True Himmler. TWENTY years in the making, David Irving’s biography of Heinrich Himmler, the man, is finally ready. In two parts, the first of which appears now, Irving describes from true documents the origins of Himmler, an educated man with a Classics teacher as his revered father, and his extraordinary career until the final dramatic hours of his life, raising an army of elite SS soldiers and men to stand for Germany and defend it against the secret Soviet plans to invade all of Europe in 1941. He becomes a most trusted ally of Adolf Hitler and remains loyal to the end; when he hears of Hitler’s imminent death, Himmler takes steps to contact the Western Allies and assist them of the SS against the mighty Russian army. But the Western capitals are by then powerless, sucked too far into the Soviet thrall. On Winston Churchill’s orders, as now proved by the records, a secret British killing unit murdered Himmler in Lüneburg on May 23, 1945; they then disguised his death as suicide – although he had by then no means of killing himself.
Why twenty years? It has not been easy – or inexpensive – to retrieve the thousands of missing private papers, letters and diaries which vanished into unfriendly hands at the end. Mr Irving, already the finder of other secret records surrounding Hitler, identifies the current holders of scores of private letters – partly American, partly Israeli, their identities now oddly concealed by German newspaper editors and historians still wilting under the glare of the draconian Morgenthau Plan. (Mr Irving published a facsimile of the secret Morgenthau Plan from Oxford University archives). He uses secret British intercepts of SS messages, as well as Reinhard Heydrich’s papers and KGB files in Moscow archives.
The age-old principle systematically denigrated the reputation of Himmler’s young soldiers: Give a dog a bad name and hang him. Mr Irving’s suspicions, spelled out in the first and second part, are that Germany’s enemies saw in the SS such a formidable enemy and in Himmler such a man that they tracked him down after the war ended, whereupon British army killers terminated his life; the very first chapter examines the circumstances of Himmler’s “suicide” more closely.
The book is illustrated as will be Part Two with original black and white and colour photographs immaculately printed, including hundreds selected from Himmler’s albums now held by the Hoover Library in Stanford, California, and the U.S. “Holocaust” Memorial Museum in Washington DC.
Over 700 pages, with illustrations
(See sample spread of illustrations. 18MB)
whitehunterltd@att.net –
I can’t put the book down. DI has done it again. Very readable, throughly documented, and is not afraid to tell the truth. Conformist Writers will hate the book. “They can’t handle the truth”.
madconthames@protonmail.com –
Excellent!
andyslrw@gmail.com –
The amount of detail which I learned from David’s obvious meticulous research was just astounding. Have just started to read again because i’m sure I missed things first time. Looking forward to Volume 2.
willymax@earthlink.net –
After recently purchasing this book from the Institute For Historical Review, I have been unable to put it down. Part of the reason is the inimitable style of the narrative by David Irving. He’s not just a great historian, but a great writer. But the “meat” of the book are the facts that inform almost every line. Facts gleaned from years of study and research, and – most important – the author’s own knowledge of German. Research revealing the fact that Himmler had not one, but two “witches in the woodpile.” Two witches burned at the stake, no less. That Himmler’s godfather was Prince Heinrich of Bavaria, and that a young Heinrich Himmler was a Great War era veteran, having entered Bavarian Army service in January, 1918; that a youthful Heinrich Himmler had a close Jewish friend who, as late as 1949, insisted that it was “an evil twin” brother – not the Himmler he knew – that had committed those atrocities later styled “The Holocaust.” To paraphrase from the movie, “Apocalypse Now,” was he (at least at some point) a wise man, was he a ‘good’ man, DID HE HAVE PLANS! Get the book and discover the “True Himmler” for yourself.
nicholasamcaulay@hotmail.com –
Mr Irving begins the first volume of his two volume work with an account of Himmler’s murder by the British in May 1945. This is controversial, but Mr Irving presents the evidence for his account carefully and convincingly. This introduction gives the reader the first glimpse of Mr Irvlng’s world-view: all governments and their agents commit horrible and shameful acts. Furthermore, all humans are flawed and capable of wickedness. no one is exempt, not the British, not the Jews or the Russians or Americans. We may be glad the Alies won the war as the Hitler regime was beyond vicious, but this victory would lead to the continuation of an equally violent regime in the USSR and its satellites, and in time to the Vietnam war and equal horrors. If the world condemns Himmler, it must also condemn Churchill and Roosevelt. And by condemning others do we not also condemn ourselves?
The rest of the book takes the reader from Himmler’s birth to the outbreak of the second world war. Mr Irving gives a vast amount of personal detail, taken from diaries and letters, to build a convincing psychological picture of Himmler as a man, and not simply as a monster or “schizoid personality”, as Peter Padfield (a previous biographer) describes him. There is no doubt that Himmler did terrible things, but the explanation of how come this not unusual man came to be responsible for the deaths of so many makes this book invaluable for those seeking a balanced perspective on the National Socialist regime, and puts David Irving (unfortunately for him) years ahead of his time. Furthermore, Mr Irving’s sympathy (sprachgefühl) for the German language gives him a welcome advantage over anglophones who do not appreciate even basic German. For example, when David Irving points out the misinterpretation by the Nuremberg Tribunal of Rudolf Brandt’s (Himmler’s PA) use of i.V or i.A.
But most importantly potential readers of this major work may be put off by Mr Irving’s reputation as a “holocaust denier”. It must be said, that David Irving is no such thing, on the contrary, he is a “holocaust asserter”. For example he quotes from Waffen SS General Maximilian von Werff’s diary: “The destruction of the Jews was our misfortune. … The biggest criminal was the Reichsführer: he is guilty of the worst crime of all time …”. This is not “holocaust denial”. I am not a historian, and I have never heard of von Werff, but I find this quotation, including the touch of self-pity (“our misfortune”), more inculpatory than the histrionic retellings of standard historians.
This book is far better and wiser than I could ever describe and I more than look forward to reading the second volume
U. Besemann (verified owner) –
An excellent work, Mr. Irving is aa true historian.
Stig-Ove Madetoja –
True Himmler is written in familiar eloquent and precise english with facts always duly supported by documents from archives.
It is written in a fashion those who have read Mr Irvings work are familiar with. You are taken along for the ride!
Many things in here you won’t find anywhere else. True history indeed!
Frank Kalesnik (verified owner) –
Interesting and insightful. Irving cites primary sources, including Himmler’s diaries, to show what made him tick. Much on Himmler’s personal life and surprising political ascent.