Heinrich Himmler

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German head of the Gestapo police, architect of the concentration camps and the Holocaust, who was second only to Hitler in the Third Reich. He ordered the deaths of millions, beginning with the "blood purge" on 30 June 1934 and ending with the systematic murder of millions of Jews within the death camps. The son of a schoolteacher, Himmler apparently had a happy childhood. His father encouraged his schoolwork, and his mother doted on him. By the end of World War I, Himmler had received a diploma in agriculture. He participated in Hitler's Munich Putsch in November 1923, and joined the Nazi party in 1925. When Hitler became Chancellor in 1933, Himmler was named head of the Munich police, and it was in this post that he organized the first concentration camp at Dachau. In April 1934, he was named assistant chief of the secret police, and by 1936 had control of all German police operations. After the war began, Himmler began working to remove non-Germans from Germany. When Hitler articulated his "final solution" in 1941, Himmler carried it out with concentration camps in Eastern Europe. Himmler acquired some psychosomatic illnesses in the final months of the war, but thought he would succeed Hitler. When he and Hitler had a falling-out, Hitler had him arrested. Himmler escaped, but was captured by the Allies. He died on 23 May 1945 after biting down on a hidden cyanide pill when he was being searched, following interrogation by the British, Luneburg, Germany. Link to Wikipedia biography