He is primarily known for being a principal architect of the Holocaust. After serving in a reserve battalion during the First World War without seeing combat, Himmler went on to join the Nazi Party in In , he joined the SS, a small paramilitary arm of the Nazi Party that served as a bodyguard unit for Adolf Hitler. Under Himmler's leadership, the SS grew from a man battalion into one of the most powerful institutions within Nazi Germany.
Over the course of his career, Himmler acquired a reputation for good organisational skills as well as for selecting highly competent subordinates, such as Reinhard Heydrich. From onwards, he was both Chief of the Kriminalpolizei Criminal Police and Minister of the Interior, which gave him oversight of all internal and external police and security forces including the Gestapo. As the principal enforcer of the Nazis' racial policies , Himmler was responsible for operating concentration and extermination camps as well as forming the Einsatzgruppen death squads in German-occupied Europe.
In this capacity, he played a central role in the genocide of an estimated 5. However, after he failed to achieve his assigned objectives, Hitler replaced him in these posts. Realising the war was lost, Himmler attempted, without Hitler's knowledge, to open peace talks with the western Allies in March When Hitler learned of this on 28 April, he dismissed Himmler from all his posts and ordered his arrest.
Thereafter, Himmler attempted to go into hiding but was captured by British forces. He committed suicide in British custody on 23 May Heinrich Luitpold Himmler was born in Munich on 7 October into a conservative middle-class Roman Catholic family. Heinrich had two brothers: Gebhard Ludwig — and Ernst Hermann — Himmler's first name, Heinrich, was that of his godfather, Prince Heinrich of Bavaria , a member of the royal family of Bavaria who had been tutored by Himmler's father.
While he did well in his schoolwork, he struggled in athletics. In his youth he trained daily with weights and exercised to become stronger.
