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Heinrich Himmler
Person page: Heinrich Himmler →
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1925
April
04
The founding of the SS
On 4 April 1925 an eight-man guard for Hitler was formed in Munich. That autumn it became the Schutzstaffel (SS); under Himmler, an apparatus of terror.
1933
March
20
The Dachau concentration camp
On 20 March 1933 Himmler announced a concentration camp near Dachau. Two days later the first prisoners arrived, and the camp became the SS model.
April
26
The founding of the Gestapo
On 26 April 1933 Göring set up the Prussian political police as a separate Secret State Police Office. Under Himmler and Heydrich it became a byword for terror.
1934
April
20
Himmler takes over the political police
By spring 1934 Himmler headed the political police of almost every German state except Prussia. He took over the Gestapo on 20 April, all police only in 1936.
July
20
The SS independent of the SA
On 20 July 1934 Hitler rewarded the SS for the Night of the Long Knives by freeing it from the SA. It became an independent NSDAP body answerable only to him.
1941
March
01
Himmler orders the expansion of Auschwitz
On 1 March 1941 Himmler first visited Auschwitz. He ordered the camp enlarged for 30,000 prisoners and 10,000 prisoners provided to build the IG Farben plant.
July
20
Himmler in Lublin
On 20 July 1941 in Lublin Himmler ordered Globocnik to build a concentration camp for 25,000–50,000 prisoners. The history of Majdanek begins with this order.
1942
June
04
The death of Heydrich
On 4 June 1942 Reinhard Heydrich, wounded eight days earlier, died in a Prague hospital. The Germans gave him two funerals and stepped up the terror.
1943
January
18
Key event
The first armed resistance in the Warsaw Ghetto
On 18 January 1943 the Germans resumed deportations from the Warsaw Ghetto. ŻOB fighters first resisted with arms; after four days the action was halted.
April
22
The burning of the Warsaw Ghetto
From 22 April 1943 Stroop burned the Warsaw Ghetto building by building. The ŻZW left Muranowski Square, but the ŻOB and those in bunkers fought on for weeks.
August
02
The Gypsy family camp at Auschwitz
From February 1943 the Germans held whole Roma and Sinti families in section BIIe of Birkenau. About 23,000 people were sent there; most did not survive.
October
19
The order for 12,000 V-2 rockets
On 19 October 1943 the German Army Ordnance Office ordered 12,000 A4 rockets from Mittelwerk. They were to be assembled by prisoners of the Dora camp.
November
03
Key event
Operation Harvest Festival
On 3–4 November 1943 the SS and police shot about 42,000 Jews at Majdanek, Trawniki and Poniatowa – the last forced labourers of the Lublin region.
15
Himmler's order on the Roma
On 15 November 1943 a circular for the occupied USSR equated “itinerant” Roma with Jews and sent them to camps. The Auschwitz decree dated from December 1942.
1944
February
28
The assassination of Alexandre Galopin
In Brussels, Robert Verbelen's Flemish collaborators shot Alexandre Galopin, head of the Société Générale and Belgium's informal “economic government”.
August
05
Key event
The Wola massacre
On 5 August 1944 Reinefarth's police and SS began murdering the people of Warsaw's Wola. In three days 10,000 to several tens of thousands of civilians died.
October
18
The Volkssturm
On 18 October 1944 at Bartenstein in East Prussia Himmler announced the creation of the Volkssturm – a levy en masse of men aged 16 to 60.
November
26
Key event
The end of the gas chambers at Birkenau
In autumn 1944 the SS stopped gassing at Birkenau. On 26 November, by the accepted date, Himmler ordered the crematoria destroyed to hide the crime.
1945
January
01
Operation Nordwind begins
On New Year's Eve the Germans struck the overstretched US Seventh Army in northern Alsace. Operation Nordwind was their last great offensive in the west.
05
The Gambsheim bridgehead
On 5 January 1945 the German 553rd Volksgrenadier Division crossed the Rhine at Gambsheim, north of Strasbourg, and formed a bridgehead on the left bank.
February
10
The East Pomeranian offensive begins
On 10 February 1945 Rokossovsky’s 2nd Belorussian Front struck into East Pomerania to remove the threat to Zhukov’s flank on the Oder.
March
20
Heinrici replaces Himmler
On 20 March 1945 Hitler gave command of Army Group Vistula to General Gotthard Heinrici, a master of defence, in place of Himmler, to hold the Oder.
April
20
Hitler's last birthday
On 20 April 1945 Hitler turned 56 in the bunker beneath the Reich Chancellery. The leaders offered their wishes, and that evening most of them left Berlin.
24
Himmler's offer
In Lübeck on the night of 23/24 April 1945 Himmler offered, via Count Bernadotte, to surrender to the Western Allies alone. Truman and Churchill refused.
May
23
The death of Himmler
Detained on 21 May 1945 with false papers, Himmler revealed his identity in a British camp. On 23 May at Lüneburg he bit a cyanide capsule and died.