Heinrich Himmler Character Analysis in Ordinary Men

The notorious head of the SS and chief of the German police, Heinrich Himmler is one of Adolf Hitler’s closest advisors and one of the masterminds of the infamous Final Solution. To this day Himmler has a reputation for having been exceptionally sadistic, cruel, and calculating in the way he meticulously planned and instigated violence and mass murder against European Jews during World War II. Himmler personally chose Odilo Globocnik to oversee several Polish extermination camps and to make the central zone of Poland (known as the General Government) judenfrei. Like Globocnik, Himmler falls into the category of what Christopher Browning terms a “desk murderer,” meaning that Himmler was responsible for a lot of the paperwork and bureaucracy behind the violence that other people, including the men of Reserve Police Battalion 101, were ordered to do. This creates physical and psychological distance between Himmler and the violence that resulted from his orders (at least when he chose to remain physically distant), but his enthusiasm and zeal for his job reveal him to be extraordinarily callous about human life, a man who quite enjoyed having the power to wipe out thousands of people just by signing a piece of paper.

Heinrich Himmler Character Timeline in Ordinary Men

The timeline below shows where the character Heinrich Himmler appears in Ordinary Men. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.

Nationalism, War, and Ethnic Cleansing Theme Icon

When Heinrich Himmler becomes chief of the German police in 1936, he establishes two new police branches: the... (full context)

...chain of command—for any operations involving the Order Police working with the SS—runs up to Himmler. Himmler selects a “crony” of his—Odilo Globocnik, known for corruption and brutality—to oversee the Lublin... (full context)

...who so much as gives the military a dirty look. In response to Hitler’s statement, Himmler adds thousands more SS and Order Police to the Einsatzgruppen and personally urges them to... (full context)

...July and seems to have been instigated by the top members of the SS: Heinrich Himmler, Kurt Daluege, and Erich von dem Bach-Zelewski. The action is carried out by Police Battalions... (full context)

...to disprove certain claims from Order Police leadership. One disproven claim is that Daluege and Himmler provided the Order Police for guard duty, but never as executioners. The documentation clearly points... (full context)

...place. Several months later, the battalion begins to carry out resettlement actions as part of Himmler and Hitler’s plan to repopulate large areas of Poland with “pure” Germans. The battalion contributes... (full context)

At some point in the summer of 1941, Himmler tells Globocnik about Hitler’s plan to murder all the European Jews and puts Globocnik in... (full context)

...they are the largest pool of manpower at Globocnik’s disposal. Additionally, Globocnik gets permission from Himmler to recruit Ukrainian, Latvian, and Lithuanian prisoners of war to help. These units are called... (full context)

Erntefest is the climax of Himmler’s mission to obliterate the Polish Jewry. After the ghetto deportations in May 1943, the only... (full context)

...Jews so heavily devalued in this indoctrination that the men felt justified in killing them? Himmler was a fan of propaganda because he wanted his men to be both good soldiers... (full context)