Heinrich himmler family today

Gudrun Burwitz

German Nazi Party supporter (–)

Gudrun Margarete Elfriede Emma Anna Burwitz (née&#;Himmler; 8 August – 24 May ) was the daughter of Heinrich Himmler and Margarete Himmler. Her father, as Reichsführer-SS, was a leading member of the Nazi Party, and chief architect of the Final Solution.[1] After the Allied victory, she was arrested and made to testify at the Nuremberg trials.

Never renouncing Nazi ideology, she consistently fought to defend her father's reputation and became closely involved in neo-Nazi groups that gave support to ex-members of the SS. She married Wulf Dieter Burwitz, an official of the extremist NPD.

Relationship with her father

Born in Munich in ,[2] Gudrun Himmler was the daughter of Heinrich Himmler, Reichsführer-SS, Chief of Police and Security forces, and Reich Minister of the Interior in Nazi Germany.

She was the only biological and legitimate child[3] of Himmler and his wife Margarete Siegroth, née Boden,[4] though her parents later adopted a son named Gerhard von der Ahé. (Himmler also had two out-of-wedlock children with his secretary, Hedwig Potthast.[5])

Heinrich Himmler adored his daughter and had her regularly flown to his offices in Berlin from Munich where she lived with her mother.[6] When she was at home, he telephoned her most days and wrote to her every week.

Heinrich always called her by her childhood nickname "Püppi".

Gudrun burwitz biography of martin johnson Der Spiegel , however, reported that right at the start Barbie had told the BND talent-spotter about being in the SS and having to flee to Bolivia after the war — admissions which would normally have triggered extensive background checks. In Gudrun also helped form Wiking-Jugend , an organization patterned on the Hitler Youth program of the s. Also recruited into the Gehlen Organisation was Karl Josef Silberbauer, the Gestapo officer who effectively sent Anne Frank to her death by tracking her down and arresting her and her family as they hid in an Amsterdam attic in And one of its most revered and terrifying figures is the year-old daughter of Heinrich Himmler, architect of the Holocaust.

She accompanied her father on some official duties,[2] including a visit to Dachau concentration camp, where more than 30, prisoners died.[8] “Uncle Hitler” gave her a doll and chocolates every New Year.[9]

She disputed that Heinrich Himmler, who died in British captivity on 23 May , died by suicide when he broke a concealed cyanide capsule, and instead maintained that he was murdered.[6] After the Second World War, she and her mother were arrested by the Americans in Northern Italy,[8] and were held in various camps in Italy, France and Germany.

While they were held in Rome, she went on a hunger strike until she grew weak.[8] They were brought to Nuremberg to testify at the trials,[10] and were released in November [11] Gudrun later bitterly referred to this time as the most difficult of her life, and said that she and her mother were treated as though they had to atone for the sins of her father.[6]

She never renounced the Nazi ideology and repeatedly sought to justify the actions of her father.

She blamed Allied propaganda for besmirching Himmler's "good name".[12] People who knew her say that Gudrun created a "golden image" of her father, like the father she wished she had.[13]

Later life

She married the far-right propagandist and author Wulf Dieter Burwitz, who later became a party official in the Bavarian section of the far-right NPD,[4] and had two children.

She was affiliated with Stille Hilfe ("Silent Aid"), an organization formed to aid former SS members, which assisted Klaus Barbie ("the Butcher of Lyon") of the Lyon Gestapo and Martin Sommer, otherwise known as the "Hangman of Buchenwald", and she reportedly continued to support a Protestant old people's home in Pullach, near Munich.

From to , she worked, under an assumed name, as a secretary for West Germany's Bundesnachrichtendienst, the Federal Intelligence Service (BND), at its headquarters in Pullach, near Munich.[10][15] At the time the agency was headed by Reinhard Gehlen, an American-recruited general who hired, among others, ex-Nazis to work for BND based on their connections and experience with Eastern Europe and anti-communist activities.[2][16]

For decades Burwitz was a prominent public figure in Stille Hilfe für Kriegsgefangene und Internierte (Silent Assistance for Prisoners of War and Interned Persons), who provided legal and financial support to former SS members from its founding in [17] At various meetings, for instance the annual Ulrichsberg gathering in Austria, she received the status of both a star and an authority.

Oliver Schröm, author of a book about the organisation, described her as a "flamboyant Nazi princess" ("schillernde Nazi-Prinzessin").[18] She has also been described by theologian Katharina von Kellenbach as "a prominent spokesperson for the neo-Nazi movement and an important link between old perpetrator networks and young sympathisers".[19]

Peter Finkelgrun, a German-Jewish investigative journalist, discovered that Burwitz provided financial support for SS-Scharführer Anton Malloth, a former Nazi prison guard and a fugitive war criminal.

In , Malloth was convicted of beating at least prisoners to death at the Theresienstadt concentration camp, including Finkelgrun's grandfather in [13]

Gudrun Burwitz died on 24 May at her home near Munich at the age of [2][20][8]

Notes

  1. ^Browning, Christopher R.

    ().

  2. Gudrun burwitz biography of martin henderson
  3. Gudrun burwitz biography of martin short
  4. Gudrun burwitz biography of martin tn

    5. The Origins of the Final Solution: The Evolution of Nazi Jewish Policy, September – March . Comprehensive History of the Holocaust. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. pp.&#;36– ISBN&#;.

  5. ^ abcd"Gudrun Burwitz, ever-loyal daughter of Nazi mastermind Heinrich Himmler, dies at 88".

    The Washington Post. 1 July Retrieved 1 July

  6. ^King, Martin (6 September ). Blood Is Thicker than War: Brothers and Sisters on the Front Lines. Simon and Schuster. ISBN&#;.
  7. ^ abKelerhoff, Sven Felix; Meyer, Simone; Schuster, Jacques; Schuster, Ulrich (1 February ).

    Gudrun burwitz biography of martin Marga Himmler established herself there with Gudrun, whom they called "Puppi". As head of the Gestapo, he would have her flown to join him wherever he was on his mission to enslave the world. As revelations about Nazi actions during the war came to light, they contrasted with his new Christian teachings. But his mission to defend his father was just getting started.

    "Himmlers Nachwuchs". Welt Online (in German). Retrieved 30 April

  8. ^Andersen , p.&#;
  9. ^ abcHelm, Siegfried (). "Himmlers Tochter hilft den alten Gefährten". Berliner Morgenpost (in German). Retrieved 5 October
  10. ^ abcdSandomir, Richard.

    Gudrun Burwitz, Ever-Loyal Daughter of Himmler, Is Dead at 88.

    Gudrun burwitz biography of martin luther She did, however, often wear a silver brooch given to her by her father, depicting the heads of four horses arranged in the shape of a swastika. Mrs Burwitz has always nurtured the memory of her father, believing the man who ran the Gestapo, the SS and the extermination programme which murdered six million Jews, to be good and worthy. Now it is in the hands of Mrs Burwitz. In April Gundrun and her mother were taken into custody.

    New York Times. 6 July Retrieved 22 September

  11. ^Getlen, Larry (3 February ). "How Nazi offspring dealt with their families' hellish histories". Retrieved 22 September
  12. ^ ab"Himmler's daughter worked for post-war German spy agency".

    BBC News. 29 June Retrieved 22 September

  13. ^Katrin Himmler, The Himmler Brothers, Pan Macmillan, , p
  14. ^Lacapra, Dominick (). "Trauma, History, Memory, Identity: What Remains?". History and Theory.

    Gudrun burwitz biography of martin lawrence One of her visits was to Dachau, north of Munich, which served as the model for all of Nazi Germany's other concentration camps. In April Gundrun and her mother were taken into custody. Executed by hanging on Oct. Malloth was sentenced to death in absentia by a court in the Czech Republic, but Burwitz reportedly helped arrange for him to stay at a retirement facility outside Munich on land once owned by Nazi official Rudolf Hess.

    55 (3): – doi/hith ISSN&#;

  15. ^ abSanai, Darius (). "The sins of my father". The Independent (London). Retrieved 5 October
  16. ^Daly-Groves, Luke (15 April ). "Control not morality? Explaining the selective employment of Nazi war criminals by British and American intelligence agencies in occupied Germany".

    Intelligence and National Security. 35 (3): – doi/ ISSN&#;

  17. ^"Germany's BND spy agency employed Heinrich Himmler's daughter". Deutsche Welle. 29 June Retrieved 13 October
  18. ^Fulbrook, Mary (). "Reframing the Past: Justice, Guilt, and Consolidation in East and West Germany after Nazism".

    Central European History. 53 (2): – doi/S ISSN&#;

  19. ^Fabian Leber: Gudrun Burwitz und die „Stille Hilfe“: Die schillernde Nazi-Prinzessin; in: Der Tagesspiegel, 10 June (In German)
  20. ^Kellenbach, Katharina von (1 May ).

    Gudrun burwitz biography of martin henderson: In the late s she married Wulf-Dieter Burwitz, a writer who became an official in a right-wing political group, and settled in a Munich suburb. Gudrun wrote in her diary: "Today, we went to the SS concentration camp at Dachau. It collects money, too, for the neo-Nazi movement. Such experiences were to defile her innocence for ever.

    The Mark of Cain: Guilt and Denial in the Post-War Lives of Nazi Perpetrators. Oxford University Press. p.&#; ISBN&#;.

  21. ^"Tod von Gudrun Burwitz: Heinrich Himmlers Tochter, Nazi bis zuletzt". Der Spiegel (in German). Retrieved 30 June

References

  • Andersen, Dan H.

    (). Nazimyter&#;blodreligion og dødskult i Det Tredje Rige (in Danish). Aschehoug.

  • Gudrun burwitz children names
  • Where is himmler buried
  • Who are gudrun burwitz children
  • Nanette himmler
  • Gudrun burwitz book

    • ISBN&#;.

  • Lebert, Norbert, and Stephan. Denn Du trägst meinen Namen: das schwere Erbe der prominenten Nazi-Kinder. Goldmann Verlag , ISBN&#; (in German)
  • Lebert, Norbert, and Stephan. My Father's Keeper: Children of Nazi Leadership: An Intimate History of Damage and Denial, translated by Julian Evans. New York: Little, Brown, ISBN&#;
  • Longerich, Peter ().

    Heinrich Himmler: A Life. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN&#;.

  • Pike, David Wingeate (). Spaniards in the Holocaust: Mauthausen, the Horror on the Danube. London: Routledge.
  • Schröm, Oliver and Andrea Röpke. Stille Hilfe für braune Kameraden.

    Christoph Links Verlag, Berlin , ISBN&#;X (in German)

External links