The Himmler Brothers

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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). You are the grandniece of Heinrich Himmler, the second most powerful Nazi and one of the biggest war criminals ever.

Impelled by a request from her father, Ms Himmler began her journey believing her family's narrative. But his actions cast a large shadow that the rest of the family were standing in, many of them hiding in there. Perhaps it is too easy to say that in their ageing years, they were probably duped quite easily into that way of thinking. It provides detailed descriptions of the way Nazism developed and the part her grandfather and his two elder brothers played in the rise of the Nazis.I commend her for moving forward and telling the back story to Himmler that no one other then a relative could possibly tell. Fischer Verlag and in 2007 in English by Macmillan as The Himmler Brothers: A German Family History. 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. Writing to Heinrich, Ernst dismissed his usefulness, knowing that he would then be reclassified and deported to a labour camp. Katrin Himmler's book Die Brüder Himmler: Eine deutsche Familiengeschichte was published in 2005 in Germany by S.

Please Note: By their very nature, all signed books will have been handled several times before they get to you. You can change your choices at any time by visiting Cookie preferences, as described in the Cookie notice.She is the granddaughter of Ernst Himmler (1905–1945), who was the younger brother of Heinrich Himmler, one of the leading figures of Nazi Germany. While Heinrich's path led him to unspeakably depraved actions, his brothers and his father believed in the Nazi party, participating without coercion willingly joining the Party and advancing in it without Heinrich's overt aid. The Himmler Brothers raises more questions than it answers, but that doesn't lessen in the slightest my admiration of Katrin Himmler for having written it.

Once upon a time the Himmlers were just a normal German family, middle-class, hard-working, well-educated. 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.This is a very well-written and profoundly honest story of the family of a monster - but an ordinary man who lived in extraordinary times. 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. Katrin Himmler’s cool but meticulous examination of the Himmler story reveals – in all its dark complexity – the gulf between the ‘normality’ of bourgeois family life and the horrors perpetrated by one member.

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. 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.There are parallels , extremism ,this time of a religious nature is rearing its ugly head again throughout the world ,again ordinary well educated individuals are having their minds poisoned by a few who simply want power for themselves ,collectively we have the power to nip it in the bud and banish it forever , but do we have the courage ? From these cultural imperatives, the journey to those of the National Socialists was quite logical and frighteningly brief. 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.