HIMMLER AS A MASS MURDERER

Himmler had no qualms about killing millions of people, especially those he deemed inferior races such as Jews, to achieve his Darwinian eugenic goal of producing a “superior” race. His goal was that all Jews will eventually be murdered and, with some exceptions, Himmler claimed that his “soldiers and Einsatzgruppen enthusiastically obeyed” his orders.48 As noted, Himmler also wanted to eliminate all other “inferior races” especially the Slavic population, and once said the “purpose of the Russian campaign [was] to decimate the Slavic population by 30 million” persons. The rest would serve as slaves for Germany.49

Himmler also used his admiration for modern technology to achieve mass murder by using “some sort of streamlined and quiet procedure.” Because of the enormous numbers, in the tens of millions of “inferior” people that must be eliminated, he reasoned, why not exploit

The most modern technology? Himmler’s own handwriting thus provides the earliest evidence of a plan for a kind of death factory, with poison gas as the killing agent and crematoria to dispose of the bodies.50

Although Hitler raised the idea of gassing the Jews in his book Mein Kampf, and the T -4 Programme used carbon monoxide to gas mental patients and others, it was Himmler who, in December 1939, came up with gas poison as the solution to the “Jewish Problem” which began on a large scale in earnest in December 1941.51 To prevent the victims from resisting, they were told that they were going to be deloused in showers. The victims then undressed and were told to keep their clothes together so they could dress when the delousing was completed.

When inside of what they thought were delousing showers, the door was locked and Zyklon B crystals were dropped into the now sealed room. In minutes, everyone in the “showers” died. Their bodies were then removed by other prisoners, taken to the crematorium to be turned into ashes, and buried in an attempt to hide this horrendous crime from the world.

The murdering was previously carried out by shooting the victims at close range, a killing method that, contrary to Himmler’s claims, caused much consternation among the mostly young German army recruits. Gassing reduced the gore that was caused by mass shootings and, consequently, reduced the demoralizing effect that the killings had on the Nazi soldiers.