Found a little St Nicholas basket at home. Gebhard found a golden hair on it. I think it’s dear Maja’s doing. I have kept the hair.’ Three days later, however, he knew the truth: ‘The St Nicholas presents recently came from Frl. Wahnschaffe, by the way. That shows how stupid a man in love is.’ What could he do? He made a decision: ‘Today I distanced myself inwardly from everything and now am relying on myself alone. If I don’t find the girl whose qualities match mine and who loves me I shall just go to Russia alone.’
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The next day he wrote in his diary about Maja: ‘I hope I see her again when I’m here the year after next, when she has been a year in the country. And I hope that by then this lovely personality has become more settled and mature and has won through. She has a Faustian temperament.’
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The old year ended with resolutions for the new one: ‘Then we played music together and drank punch. What will the new year bring? Whatever it is,
with God’s grace I intend to use it to become more mature and to continue to climb the path towards greater self-knowledge.’
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But only a few days later he was again in ‘a terribly serious mood’.
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There were highly unpleasant confrontations with his brother Gebhard and Ludwig Zahler, for he was obviously getting on their nerves: ‘Ludwig told me I was touchy and he’s certainly right in part. But not entirely.’
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He was annoyed by Maja’s behaviour after she ignored him at one of the evenings at the Loritz home, and he complained, full of self-pity (and probably completely without justification as far as Maja’s alleged feelings for him were concerned): ‘My experience with her and with Luisa is: “It’s hard to think of anyone more heartless than many girls are who’ve once loved you.”’
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Alongside his heartache, in this period his growing sexual curiosity is also apparent in the diary. With Ludwig and Gebhard he discussed ‘the old topic of “Woman and whore”’.
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In November he noted that ‘in Odeonsplatz a whore tried to attach herself to us’—‘unsuccessfully, of course’, as he quickly added, but he admitted to himself: ‘It’s a very interesting thing, though.’
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In December 1919 he discussed Wedekind’s play
Wetterstein Palace
, in which sexual entanglements play an important role, with a fellow fraternity member who also recounted relevant experiences from his war service: ‘I must say though that it wasn’t just smut but something I was genuinely interested in, something a mature person must be thoroughly informed about.’
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In March 1920 he reacted with deep agitation and disgust to a book about a love affair between a young priest and a 14-year-old boy: ‘Sunday, 7.3.1920. 10.30 in the evening in a terrible mood. Munich—strange. The idealization of a homosexual man.—Ghastly pictures.’
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At the end of January and beginning of February 1920 a dose of flu kept him in bed, and he recorded with extreme precision what care his friends took of him and how much emotional support, which he clearly desperately needed, they gave him: ‘Käthe always brought me my meals. Lu visited every day, sometimes twice. Schorschl also visited once. They are truly good, dear people and above all good friends. Käthl was like a sister. Lu is a brother to me. Friedl sent me an egg and always lots of greetings. She is a good sort [ . . . ].’
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Even so, taken as a whole the experiences of this first Munich period were very sobering for him. It is therefore not surprising that his favourite place was at home with his parents: ‘There’s just nowhere as nice as home.’
With them—and in letters—he engaged in quite detailed discussions about the things on his mind. ‘In the evening went for a walk with Father. We talked a lot. About Luisa, about my Russian problem (mainly with Mother), about the political and economic future etc.’
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At home ‘I’m just a cheerful boy without any cares, but on leaving my parents’ house I’m changed back again’.
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His relationship with his father (‘dear Dad’) was harmonious for long stretches, though matters on which he clashed with his parents arose repeatedly; for example, a serious crisis was to develop in April 1921.
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