I saw today the life of Heinrich Himmler...not that I didn't know that much about him before, but here is an intimate picture of him through his own diary, the letters to his wife, the letters from his daughter only a child in the time, at the end of the war a teenager.

For me it was as in the BBC documentary: The Nazis a warning of history, an opportunity to see how populist tendencies, especially in the field of nationalism and proud about the uniqueness of the own "volk" (we and the others) could turn on the first sight decent men into mass murders. And yes the grand themes of the later Nazi ideology seem to be already present in his first years, his childhood, as appears from his intime diary.
I will comment it further tomorrow if some one is interested.
The difficulty however is that I have the documentary only in German once with German subtitles and once with French subtitles. But I think it will for Nielsen and Meles with the subtitles easier to follow, as one can always return to better understand a subtitle...






Kind regards, Paul.

Addendum to the previous.

I forgot to add a critique about the documentary.
http://www.faz.net/aktuell/feuilleton/medien/tv-kritik-der-anstaendige-himmlers-post-13308125.html

It is in German too but if someone is interested I can make a summary of it...
Nielsen?...

Kind regards, Paul.

There was, when I first moved to Chelmsford, an opticians (memory says Goebbels, but could have been Goering) run by the cousin of the better-known person of that name. I wonder about their history, but never found out much - just a short retirement piece in the local bi-weekly paper. I've often wondered if they, like Goering's brother Albert and William Hitler, could have thrown any light on any possible genetic quirk that led them down the path they followed if we had their DNA.

Gilgamesh of Uruk wrote:

There was, when I first moved to Chelmsford, an opticians (memory says Goebbels, but could have been Goering) run by the cousin of the better-known person of that name. I wonder about their history, but never found out much - just a short retirement piece in the local bi-weekly paper. I've often wondered if they, like Goering's brother Albert and William Hitler, could have thrown any light on any possible genetic quirk that led them down the path they followed if we had their DNA.

Gilgamesh,

"could have thrown any light on any possible genetic quirk that led them down the path they followed if we had their DNA."

that lead us again to the never ending debate of "nature versus nurture". There too I was in several discussions on different boards what was heritidary and what was due to the environment in which the individual was raised.
The latest that I heard from the academics (studies on monozygotic twins and all that) was fifty fifty...of course that are averages and in that total number there can be peaks and dales...

To return to Heinrich Himmler and the other Nazi celebrities even Hitler...

I tried to take part in discussion as for instance: was Hitler mad (one historian start from his stay in hospital during WWI)(even on the French forum vitriolic exchanges and bans from even a French historian).
Some (was it Kershaw?) have made in my opinion a more equlibrated approach. Hitler was a child of that particular time and became influenced by the roots of the later Nazism as the eugenics, the race characteristics of the people of a country, the need for Lebensraum, which were all present at the end of the 19th century. And bit by bit Hitler made it his own theories and became convinced that he had a mission: to bring that German "volk" into that perceived by him endstate of dominance in Europe (continental Europe) with the "Arians" as Herrenvolk. Of course that was a "nationalistic" point of view and all what was "international" was the ennemy.
And once that he discovered his oratory talents to convince a public, he became more and more convinced of bringing this mission to the people...
In the beginning of WWII all good and well, only the resistance of Britain was a minus, but then later on as in the Russian campaign, he lost more and more the contact with the reality...also some drugs administred by his personal doctor...

In my opinion, as in the documentary about Heinrich Himmler, it is a warning from history that a bureacrat can come to the highest posts in a dictatorship based on populism and then turn into a mass murderer.
I find that it is the duty of all people in a democracy to be alert to populism and to try to bring the minds to reality again...but yes that is perhaps wishful thinking...A Putin is doing it well again with his mix with the Orthodox church, the greatness of Russia in the international theatre and the national proud of being Russian...all voters that he will turn to vote for him...

Kind regards from Paul.