Naziverbrechern auf der spur himmler biography

British Broadcasting Corporation Home. Heinrich Himmler was born on 7 October in Munich, the son of a schoolteacher. He served in the German army at the end of World War One and then had a variety of jobs, including working as a chicken farmer. He became involved with the Nazi party in the early s and took part in the 'beer hall' putsch of Himmler acted as the Nazi party's propaganda leader between and In , he was appointed head of the SS, Adolf Hitler's personal bodyguard, and the following year was elected to the Reichstag.

After the Nazis came to power in Germany in , Himmler became police president in Munich and head of the political police in Bavaria. He used his position to build a state within a state, expanding the SS and establishing its autonomy within the Nazi party and its dominance in Germany. In , he set up Dachau, the first Nazi concentration camp.

By , he had manoeuvred himself into a position where he was head of a newly unified national police. Himmler was obsessed with racial purity in Germany and encouraged Aryan 'breeding programmes'. The outbreak of World War Two allowed Himmler to pursue another racial goal - the elimination of Jews and other so-called 'sub-humans'.

Hitler's castle painting

After Germany's invasion of Poland, Himmler was given total control of the annexed parts of the country. Within a year more than one million Poles and , Jews had been forced out to be replaced with German settlers. By June , when Germany invaded the Soviet Union, Himmler controlled not only the police but the political administration of the occupied territories and, through his control of the SS, the concentration camp system.

In , Hitler appointed Himmler minister for the interior.