Heinrich Himmler
Heinrich Himmler (1900-45). German Nazi leader, chief of the Gestapo. A former poultry farmer; he was appointed leader of the SS, Hitler’s personal body-guard, in 1929. From 1934 he organized the Gestapo and had control over the police forces of the whole Reich. During World War II, as Hitler’s effective second-in-command, he was responsible for organizing the mass murders of Jews in the concentration camps. He was captured by the Allies in 1945 but com-mitted suicide by taking poison from a phial hidden in his mouth.
