In 1945, the Nazis had no illusions - they lost the war. Himmler, in order to save himself, made a peace offer to the Allies. His betrayal sealed Hitler's fate.
Heinrich Himmler, Reichsführer-SS and Hitler's right-hand man took the first steps towards peace negotiations with the Allies at the beginning of 1945. Against the will of his leader - because the Chancellor of the Third Reich, even in the face of the crushing news coming from all fronts, did not intend to give way. He admitted the possibility of a separatist peace with the Soviet Union. But he intended to continue the war against England "with all energy and ruthlessness." Meanwhile, Himmler was of quite the opposite opinion. Goebbels noted in his diary:
Reason tells him that we have little chance of winning this war by military means, but his instincts tell him that a political path will open in the long run and that we can still turn the outcome of this war to our advantage. Himmler sees this possibility in the West rather than in the East. He believes England will go to her senses and take care of hers, although I rather doubt it. Himmler's analysis shows that he is completely focused on the West and expects nothing from the East.
10,000 concentration camp prisoners
During this time, the rift between Hitler and his right hand grew ever deeper. The Führer blamed Himmler for the defeat of the Vistula Army Group, which he commanded, in the confrontation with the Red Army. As he claimed, the Reichsführer-SS bears "historic blame for the fact that [...] Pomerania and a large part of the local population fell into Soviet hands." Himmler took refuge from his wrath in the Hohenlychen sanatorium. (Supposedly he went there because of "severe angina").
He took the first steps towards peace negotiations with the Allies Heinrich Himmler, Reichsführer-SS and Hitler's right hand man at the beginning of 1945.
The cup of bitterness was filled by the so-called band order. Well, Hitler, looking for a scapegoat in the face of the imminent defeat of the Third Reich, ordered the soldiers of the Waffen-SS division "Leibstandarte" to be removed with the inscription "Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler". It was supposed to be a punishment for defeats on the Hungarian front. However, he did not do it personally. He forced Himmler to issue a degrading command. In response, Himmler decided on his own to find a way to end the war by political means. As described by Peter Longerich:
In the previous weeks, he stuck to the idea of using Jewish prisoners as hostages , and it seems that the growing conflict with the Fuhrer strengthened his will to turn this project into a political mission. Since the Third Reich was waging a war against the Jews, the key to ending the war lay logically in the hands of the Reichsführer.
Himmler contacted secretly Count Folke Bernadotte, vice-president of the Swedish Red Cross. He declared that would release 10,000 Jews (mostly from Scandinavia) and hand them over to Sweden or Switzerland. Moreover, he promised that he would prohibit the further extermination of concentration camp prisoners. In this way, he wanted to win the favor of a diplomat and open the way for peace negotiations with the Allies. And by the way - save your own skin.
"Best wishes"
Evidence of Himmler's efforts to create a platform to get along with the enemy is also a letter he passed on to his personal doctor, Felix Kerten, in mid-March 1945. Kersten was to serve as an intermediary in contacts with the Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In a document he brought to Sweden, the Reichsführer-SS officially announced the release of 2,700 Jews. He also informed about sending a medical team to the Bergen-Belsen camp which was supposed to fight the typhus epidemic raging there. As he explained:
It is one hundred percent continuation of the course of my associates, which was the course I had followed for many years, until the war and the lack of sense caused by it meant that it was impossible to go this way any further.
The text was inspired by the latest book by Christopher Mraft, Adolf Hitler. My journal ”(Bellona, 2022).
Finally, he expressed the conviction that it is enough to refrain from demagogy and superficial judgments for human feelings and willingness to help to come to the fore , and added the formula:"Best wishes." Due to the fact that the world already knew about the Nazi crimes at Majdanek or Auschwitz, it must be said that Himmler's letter was simply… insolent. Well, the drowning razor grabs on.
Room proposal
The Reichsführer-SS also took more rational steps. On the night of April 20-21, 1945, he met with the representative of the World Jewish Congress, Norbert Masur. Interestingly, Himmler appeared for this interview immediately after returning from Hitler's last birthday. Peter Longerich describes the course of the meeting as follows:
Also this time Himmler played the role of a man of honor. In a long, explanatory speech to his Jewish guest, tried to defend and even enhance Nazi policy towards Jews. (...) Overall, Himmler seemed to be intelligent, educated and aware of the historical situation. (...) In the end, he declared to Masur that he was ready to hand over to the Red Cross over a thousand Jewish women from Ravensbrück, as well as smaller groups of prisoners of various nationalities.
Himmler entered into negotiations with the Allies to save his own skin. He also dreamed that after Hitler's death he would be the leader of the Fourth Reich
Two days later, the Reichsführer-SS asked Bernadotte to allow him to meet Eisenhower so that the Third Reich might surrender on the Western Front (at the same time, she was to continue fighting on the Eastern Front). The diplomat promised to fulfill his demand - provided that Norway and Denmark were also capitulated. However, he made the reservation in advance that the success of Himmler's plan was unlikely.
This is how tyrants end
As soon as it turned out, Bernadotte was right. The Allies vehemently rejected the offer of partial surrender. To make matters worse, informed the whole world of his unsuccessful attempts at peace negotiations. The international press published reprints of the Reichsführer-SS letter to the Swedish Minister of Foreign Affairs, Christian Günther, in which the former presented his proposal to surrender Germany. Himmler knew he was finished. This is how Nicholas Best described it:“Himmler was sweating, shaking all over with his barely hidden emotions, and was struggling to hold back tears. (...) he was convinced that he must take into account, at least, arrest, and even immediate execution. "
The Reichsführer-SS asked Bernadotte to allow him to meet Eisenhower so that the Third Reich might surrender on the Western Front
However, this did not happen. The Führer heard about the whole affair on April 29. Yes, he was furious. In his latest book Adolf Hitler. My journal Christopher Macht puts the following words in his mouth:
(...) another close political comrade of mine, Heinrich Himmler, also betrayed! (…) It will not continue like this! I will certainly deprive him of his membership in my party! This traitor cannot become the Führer! (...) The truth is that this is probably the end of the Third Reich. The betrayal of Göring and Himmler only reassured me that I would not be victorious in the fight against the Allied-Soviet alliance.
The dictator, locked in his bunker in Berlin, could do little. In his political will, drawn up on the eve of his suicide, he removed the Reichsführer-SS from the party and deprived him of all state posts. However, the repercussions ended there. The fate of Hitler and Himmler - as well as the fate of the entire Third Reich - was doomed. The former took his own life on April 30, 1945. The second followed in his footsteps less than a month later. On May 23, during an attempted interrogation by the British, he ingested cyanide. With him died his dreams of the Fourth Reich, the leader of which he wanted to stand after negotiating a peace with the Allies ... 