To escape, he gave himself a new name - Heinrich Hitzenger, sergeant major. To disguise himself, he shaved off his mustache and covered his left eye with a bandage. And, perhaps, he would have managed to remain unnoticed for quite some time. When he and several others were detained by a British patrol on May 22, 1945, at firstno one paid attention to his fake documents. He looked quite haggard and not at all intimidating.
Along with the others, he was placed in camp 031 near Bramstedt. Apparently, he did not like the way he, supposedly a sergeant major, was treated. As a boss, he managed to get used to a different environment. After all, it is extremely difficult to part with power, especially despotic power.
In any case, already at the end of the first day of imprisonment, he asked for a meeting with the camp leadership: he needed to tell him something. And he reported. He walked into the room, took off the blindfold and said: “My name is Heinrich Himmler.”
It is quite possible that he expected to be treated better.
He was immediately forced to undress, and an ampoule of cyanide was found in his jacket pocket.
Colonel Murphy asked the doctor, "Have you examined his mouth?"
The doctor answered in the negative and Himmler was ordered to be brought back immediately and ordered to open his mouth.
Himmler saw through the ampoule, which he hid behind his cheek.
For twelve minutes the British fought for his life. They sewed his tongue and stuck a capsule in his stomach, trying to pump out the poison. Twelve minutes later he died.
Gudrun loved her father devotedly. At fourteen, she cut out his photographs from newspapers and pasted them into a special album.
Gudrun never believed that her father committed suicide. She wanted his rehabilitation and dreamed of writing a book about him.
Gudrun did not want to give up her name even when all of Germany desperately cursed it. She went through prisons and camps. They never cried. She went on hunger strike.
They were arrested with their mother on May 13, 1945. She was fifteen.
During interrogations, she was asked whether she had been to prison camps.
-Yes.
What did she see there? Beds with dill. Dad grew greens in the camps.
How often did she see Hitler?
Very often. He gave her sweets and dolls. He sat me on my knees.
She went on a hunger strike in the Sinecitta camp. They were fed disgustingly. Himmler's wife and daughter were the only women in the camp. At first they laughed at this idea. But Gudrun Himmler weakened very quickly and the guards were no longer laughing. She was determined to die.
They and their mother began to be fed along with the officers.
She knew nothing about her father’s fate until some lively American reporter, one of many who asked stupid questions about the Reichsfuehrer’s home life, answered her in passing, “Yes, your father was poisoned a long time ago.”
A fifteen-year-old girl suffered a stroke. She lay with a high fever and was delirious in her cell. Doctors were not sure that she would survive. But after three weeks she stood up and was able to walk.
After this, British intelligence had one desire left - to get rid of this thorn.
Under a false name they were transported to Florence, from there to Paris, then there was a prison in Nuremberg.
In this prison, extreme precautions were taken with the prisoners. Not only were Gudrun's shoelaces seized, but even the elastic band of her panties.
There was an experience: Former Health Minister Dr. Contry broke free from security guards and jumped down a flight of stairs, and Robert Ley made a noose out of the zipper on his army jacket.
During the trial, the regime was relaxed and the women were transferred to the witness wing, where they could visit friends. Mostly secretaries were kept there. No one knew what fifteen-year-old Gudrun was doing here.
On January 6, 1946, mother and daughter were transferred to the Ludwigsburg camp. They have lost all contact with the outside world, all contact with former acquaintances. No one sent packages, no one visited. In this camp one could learn crafts or attend a cabaret. Gudrun had stopped developing, looked twelve years old, but she was already sixteen.
In November 46 they decided to release them.
-Where can I write out a vacation certificate*?
“I don’t know,” the widow answered.
-Do you have money?
-Not a single pfenning.
-And there are no decorations?
-Nothing.
-Then you better return to your barracks. “I can’t just throw you and your daughter out into the street,” said the head of the camp.
A week later, the Protestant colony near Bethel agreed to accept them.
Epileptics, crazy people, fallen girls and homeless people lived there.
But Himmler's family was fed and had a roof over their heads.
Gudrun refused to go to church and did not want to accept Protestantism.
-I want to be just like my father.
In the fall of 1947, she applied for admission to the Higher School of Applied Arts.
In the column for her father's profession, she indicated "Reichsführer SS"
The application was rejected.
But there was a person who decided to help and in the fall she began studying.
But the scholarship request was rejected on the grounds that taxpayers could not support Himmler's daughter.
In 1951 she passed her exams and became an apprentice tailor.
That same year she received a denazification certificate. She was officially told that she was not responsible for her father's crimes.
When it came time to look for work, all the garment factories turned her down. this decision was made at management level.
The fashion house suggested she change her last name. She refused.
-Then I'm sorry, we must respect the feelings of our customers.
With great difficulty she managed to get a job as a cutter and rent a room.
But when she traveled to England, the fascists began to patronize her there. She was invited to visit houses where portraits of Hitler hung and photographs were taken. And these photographs appeared in the newspapers.
Gudrun was fired from her job with great scandal.
Then she became a telephone operator at a hotel.
She connected Dr. Goldman with foreign countries. From 8:00 to 16:00 she did her work. Then Dr. Goldman learned the name of his telephone operator. His wife died in Auschwitz.
An hour later Gudrun stood with her suitcase at the station.
All her life Gudrun changed jobs, housing, and suffered humiliation. But always to the question: “But you have nothing to do with the Reichsfuehrer?” She answered: “I am his daughter.”
In the end she got married. From her husband she received the surname Burwitz.
She didn't write a book about her father. She created a public organization called “Silent Help.” This organization helped former Nazis settle down. After 1994, about 1,000 like-minded people provided her with financial assistance.
In particular, Mrs. Gudrun personally took care of a certain Anton Mallot, who lived in a nursing home in the south of Munich. This man was an SS Oberscharführer in a Gestapo prison. He was arrested and extradited to the Czech Republic as a war criminal in 2000.
Norbert and Stefan Lebert
“What a wonderful patriotic project - concentration camps!” - this is what the girl wrote Gudrun in letters to his father Heinrich Himmler. From an early age, the daughter of the Reichsführer perceived trips to Dachau as entertainment, and supported her father in everything even in her adult years. After Himmler’s death, she made every effort to continue her father’s work: she helped former SS men avoid punishment, supported the neo-Nazi movement in every possible way, and even tried to rehabilitate her father.
The life story of Gudrun Himmler-Burwitz is evidence that the most terrible ideas can find followers. Millions of Soviet people died in the Great Patriotic War to eradicate fascism, but neo-Nazi ideas still dominate minds. Gudrun was almost the only child among the children of the top of the Wehrmacht who did not renounce her father. She directly stated that she strongly supported the actions of Heinrich Himmler and believed that over time historians would reconsider their attitude towards his figure and rehabilitate his name.
It is difficult to imagine what irreversible changes took place in Gudrun’s psyche when, as a child, she went with her father on raids on concentration camps. Her impressions were cloudless: she rejoiced at how deliciously they were treated, admired the beauty of nature, and sometimes even looked with interest at the drawings that the prisoners created. She joyfully reported all this to her father: “Dear dad! Today I visited the SS camp in Dachau with my mother and aunt Lydia. We were fed deliciously and satisfyingly. We had a wonderful day!”
As a child, Gudrun was in love with the image of her father, after which she was not disappointed, and she made every effort to help those criminals who committed acts against all humanity. By her grace, already in the 2010s, the SS men lived comfortably and happily, killing Jews in the concentration camps of Poland, Holland, Czechoslovakia, and she also helped the fascist, known as the Butcher of Lyon, who gave orders to exterminate the Italian partisans.
Now Gudrun Himmler (Burwitz by her husband) is 87 years old, her home is located in Dachau, not far from the place where during the reign of the Third Reich there was a concentration camp and more than 36 thousand people died as martyrdom. Gudrun is liked by many businessmen who support the far right, and she receives financial support from them. German intelligence services are closely monitoring her, but the “grandmother of neo-Nazism” continues her propaganda.
Modern Germany is heterogeneous, fortunately, there are many in the country today who fight against far-right ideas. Thus, Irmela Menza-Schramm is known in the country as one who is waging her own war against hatred.
Based on materials from shtrafnogo.net
Gudrun Himmler was born in 1929 in Munich. Her father doted on her, and the girl quickly became a real symbol of Nazi childhood. Her father, who called her Puppy, that is, Doll, took her with him to all sorts of party and state events from early childhood. It was she who most often gave flowers to the Fuhrer, and it was she who patted her on the cheek more often than other children. According to the stories of those who know her, the first years of the war were her happiest.
The marriage of her parents, Heinrich Himmler and his wife Marga, cracked, Heinrich completely stopped visiting his home in Munich. However, this had no effect on Gudrun. He sent a military plane for her just to stay with her for a few hours in Berlin, and showered her with expensive and even precious gifts. She still wears one of them - an antique silver brooch, which depicts four horse heads, together making up a swastika.
One of the most memorable and joyful events in Gudrun’s life was a visit to the concentration camp in Dachau with her father and Adolf Hitler. Entry in her diary: “Today we went to the SS concentration camp in Dachau. They showed us everything. We saw pear trees, pictures that prisoners draw. Everything was amazing.” There is not a word about crematoria and gas chambers in the diary, but she, of course, could not help but see them. According to eyewitnesses, she did not lag behind her dad that day, and Heinrich Himmler came to Dachau on an inspection trip, and not just on an excursion.
A wonderful life was destroyed in 1945. Her father was captured by British troops and committed suicide by ingesting potassium cyanide. Gudrun refused to believe this, believing that Heinrich Himmler was killed in cold blood by the British. She still hates the British. After her father's death, she was inconsolable and, as those who knew her at the time testify, she became estranged from her mother, whom she blamed for the breakup of the family and for the fact that she, Gudrun, saw her father less often than she could have. Gudrun and Marga spent more than two years in a British prison.
Soon after her liberation, Gudrun Himmler began to take part in the activities of various organizations of former Nazis. And in 1951, when more or less open activity in defense of the Nazis became impossible, she joined an organization with the innocent name Stille Hilfe (“Quiet Help”).
One of the most inconspicuous, but most effective fighters against anti-fascism and perhaps the only legal organization in the world helping veterans of the Nazi Party, SS and Gestapo to avoid punishment, celebrated the 60th anniversary of fruitful joint activity.
Gudrun Burwitz from Munich looks like what, according to the general idea, an 81-year-old decent pensioner from Bavaria should look like. She is neat, modest, smiling, adores her husband, and goes to mass on Sundays. Nevertheless, the neighbors try to stay away from her.
"She's not someone you should be proud to know“,” notes one of her neighbors, who often sees her in the local supermarket, sometimes alone, sometimes accompanied by her daughter and granddaughters. But she is constantly besieged by journalists, whom she simply tries not to notice. The quiet pensioner from Munich is also a living symbol neo-Nazi movement and an important figure in the organization" Quiet help", which still helps surviving veterans of the Nazi Party, Gestapo and SS to avoid punishment, and also, according to many, finances illegal neo-Nazi organizations in Germany and other European countries.
We can say that she, in fact, turned “Silent Help” into what this organization is now. Mrs. Burwitz's maiden name is Himmler. She's loved and only legitimate daughter of Heinrich Himmler, a child admired by Adolf Hitler.
I'll take you to Dachau
Gudrun Himmler was born in 1929 in Munich. Her father doted on her, and the girl quickly became a real symbol of Nazi childhood. Her father, who called her Puppy, that is, Doll, took her with him to all sorts of party and state events from early childhood. It was she who most often gave flowers to the Fuhrer, and it was she who patted her on the cheek more often than other children. According to the stories of those who know her, the first years of the war were her happiest.
The marriage of her parents, Heinrich Himmler and his wife Marga, cracked, Heinrich completely stopped visiting his home in Munich. However, this had no effect on Gudrun. He sent a military plane for her just to stay with her for a few hours in Berlin, and showered her with expensive and even precious gifts. She still wears one of them - an antique silver brooch, which depicts four horse heads, together making up a swastika.
One of the most memorable and joyful events in Gudrun’s life was a visit to the concentration camp in Dachau with her father and Adolf Hitler. Entry in her diary: " Today we went to the SS concentration camp in Dachau. They showed us everything. We saw pear trees, pictures that prisoners draw. Everything was amazing". There is not a word in the diary about crematoria and gas chambers, but she, of course, could not help but see them if they existed. According to eyewitnesses, she did not lag behind her dad that day, and Heinrich Himmler came to Dachau on an inspection trip, and not just on an excursion.
A wonderful life was destroyed in 1945. Her father was captured by British troops and committed suicide by ingesting potassium cyanide. Gudrun refused to believe this, believing that Heinrich Himmler was killed in cold blood by the British. She still hates the British. After her father's death, she was inconsolable and, as those who knew her at the time testify, she became estranged from her mother, whom she blamed for the breakup of the family and for the fact that she, Gudrun, saw her father less often than she could have. Gudrun and Marga spent more than two years in a British prison.
Soon after her liberation, Gudrun Himmler began to take part in the activities of various organizations of former Nazis. And in 1951, when more or less open activity in defense of the Nazis became impossible, she joined an organization with the innocent name Stille Hilfe("Silent Help").
Organization of good intentions
Many experts still believe that Gudrun Himmler was one of the founders of Stille Hilfe in 1951. This is wrong. The organization was created much earlier, in 1949, by two clergy: a Catholic bishop Johannes Neuhäusler and Lutheran pastor Theophilus Worm.
The priests were motivated by the best aspirations. As Bishop Neuhäusler, himself a former prisoner of the Dachau concentration camp, later said in an interview, the organization’s goals were to help prisoners of war and try to reconcile German society, to help victims forgive even their own tormentors, to “repay good for evil.”
At first it was like that. “Christian Aid to Prisoners,” as Stille Hilfe was then called, actually provided packages to prisoners of war from relatives and helped find lawyers for those who, in the organization’s opinion, had been unjustly convicted. However, quite quickly, far from the most innocent characters began to show interest in Stille Hilfe. One of them was Gudrun Himmler.
Having joined the organization in 1951, she turned it into an effective structure that completely ceased to be interested in ordinary Wehrmacht soldiers and devoted all its strength to helping much more prominent figures of the Third Reich. According to one of the leading experts on the history of Nazism, the British Guy Walters, Stille Hilfe, together with Gudrun Himmler, included individuals who were directly related to the activities of the Organization of Former SS Employees (ODESSA) and assisted such prominent Nazis as the Holocaust ideologist in moving to Latin America Adolf Eichmann, Standartenführer Walter Rauff, one of the leaders of SD, who was directly involved in the development of gas cars, and Dr. Joseph Mengele, who conducted experiments on prisoners at Auschwitz.
Gudrun Himmler became the de facto leader of Stille Hilfe and the guarantor that donations received from sympathizers would be used for their intended purpose. Finally, Gudrun Himmler had another important role, which she still plays: she attracts young neo-Nazis and their sympathizers into the organization.
Almshouse for the Nazis
In addition to Gudrun Himmler, there was another famous woman in the organization, Princess Helena Elisabeth von Isenburg. She, together with Bishop Neuhäusler and Pastor Worm, ensured that the organization had the utmost decency and at the same time, thanks to connections in high society, helped to collect donations.
Formally, Stille Hilfe continued to be involved in helping prisoners of war and prisoners. In reality, the lion's share of all efforts went into hiding Nazi criminals from the authorities, providing them with a means of subsistence, and providing them with housing and medical care. For example, according to a number of experts, it was Stille Hilfe who helped the former leader of the Hitler Youth find a job Arthur Axmann, who had problems finding employment after a three-year stay in prison.
Gudrun Himmler, who married a doctor in the early 60s Wulf Dieter Burwitz, never talked much about her work at Stille Hilfe. " I help here and there as much as I can, but I won’t talk about my work", she said in a rare interview.
Over time, Stille Hilfe began to have new concerns. The organization was no longer involved in transporting Nazi criminals abroad: there was no longer a need for this. But there was a need to provide aging Nazis with good medical care, pay for their stay in nursing homes and boarding houses and, most importantly, pay for lawyers' bills: Nazis began to be arrested throughout Europe, whom the authorities would like to extradite to Germany for trial or try on the spot for war crimes.
Among the most famous criminals assisted by Gudrun Himmler-Burwitz and her organization was the head of the Lyon Gestapo Klaus Barbier, one of the most bloodthirsty guards of the Theresienstadt concentration camp in the Czech Republic Anton Mallot and "fury from Majdanek" Erna Wallisch. Gudrun developed a particularly warm relationship with Mallot. She not only paid for his lawyers and his stay in a nursing home, but also visited him often. She is also said to have paid for Mallot’s dignified funeral.
Over time, Stille Hilfe's activities spread to other countries. This organization is known in Holland, Denmark, and France.
Grandmother of neo-Nazism
"There is no doubt that Gudrun Burwitz, by his mere existence, is attracting young neo-Nazis and their funds to Stille Hilfe"says one German expert on neo-Nazism, who asked not to be named.
In 1952, Gudrun Burwitz created another organization - Wiking-Jugend, already openly neo-Nazi, organized in the image and likeness of the Hitler Youth. The organization existed until 1994, when it was declared unconstitutional.
Gudrun Burwitz's participation in neo-Nazi activities is also confirmed by the children of other prominent Nazis, who, unlike Gudrun, are not ready to unconditionally defend their parents. Martin Borman Jr., the son of the head of the party chancellery and Hitler’s closest associate, said that Gudrun repeatedly approached him with requests for support either for her organizations or for the leading neo-Nazi party - National Democratic Party of Germany. And her appearance at various Nazi events in Germany and Austria, for example at a meeting of SS veterans and youth organizations in Ulrichsburg, Austria, caused real delight among the participants.
"They simply trembled in front of her. She walked around the hall, kindly asking first one, then the other, where he served, how he lived. She accepted their answers with the majesty of a monarch, and they, by all appearances, perceived her as their queen“, one of those present at the meeting later said. — The youth looked at her as a goddess".
German authorities assure that Gudrun Burwitz and her organization are under constant control, but admit that neither she nor Stille Hilfe give them the slightest reason to close the organization or ban it as unconstitutional. All their activities are within the framework of the law, which does not prohibit helping the old and poor, no matter what their background or what views they hold. The only thing the fighters against Nazism were able to achieve was depriving Stille Hilfe of the status of a charitable organization whose activities are tax-free. However, as many experts say, Gudrun Burwitz and Quiet Aid have enough sources of funding so that paying taxes does not become an unbearable burden for them.
The presentation is peculiar... That's why the material is in the "offtopic" section.
The daughter is not responsible for her father, and Gudrun Himmler was not responsible for the crimes of the Reichsführer SS. Moreover, her organization helped the Nazis hide and still provides a quiet old age for many soldiers and officials of the Third Reich.
Frau Burwitz's telephone number is not in the directories. Her house in the wealthy Munich suburb of Pullach is registered to a construction company. Gudrun Burwitz doesn't hide, but he doesn't like attention. And reporters circle around the 87-year-old woman. They get a phone number. They are standing guard at the fence, trying to find out something from the neighbors.
Her maiden name is Himmler. Gudrun is the eldest and only legitimate daughter of Heinrich Himmler, Reichsführer SS, Hitler’s favorite, leader of the “Final Solution of the Jewish Question,” and specialist in racial purity.
A short man with glasses who looked like a school teacher dreamed of becoming a great commander, took solemn oaths at the grave of Henry I the Birdcatcher and wanted to fashion the Germans according to the idealized model of the ancient German. He himself tried to follow the Aryan canon, but the sport did not submit to him, and his stomach problems only worsened. What upset Himmler most was that he was a Bavarian, not a Prussian—a dark-eyed brunette, not a blue-eyed blond. And there was nothing that could be done, even if you were the most powerful man in the Reich. After the Fuhrer, of course.
But his daughter was gray-eyed and fair-haired. Himmler himself chose the name - Gudrun (Connected with the words gunnr ("battle") and rún ("sign"). In Scandinavian mythology, Gudrun is the wife of the hero Sigurd). As his career progressed, he communicated less and less with his wife, Margarethe von Boden, and over time completely stopped returning to the family estate near Munich. In 1938, Himmler began an affair with his secretary, and she bore him two children. Heinrich did not divorce Margot. Gudrun remained the princess of the Third Reich and the most famous girl in Germany.
The Reichsführer SS took advantage of every opportunity to please his Puppy, “Doll” as he called his daughter. Puppy had a plane at her disposal to fly the girl to Berlin from Munich and back so she could spend a few hours with her father. Himmler showered his daughter with gifts and took Gudrun with him to meetings, to visit the Fuhrer and on work trips. Newspapers and newsreels constantly recorded the life of Himmler’s daughter, and every resident of the Third Reich knew her by sight, just like her dad.
The first years of the war were surprisingly happy for father and daughter. Henry reached the heights of power, Gudrun basked in the rays of his glory. She missed her dad a lot, in between meetings she collected photos and newspaper articles about him, cut them out and pasted them into a special album.
The separations became longer and longer. The Second World War was heading towards a sad ending for the Third Reich, however, Himmler was optimistic. He believed that Hitler would have to be removed, of course, but he would be able to take the helm of the new Germany. Himmler had been in power for almost 20 years and could not believe that it would end.
In his will, drawn up on April 29, 1945, Hitler cursed Himmler for secret negotiations with the Western allies and appointed Admiral Doenitz as his successor. To Himmler's surprise, Doenitz did not want to see him as chancellor, or chief of police, or prime minister of Schleswig-Holstein, or anyone else in his government. Everyone turned away from him. In an attempt to escape, he puts on an eye patch over one eye, shaved off his mustache and escapes with fake documents. Of course, he is detained. On May 23, 1945, in front of doctors, Himmler bites through an ampoule of poison.
Gudrun Himmler and her mother were arrested by the British on May 13, 1945. 15-year-old Gudrun did not testify against her father. Then nomadic life began. The girl was moved from the camp to prison, then back to the camp. Puppy found out about her father's death by accident. From shock and grief she fell ill with a fever, fell into unconsciousness and was near death for three weeks.
At the end of 1946, Gudrun and Margarita were announced that they were free. There was no money, and there were no things to sell. Mother and daughter found refuge in a Protestant shelter. Everyone was accepted there: the disabled, the elderly, the crazy, prostitutes who had abandoned their profession, and relatives of Nazi criminals too. Unlike the prostitutes, Gudrun did not repent.
In 1947, she tried to enter the Higher School of Arts, but on the applicant’s form, in the column about her father, she wrote “Reichsführer SS.” The application was rejected. Then they accepted, but they refused the scholarship with the wording “it is immoral to support Himmler’s daughter with taxpayers’ money.”
In 1951, Gudrun received a diploma as a tailor's assistant and a certificate of denazification, confirming that she was not responsible for her father's crimes.
Gudrun was not hired by any clothing factory in Munich. The head of the fashion house looked at the diploma and suggested that she change her last name. Gudrun refused. Miraculously, Fräulein Himmler got a job as a cutter in a small atelier. And in 1951, she came to “Quiet Help” (After the war, the organization helped imprisoned Germans and also supported fugitive Nazi criminals).
Soon, at the invitation of the British Nazis, Himmler's daughter traveled to Britain. Photographs of Gudrun appeared in the press against the backdrop of portraits of Hitler. She was immediately fired from the studio. Gudrun got a job as a telephone operator in a hotel. Everything was fine until one of the guests found out the name of the girl who connected him via the telephone line. He lost his wife in Auschwitz. Fräulein Himmler was asked to clear the premises.
Gudrun was proud of her kinship. If questions arose about the surname, she always answered: “He is my father!” She insisted that dad was slandered. She energetically developed the ideology of Nazism. In 1952, Gudrun founded the Viking Jugend, a teenage organization closely reminiscent of the Hitler Youth.
CHARITY
In the early 1960s, Gudrun married neo-Nazi writer Wulf Dieter Burwitz and changed her last name. The Quiet Help organization switched from helping prisoners of war to actively participating in the fate of the highest ranks of the Nazi government. According to rumors, it was through the efforts of “Quiet Help” that Adolf Eichmann, Walter Rauff and Dr. Mengele ended up in South America. Lesser ranks remained in Germany. They were provided with work, housing, and the services of lawyers and doctors.
The activities of Viking Jugend were declared unconstitutional and banned only in 1994. With regard to Quiet Help, the German authorities only managed to achieve the cancellation of the status of a charitable organization. However, the finances attracted by Gudrun Himmler allow “Quiet Help” not to suffer under the weight of taxes.
Now the main item of the organization's expenses has become expenses for funerals, medical and hospital bills, and payments for nursing homes. Gudrun does not give interviews, only occasionally making statements to the press. She has few friends, and Himmler behaves very reservedly with them. This year she turned 88 years old.
