biography
| sex:
| male
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| lived:
| (1900–45)
|
| biography:
| German Nazi leader and chief of police, born in Munich, SE Germany. He began life as a poultry farmer, joined the Nazi Party in 1925, and in 1929 was made head of the SS (Schutzstaffel, protective force), which he developed from Hitler's personal bodyguard into a powerful Party weapon. With the help of Heydrich, he founded the SD (security service) in 1932. In 1936 he became chief of all the police services, including the Gestapo, and initiated the systematic liquidation of Jews. As head of the Reich administration from 1939 he extended his field of repression to all German-occupied Europe. In 1943 he became minister of the interior, and in 1944 commander-in-chief of the home forces. He ruthlessly put down the conspiracy against Hitler in the July Plot (1944), but a few months later was himself secretly negotiating German surrender to the Allies. Hitler expelled him from the Party, and Himmler attempted to escape. He was captured by the Allies (1945), and committed suicide in Lüneburg. |
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