True Himmler, 7

THERE WAS ONE OVERHANGING PROBLEM, the growing left-wing unrest in Bavaria. The army might soon have him doing night patrols as a reservist. ‘Dear Mother, Dear Father,’ he wrote on November 6, 1919. ‘Today you get your promised letter. Thanks a lot for your dear packages. The one with coat and fur jumpers arrived this morning. Gebhard collected the other at the post office this afternoon. Again, dear Mother, thanks a lot. After all, your boys are a bothersome pair. The possibility exists that they will call us up in a few days’ time…’

After adding a breakdown of their expenses, he asked for more cash. ‘Then Mother, we would like to for the following with our next laundry parcel (but there is absolutely no hurry): 1. smokes for Gebhard, 2. a little green cover for the travelling suitcase, 3. wax paper to wrap sandwiches, 4. Gebhard’s electric flashlight, 5….’ Such letters are hard to paraphrase, but they provide much we need to know about Heinrich Himmler at this time.

After his recovery from illness he went to confession twice: he found himself thinking impure thoughts about women. He had begun cautious friendships – primarily with Ludwig’s girl, Maja Loritz and also with Louisa Hager, the daughter of trusted family friends; her mother evidently approved, as the two females came round and joshed him. ‘Friendship? Love?’ pondered Himmler in his diary. ‘Another step towards maturity. But I will stay indifferent.’

‘Then over to the Hagers for lunch,’ he confided on October 20, 1919, the day he registered at the Polytechnic: ‘Mama Hager was as nice and kind to me as ever. Afterwards we talk about private dancing lessons.’ Louisa resorted to tears, every woman’s last resort. ‘Floods of tears from the poor thing. I felt really sorry for her. She does not realise how pretty she is when she cries. I escorted her to the streetcar, then went to the State Library and read up on the war of 1812. From four to five o’clock I sat in on a lecture at the Veterinary School.’ Louisa went to Communion every day, and she shot up in his esteem. ‘This really was the best thing I have heard this last week.’ Most evenings after lectures, which began on November 3, the four friends went to concerts or an indoor swimming pool. Heini found it difficult to juggle these two females, Maja and Louisa. With Maja he visited the theatre and talked about religion; he wrote rapturously, ‘I think I’ve found a sister.’ Less innocently perhaps, he was thrilled that she hooked her arm in his, as they went for a stroll with Gebhard and his girl. But Heini was plagued with irritation about Louisa – and twice he lamented in his pages, ‘She won’t let her hair down.’

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