The Himmler Brothers

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While a portrait of a specific family, it shows how inculcated cultural beliefs along with the aftermath of WW1 which humiliated German pride and the political turmoil between democracy, communism, and the extreme right, provided fertile soil for the nightmare of the Nazi platform. Originally written as self-therapy, the book stands as a testament to the enduring legacy of guilt the Nazis left behind for future generations. Katrin Himmler speculates that it was frustration at this and envy of his brother that led Heinrich to join the extreme right-wing Freikorps in 1919.

That she was able to take on the challenge of writing about a relative which most people would never admit to, and to do so in such a candid and objective manner is admirable. Furthermore, if those who decide the allocations of the real and unreal are cruel, mad or colossally wrong, what then?Katrin Himmler is a freelance author, holding readings and lectures in Germany and abroad, above all for students. It took courage and imagination for Katrin to confront the assumptions and half-truths that had taken root in the family . Having seen Germany prosper and then disintegrate during the years between the wars, they would have felt Hitler had help make Germany strong again. It is written by the great-niece of Heinrich Himmler who suspected that her grandfather, Ernst, Heinrich’s younger brother, was not as innocent as the family would have liked to think.

This riveting family memoir provides essential new information on the private life and background of one of the twentieth- century’s most notorious killers – not a lone evil executioner, but a middle-class family man, loved and fully supported by his respectable German family. When Katrin Himmler, Heinrich's great-niece, was fifteen, one of her school mates asked during a history lesson if she was related to the Himmler.It should be read not only by anyone who is interested in the history of the period but also by everyone who doesn't want to see it repeated. This young woman had to endure the embarrassment of being asked such a question in her history class as a 15 year old; she cannot be blamed for what has happened - that's an accident of birth.

It shows the relationship and set of circumstances after WW1 that brought Hitler and his gang of criminals to power ! Her book “Die Brüder Himmler” was published in 2005 and translated into English in 2007, ‘The Himmler Brothers’ (Pan Macmillan), it has been translated into more than ten languages.Despite her family being told her grandfather Ernst had had no interest in politics, Katrin discovered that he was an enthusiastic Nazi who had joined the party in 1931, and was also an officer in the Schutzstaffel (SS).

Her most disturbing discovery was that her grandfather had directly caused the deportation and death of a Jewish engineer, a Major Schmidt, deputy manager of an engineering firm, who had been protected because of his expertise. Writing to Heinrich, Ernst dismissed his usefulness, knowing that he would then be reclassified and deported to a labour camp. Despite the opportunity to take her spouse's surname, she chose to keep the name Himmler, rather than deny her heritage. You get a vivid sense of a particular kind of German conservatism and of how, weirdly, it found an outlet in the upstart, part-pagan thuggery of Nazisim .

I commend her for moving forward and telling the back story to Himmler that no one other then a relative could possibly tell.