[We have] the moral duty toward our race to kill this [Jewish] race that wanted to kill us. - Heinrich Himmler

About Heinrich Himmler

Heinrich Luitpold Himmler (7 October 1900 – 23 May 1945) was Reichsführer of the Schutzstaffel (Protection Squadron; SS), and a leading member of the Nazi Party (NSDAP) of Germany. Himmler was one of the most powerful men in Nazi Germany and a main architect of the Holocaust. From 1943 onwards, he was both Chief of German Police and Minister of the Interior, overseeing all internal and external police and security forces, including the Gestapo (Secret State Police). He controlled the Waffen-SS, the military branch of the SS. Himmler held an interest in varieties of occultism and Völkisch topics, and he employed elements of these beliefs to develop the racial policy of Nazi Germany and incorporated esoteric symbolism and rituals into the SS. As Reichsführer-SS he controlled the SS and the Gestapo. He was the founder and officer-in-charge of the Nazi concentration camps and the Einsatzgruppen death squads. As overseer of the Nazi genocidal programs, Himmler directed the killing of some six million Jews, between 200,000 and 500,000 Romani people, and other victims. The total number of civilians killed by the regime is estimated at eleven to fourteen million people. Most of them were Polish and Soviet citizens.

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