The above image appears in Irving’s book with this footnote: ‘Heinrich Himmler preserves the certificate recording his First Communion until the end.’
THE PLEASURES WHICH MADE those evenings ‘unforgettable’ also helped young Heinrich Himmler overcome his tendency to adolescent depression . ‘First of all Maja sang, “A Woman’s Love and Sorrow.” She sang the verses with tears in her eyes. I don’t think Ludwig understands her, his Golden girl, but I can’t be sure of that. I just don’t get him. Later Gebhard and Kathe played the piano.’ Kathe Loritz – also Maja – was Ludwig Zahler’s girl, and later his wife. ‘Ludwig and I shared an armchair. Marielle [Lacher] and Maja sat on the floor clinging to us both. We all cuddled, partly in love and partly in a fraternal embrace. It was an evening I won’t easily forget.’
He felt sorry for poor Maja, he wrote on November 5, 1919; and two days later there was more of the same: then he sermonized to a hidden congregation in his diary, ‘Yes, it’s true: Mankind is a wretched creature. Restless is the heart, until it rests with Thee, 0 Lord [see my comment in the comments section - Editor]. How powerless are we, we can’t help it. I can but be a friend to my friends, do my duty, work, struggle with myself, and never allow myself to lose control.’ After just a month living among educated youngsters like himself, he was beginning to question everything. Louisa no longer excited him. On Sunday morning he went to the cathedral for Mass and the sermon, and then over to her family, the Hagers: ‘Louisa was nice enough, but not the way I like.’ He spent a cheerful evening after that with Maja’s family. ‘Today I have by and large regained my spiritual balance. God will help me forwards.’
Thus as he plunged into the world of agriculture an inner turmoil began, between the strict religious doctrines impressed upon him by his parents, and the unfamiliar chemistry of student life and adolescence. ‘I work,’ he wrote on November 11, i919, ‘because it is my duty, because I find peace in work; and I work for my Germanic ideal of womanhood with whom I shall one day live my life and fight my battles as a German in the East, far from my beloved Germany.’ One evening a hypnotist came round to the Loritz household and tried his black art on them. ‘I summoned up all my powers of resistance,’ boasted Heini. ‘Obviously it did not work with me. But it did totally with poor little Maja. I felt so sorry for her when I saw her go under. I could have strangled the dog in cold blood. I worked against him where I could. . . His mind-reading was very good, but I think anybody capable of concentrating could do it with sufficient practice. I instinctively disliked the fellow, I hate this whole swindle; it only comes off if you go along with him.’
He loved Maja’s eagerness to help; she made a fair-copy in twenty pages of neat handwriting for him of his zoology paper, and repeated the drawings with great care. A day or two later he helped her with her math, and ‘she thanked me very much – (he drew a careful line, and did that again the next day). His heart in a whirl, zerwühlt, he wrote that Friday evening: ‘Then over to the Loritz’s for a meal. Maja was very nice – and there was the line again. (Those who research in private diaries know not to ignore such signs.)
He was still acquiring social graces. That included taking lessons in ballroom dancing, which he loathed as only a nineteen-year-old can. ‘Diary, November 15, 1919: From eight to ten at dancing-class.’ – and here he inserted three [iron] crosses. ‘All beginnings are hard,’ he added, using a German aphorism, ‘but I’ll get the hang of it. Dance classes seem pretty pointless to me, and just a waste of time.’ ‘What a disgusting fraud it all is,’ he commented. ‘But I’ll be glad once I’ve learned to do it, and I can dance with whoever takes my fancy.’ ‘If I could only look danger squarely in the eye,’ he added in one entry, ‘risk my life somewhere, fight, that would be a real liberation for me.’
___________
Irving’s book can be purchased on his website.
One reply on “True Himmler, 8”
Although Himmler started as a Christian, he turned pagan a century ago.
That turn couldn’t contrast more with the racial right that celebrates Trump’s victory: a politician who, like Kamala, obeys the Jewish lobby.
I’ll put it bluntly even if it offends my northern neighbours: If you want to save your race you must repudiate your culture and affirm only your DNA. A good way to do this is to obtain Irving’s books and abandon all admiration for any politician born in the US (Canadian racialist Sebastian Ronin was right about this).