In many ways Heinrich Himmler is the depiction of a perfect historical villain. A chief Nazi and a key player in the mass murder of millions of human beings in the name of State policy and the religious ideology of Nazism. Towards the end of the war, as it was obvious that Germany was losing their was a softening in his self-image in the hopes that should he take over from Herr Hitler, then he could sue for peace with the Allies or should he be captured by them, then they would see a humanity in him. He did some easing back on mass killings in areas, showing a mercy of sorts for some. Breaking the law, to save his legacy and perhaps life.
There was a humanity in him. Like all of the architects of genocide and their killers, they were not monsters but real people like their victims. It’s easy to forget that. To dehumanise them, removes them from being like us. To segregate them from ourselves is how history tends to rhyme. The power was with men like Himmler and in the infrastructure, but above all else the belief in authority that allowed them to pillage and murder on such an industrial scale that it became historic.
The above fixed image is of Himmler with his fellow SS officers inspecting a boy in Belarus on 15 August, 1941. The Nazi fetish for race was such that men of importance took it upon themselves to inspect children to determine their racial stock. Those deemed acceptable were kidnapped and adopted into the Reich. Those inferior to suffer in starvation, slavery or death.
Not new to the Nazis, the inclination to take boys and turn them into slaves or warriors is an ancient privilege of tribes and governments throughout history. To base this on a form of ‘science’ born from Darwinist theories, Eugenics and the then modern sciences of psychology and genetics made the Nazi’s feel superior and certain.
There is a tale of Himmler visiting one of the many death camps, a starving young boy peering through the barb wire as the well dressed and generously fed officers walked near. Himmler noticed the innocent child, empathetic and with an inclination as a human man to wrest him free from such bondage and the inevitability of slaughter. Asking the child of his racial background, the boys answer the determining factor in his fate. Himmler asked many questions, in the hopes of finding some salvation for the child. Upon learning that the boy was a full Jew, Himmler answered, “Then I can not help you.”
Witnesses claim that there was pain in Himmler’s answer. The ideology of the Nazi State was such, that not even Himmler could make an exception. So, with millions of others that little boy was murdered. It was after all the law.
Another Jewish boy had a more fortunate fate among the killers. He became a mascot of sorts, adopted by the Nazi’s who paraded him about, dressing him in martial costumes to use him as a prop for film and photos. He survived the war. Alex Kurzem, also from Belarus was taken in by the Nazi’s who assumed him to be a Russian orphan. Just six at the time, he had given them a false name. Despite the certainty of their racial sciences, the Nazi’s had decided that this little boy was not only worth saving but also should be made famous. He was cute and looked to be of good racial stock.
The National Socialist government had various rules and levels of grading to determine whether one was of a particular race. It is one of the key aspects of their ideology that separated them from other collectivist movements at the time. It was not that they were merely class or nation based in their supremacy but racialist to the point of religion.
In one of his last public appearances Adolf Hitler can be seen smiling as he awards medals to German boys, who were defending Berlin, ‘to the last.’ In the most desperate moments, those who would so easily execute boys, enslave them or even embrace them as mascots, those with power, just as easily cower in their final moments behind the boy soldiers as they defend a collapsing empire.
In war time, or when desperation strikes the masters of government and their eager killers will and do, easily kill children, especially boys. Ever notice that only, women and children (girls and boys under ten) are considered innocence. From the ages ten and up, in the modern era, ‘if they are able to hold an AK,’ then they can be claimed a militant or terrorist. They can have their arms smashed, as preemptive punishment for throwing rocks at armoured vehicles. Boys are blown to pieces by drones, press ganged into slave soldiery by cultist rebels and for men like Himmler they can exist as flesh and blood human beings who, despite their innocence can not be saved. The law, is after all the law.
And even when there is no law in place, those protected by it can just as easily kill them with such ease. It’s after all, so we are told, war. A small boy selling bottled water on the side of the road can have his throat slit or another his skull mashed in by the butt of soldier’s rifle, it’s after all war. And war gives great exceptions, even when it’s not even declared. It exists as a special status allowing arbitrary execution by policy enforcers. The voting and dependent public, so long as welfare and bullshit jobs exist, so long as real estate stays high and the trains arrive on time allow for it, it’s always happening over there.
The hubris of such thinking did not save the National Socialist state, despite their certainty and confidence, the intricate laws, the educated populace and mechanised work force, the faith in sciences, it collapsed fast. Taking with it millions of lives. The men who would kiss little boys, save their lives, can smile with them and love their own sons but in the end, such men, are no different to any of you. Maybe, just like them you, under the right circumstances, outside the mundane also love your government, your nation, perhaps race so much that you would kill innocent people. Or, is it just the hating them, whoever they happen to be, is all that it takes. Not love of a thing, just hatred. When hatred is law or policy, good people are capable of doing very evil things.
Alex Kurzem survived because he lied to authority. Those other little boys, they told the truth and obeyed authority, the architects and enforcers of law killed. Not just one, but as many of them that they could. Because they obeyed, millions died.
