Categories: books
Date: 21 October 2009 18:47:35
I spotted this book in my little local library recently and borrowed it. The Himmler Brothers has a subtitle "A German Family History" and I think this is probably what attracted me to the book which has been translated by Michael Mitchell. (In the copy I borrowed this fact is obliterated by a library label...) (And while I'm on the subject of translation, I would say that it is well translated. The only busman's holiday I went on briefly was when there was an explanation about someone having changed his name at the end of the war to escape detection. A certain Richard Wendler changed his name to Kurt Kummermehr. It made me laugh because the next sentence said "He had assumed the name because he was afraid of being handed over to Poland and sentenced to death there." There is a wonderful irony in his choice of name because arguably Wendler could be related to the word "wenden" to turn or change and Kummermehr literally means "worrymore". Kummermehr as a name in itself is not as unusual in German as it would be in English - but the juxtaposition of his name and the fact that he was afraid struck me as being amusing... but I digress...)
Generally speaking, I think other people's lives are fascinating - and coupled with the ebbs and flows of politics, social fashions, developments and other outside influences, people's lives are after all what makes history. The Himmler family certainly had a major influence on the history of Germany starting from about 1920 - and the repercussions may be felt for decades yet to come.
Katrin Himmler, the author, is the great-niece of the famous chief perpetrator of the Holocaust and head of the SS, Heinrich Himmler. (His younger brother was her grandfather). She began her research in response to her father's request to find out more about his father, Ernst. As she began to dig through the archives, she discovered that the stories she had heard about her grandfather were not entirely true and she realised he was not quite the non-political family man she had understood him to be.
And yet, throughout the book, meticulous though it is in describing the facts relating to the Himmler family, the boys' childhoods, their parents, their careers and friends, I never really felt to get under the skin of these people. Perhaps it is not possible in some ways but Ms Himmler seems to restrict herself to the facts and we never really understand her family members' motivation for their actions. Of course, one explanation is the patriotic feeling for restoring the country's standing in the world after its defeat in WW1 and the humiliating terms of the Treaty of Versailles. There is, however, no real explanation of why the family personally felt so driven to such extremes to take the action they did. As respectable middle-class German Catholics, there is no mention of whether their religious morals might have preyed on their minds when viewing fellow Catholics (Poles) or fellow human beings (Slavs, Jews, etc) as being so inferior. At the end, the author's grandmother claims that her husband, Ernst, was "a victim of his brother" (Heinrich) although she was very proud of being related to one of the most powerful men in the Nazi hierarchy when the circumstances were more favourable towards her. The narrative has moments when it starts to fly and these seem to be when the author is talking on a more personal level, in my opinion, but sometimes it is a bit of a slog trying to keep up with all the details about wives, children and mistresses, not to mention the ins and outs of the lives of friends and colleagues - the inclusion of which is sometimes questionable.
It must be one of the hardest tasks in the world to lay bare the skeletons in your family closet and, when you belong to one of the most feared and hated families in recent history, it must be almost paralysing to face the enormity of what has happened. Ms Himmler admits that she experienced feelings of immense guilt and at times found it hard to continue. She was incredibly brave to continue with her work. And we learn that she is not only delving into her difficult family past just for her father or for herself but for her son. Katrin Himmler's partner is an Israeli Jew whose father survived the war in Poland; she is the great-niece of Heinrich Himmler. Their son will grow up to find out that one side of his family was hell-bent on destroying the whole of the race that the other half of his family belongs to. I hope this book helps him understand something - but what a task. Historians have spent the past 60-odd years trying to understand what went on. Although we have the facts and can start to piece it all together in our heads, I'm not sure anyone will really ever understand with their heart. So that is one tough future facing Katrin Himmler's son.