Heinrich Himmler was once memorably described by Albert Speer as, “half school master, half crackpot.” The schoolmasterly part is easy to explain, having been born in Munich on October 7, 1900 to Joseph Gebhard Himmler, a secondary-school teacher and principle. Himmler’s childhood was filled with the bookish pursuits of stamp collecting, chess, playing the harpsichord, and gardening, lie was never popular with or comfortable around members of the opposite sex.
Although Himmler was called up to serve during World War I, he never saw battle before the war ended, leaving his knightly fantasies embarrassingly unfulfilled. Perhaps this over-stimulation without climax was one reason why, after 1918 he could not return to a middle-class life. After a brief stint as a student of farming at the Munich Technische Hochschule from 1919 to 1922, Himmler abandoned gainful employment in favor of a cause he could dedicate himself to – that of a functionary in an anti-democratic nationalist political organization – the Deutsche Arheiterpartei (DAP) soon to be renamed the in NSDAP Living in Munich. Himmler took part in Hitlers  Beer Hall Putsch.
Himmler joined the SS in 1925 and was appointed its deputy leader in 1927. By 1929, he was in charge of the fledgling organization (numbering fewer than 300), which at that time, served as Hitler’s personal body guard at events throughout Germany. By then, at the latest, Heinrich had become an extremist, subscribing to Germanic supremacy and anti-Semitism with an accent on the purity of the Ger¬man peasant farmer. He put his scholastic talents of application and organization he had learned at home into building the dream he was soon to make his own: to be a paramilitary leader.
His non-existent personal life ensured there was nothing to distract him. Although he married in 1928 (prompting his contemporaries to speculate that he had finally lost his virginity) marriage could not change him now. His mixture of organizational application, apparent loyalty and lack of public ambition was a hugely successful combination. By 1933, when the Nazis gained power in earnest in Germany, the SS had grown to over 50,000 members, with Himmler in charge.
By war’s end, Himmler had transformed the SS into his own personal empire that was without a doubt the most powerful political and economic element operat¬ing within the Nazi Party . The SS fielded divisions on every front, maintained its grasp of society within the boundaries of Germany proper, and had even tried to draft Hitler’s chief architect Albert Speer into its ranks (Himmler offered to make him the fifth Oberstgruppenfiihrer, a dubious honor Speer politely declined).

Himmler’s impact on world history (and his complex psychology) has been well documented in many books. However, the Reichsfuhrer may best be understood by a look at his last days. They reveal a man unable to take up arms and fulfill his dream of becoming a soldier, a man still obsessed with military rank and the trap¬pings of his office, and a man disrespected by his peers.
So it was, in the final hours of the Hitler government that Himmler slinked away from Berlin as soon as he decently could after Hitler’s birthday, making for Flensburg, the HQ of the newly minted Donitz government. Stripped of all rank and office by Hitler (who had learned of Himmler’s overtures to the Red Cross), he hoped to offer his service and expertise to post-war Germany. The former Reichsfuhrer-SS believed that he would be instrumental in the creation of a stable post-war state. After being summarily rejected by Donitz as unsuitable for any role in the new government, Himmler fled with some other SS men. Donning an eye patch, and disguising himself as a lowly NCOs in the Feldpolizei (who were being arrested as a matter of policy by the Allies) Himmler and his small team fled. Although Himmler boasted that the Allies would never find him, he didn’t last two weeks.
On May 22 Himmler, who was carrying a number of personal items engraved with the initials “RFSS” tried to get past a British checkpoint. With one glance at his forged travel documents which were stamped with the Gestapo’s official seal, “Heinrich Hitzinger’’ was arrested. The next day Himmler was taken to a deten¬tion center where he demanded to be presented to “the commandant,” to whom he whispered his real name. An initial strip-search failed to reveal his last possession – a cyanide capsule. When a doctor later tried to have a closer look at his mouth Himmler realized it was all over and bit down on the capsule and inhaled. Within moments, he was dead. Himmler was buried in an unmarked grave, like so many of his victims.