The Himmler Brothers

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In the latter part of the book it is almost fitting that we discover her partner is Jewish and they have a half-Jewish child. Writing to Heinrich, Ernst dismissed his usefulness, knowing that he would then be reclassified and deported to a labour camp. 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. 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. Come down the travelators, exit Sainsbury's, turn right and follow the pedestrianised walkway to Crown Walk and turn right - and Coles will be right in front of you.

Katrin Himmler's book Die Brüder Himmler: Eine deutsche Familiengeschichte was published in 2005 in Germany by S.From these cultural imperatives, the journey to those of the National Socialists was quite logical and frighteningly brief. Despite the opportunity to take her spouse's surname, she chose to keep the name Himmler, rather than deny her heritage.

He brought his brothers and family down with him and the book shows how self delusion can mask the most horrible of crimes against humanity. Having seen Germany prosper and then disintegrate during the years between the wars, they would have felt Hitler had help make Germany strong again. Bookplates are official labels which are signed by the author and then fixed to the title page of the book. I commend her for moving forward and telling the back story to Himmler that no one other then a relative could possibly tell. Originally written as self-therapy, the book stands as a testament to the enduring legacy of guilt the Nazis left behind for future generations.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. 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. 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.

It took courage and imagination for Katrin to confront the assumptions and half-truths that had taken root in the family . 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 . Although most of us do not have war criminals in our family tree we all have one or two relatives that we neither wish to brag about or discuss. 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.

You can change your choices at any time by visiting Cookie preferences, as described in the Cookie notice. It shows the relationship and set of circumstances after WW1 that brought Hitler and his gang of criminals to power ! In the end, The Himmler Brothers raises more questions about its subject than it is capable of answering, but that doesn't lessen in the slightest my admiration of Katrin Himmler for having written it. 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.

Fischer Verlag and in 2007 in English by Macmillan as The Himmler Brothers: A German Family History. Robert Hawks, however, wrote in The Independent: "Katrin does try to turn some equivocal evidence into revelations of her family's complicity, but her prosecutorial stance gets in the way of empathy. She told an interviewer: "When my husband and I had our son, it became clear I had to break with the family tradition of not speaking about the past.Perhaps it is too easy to say that in their ageing years, they were probably duped quite easily into that way of thinking. 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. You are the grandniece of Heinrich Himmler, the second most powerful Nazi and one of the biggest war criminals ever. 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.