Himmler’s private documents resurface in Tel Aviv

Trove of personal correspondence from Hitler’s right-hand man includes 18 years of letters to wife, German paper reports

By AFP 25 January 2014, 4:28 pm

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Adolf Hitler (left) shakes hands with Heinrich Himmler somewhere in Germany on May 18, 1944. From left to right: Hitler, Minister Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel, Admiral Karl Doenitz, Himmler and Field Marshal General Erhard Milch. (AP)

BERLIN — Hundreds of private letters, notes and photographs belonging to Hitler’s henchman Heinrich Himmler have been found in Israel, a German newspaper reported Saturday.

Himmler, a visceral anti-Semite who was chief of the SS and German police, played a key role in the elimination of all opposition to Hitler and implementation of the Holocaust: the concentration camps were under his authority.

The personal documents belong to a private collection in Tel Aviv, said Die Welt, which possesses copies of them.

They include mainly letters to Himmler’s wife Marga, which date from 1927 — six years before Hitler came to power — to 1945, the last written five weeks before he committed suicide on May 23 to avoid trial.

Germany’s national archives authenticated the documents.

The documents “change nothing about the general image of the horrible Nazi dictatorship,” said Die Welt which has financed a documentary using the material to show Himmler’s private life.