Heinrich Himmler was second in command of Nazi Germany’s Third Reich, subservient only to the Fuhrer himself—Adolf Hitler. Himmler rose in power from a simple chicken farmer to become head of the Schutzstaffel—the dreaded black-shirted SS—and also chief architect of the Holocaust, responsible for the deaths of millions of people. The exact numbers will never be known, but it’s historically correct to say Himmler was one of history’s most prolific mass murderers.

Recently, a news article reported a collection of occult books from the Nazi regime being discovered in a Czech Republic warehouse. This revived the decades-old speculation that the Nazis, and specifically Reichsfuhrer-SS Heinrich Himmler, were obsessed with the occult and pursued black magic in their thirst for power.

Was this true? Or is it just one of many conspiracy theories that refuse to go away? To better understand Nazi interest in forces unknown, I tapped into historical records and got a fascinating look at Himmler’s motivation and mindset through the documented words of a truly evil man.

Here’s my internet-influenced interview with Heinrich Himmler.

Herr Himmler, is there any truth the Nazi regime, and you specifically, held a fascination with the occult and used it to aid your military and political goals?

The answer to that is “no” and “yes”. Yes, in that we investigated all sorts of myths, legends, and avenues of history in the pursuit of understanding our Aryan archeological and anthropological heritage. No, in that none of the core people within the National Socialism movement actually believed in witchcraft, spells, or any sort of black magical forces. I, myself, was the exception.

Please elaborate.

First, you must understand my background and how I rose to such height of position. I was born to a strict but well-educated Catholic Aryan family and had an intense interest in military service. I was too young to serve in World War One, however my brother was a decorated soldier who I both admired and felt jealousy of. I studied agronomy in a Munich Institute during the interwar time and became introduced to my Fuhrer, Adolf Hitler, who was organizing the National Socialist Party.

After the failed Beer Hall Putsch where my Fuhrer and others were jailed, I continued organizing the movement and became focused on the Jewish question as it was obvious, as my Fuhrer correctly identified, the Jews are a sub-human race and responsible for much of the hardship endured by the Germanic people—the true ones being of Aryan descent. Once my Fuhrer gained complete control of power—this would have been 1933—I was tasked to develop an elite force of genetically pure men to protect my Fuhrer’s internal security and to provide guardianship over racial purity for strengthening German ethnic stock in a Reich that was to last a thousand years.

One of the challenges in organizing such a force was to instill absolute loyalty and obedience in each man. Part of that was indoctrinating a sense of inherent pride in their Aryan roots and to establish a true map of their genetic history. Just as a tree withers if its roots are removed, so a people fail if they do not honor their ancestors.

To do this I founded an institute known as the Ahnenerbe to research the archeological and cultural history of the Aryan race. Part of the mission was to find new evidence of the racial heritage of the Germanic people and one of the avenues we followed was the folklore of occult tales.

As we investigated these stories, we found they belonged to specific undesirable groups like the Jews, the Gypsies, the Freemasons—I could go on, but what these groups had in common were being cults who organized for purposes not in alignment with Nazi interests. In fact, they were deemed to be threats to internal security and, therefore, it was necessary to know as much about their operations as possible.

This required more investigation into this so-called occult and, as we progressed, I took a particular interest in how their techniques could be used to my advantage in forging the mindset of my people within the Schutzstaffel and for the entire Aryan people. I would say that over the years, the intent and purpose of the general Nazi interest in the occult has been misunderstood and somewhat blown out of proportion.

Sounds like it was a handy tool, both external and internal.

Yes. Precisely. The mystique of the occult was another weapon in our arsenal.

It’s been recorded that Adolf Hitler claims to have had a personal experience with the paranormal. In fact, he documented this in his book “Mein Kampf”.

Yes, as my Fuhrer was recovering from a gas attack which temporarily blinded him in World War One, he experienced what he described as a “vision from another world”. This entity instructed my Fuhrer “to perform an act of creation, a divine operation, the goal of a biological mutation which will result in an unprecedented exaltation of the human race and the appearance of a new race of heroes, demi-gods, and god-men”. I believe it was my destiny to assist in this vision.

Hmmm. You speak of loyalty and obedience. How did that apply to your relationship with Hitler?

The motto of the SS was “My Honor Is Loyalty”. They are cardinal virtues and every SS-man swore an oath of obedience to our Fuhrer until death. I was tasked with being the praetorian guard, always at my Fuhrer’s service and unswervingly loyal to him. The Fuhrer was always right, whether the subject was evening dress, bunkers, or the Reich motorways.

So how far would you have gone to serve Hitler?

Let me put it as this. If my Fuhrer were to tell me to shoot my mother, I would do it and be proud of my Fuhrer’s confidence.

Harsh. How did you instill this in the average SS soldier?

I will quote from my speech to the SS Group Leaders in October 1943.

“It is absolutely wrong to project your own harmless soul with its deep feelings, our kind-heartedness, our idealism, upon alien peoples. Our principle must be absolute for the SS man: We must be honest, decent, loyal, and comradely to members of our own blood and to no one else. What happens to the Jews, what happens to the Russians, what happens to the Czechs, is a matter of utter indifference to me. Such good blood of our own kind as there may be among the nations we shall acquire for ourselves, if necessary by taking their children away and bringing them up to serve us. Whether other inferior peoples live in comfort or perish in hunger interests me only in so far as we need them as slaves for our culture; apart from that it does not interest me. Whether or not ten thousand Russian women collapse from exhaustion while digging a tank ditch interests me only in so far as the tank ditch is completed for Germany. We shall never be rough or heartless where it is not necessary, that is clear. We Germans, who are the only people in the world who have a decent attitude towards animals, will also adopt a decent attitude toward these human animals, but it is a crime against our own blood to worry about them and to bring them ideals”.

Okay. How did this mindset result in the Holocaust?

Your use of the word “Holocaust” is foreign to me. If you are referring to the Final Solution, then you must know this was a natural progression from the truth in Nazi ideology that the Aryan race is the master race and this has been guaranteed by human genetics. It stands that in order to progress, a culture must have unconditional liberation from the old social world of caste, class, and family and must proclaim its own law as springing unconditionally from the mere fact of belonging to a new community. To expand, we had to organize Europe economically and politically on a basis that would destroy all pre-existing boundaries with the New Order in the background. The extermination, not the expulsion, of the Jews was the proper solution to removing them from the lands necessary for Aryan expansion and to eliminate them as a threat to our Order.

Just who was responsible for developing the Final Solution?

I was tasked by my Fuhrer to implement an efficient plan to exterminate the estimated ten million Jews and other undesirables such as Gypsies, Jehovah’s Witnesses, political opponents, asocials, homosexuals, the mentally retarded, the recidivist convicts and incorrigible criminals who were of no use to our plan. The idea of mass extermination by way of Zyklon B gas occurred one day when I was witnessing an execution of several hundred condemned by the method of firearm. I observed inefficiency as well as possible psychological effects on the shooters from carrying out prolonged executions, not to say the time effects from individual terminations and grave burials. There was a need to carry the pace significantly faster and it occurred that mass-gassing and then incinerating on a production line scale would be much more efficient and effective. A rampant expansion of the killing was necessary. The Schutzstaffel, already under my control and command, was the proper vehicle for which to accomplish this, yet maintain secrecy.

Right. How were you able to “control and command” the SS.

You must take into account that we had systematically selected and conditioned these men for an eight-year period. They were of the highest discipline and instilled with the highest values of service. For example, here is a record of how I instructed them to act during the Final Solution.

“The wealth which they (the Jews) had, we have taken it for the betterment of our State. But we, ourselves, have taken none of it. SS individuals  who have offended against this principle will be punished according to an order which I issued at the beginning and which threatens: He who takes so much as a mark shall die. A certain number of SS men—not very many—will disobey this order and they will die, without mercy. We have the moral right, we have the duty to our people, to kill these undesirable peoples. But we have no right to enrich our personal selves by so much as a fur, a watch, or a cigarette, or anything else. I shall never stand by and watch the slightest rot develop or establish itself here. By and large, however, we can say that we have performed this task in love of our people. And we suffered no damage from it in our inner self, in our soul, in our character.”

Now I realize the SS was an elite unit with rigorous mental training to withstand carrying out the Holocaust,  but how was this applied to the average German soldier who had to round up and deliver the prisoners?

Exactly the same thing happened at forty degrees below zero in Poland when we had to carry off thousands and tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands when we had to be so hard—as to shoot thousands of leading Poles. When we had to be so hard, because otherwise vengeance would have fallen on us later. It is a great deal easier in many cases to go with a seasoned company into battle than to operate with an inexperienced company in some region suppressing a rebellious population at a low level of culture, carrying out executions, transporting people away, taking away howling and weeping women.

I’m going to put you on the spot. There were unspeakable experiments done to concentration camp prisoners. How in the world do you justify that?

Simply, I am a patron of science.

Truly enlightening. Some within your own party are on record describing you as a crackpot with a fascination in the occult and impractical projects to further your personal ambitions as being Hitler’s successor.

To the contrary. My strength lay in being an exceptionally capable organizer with a keen sense of selecting the right people and being able to properly motivate and reward them. I had a burning desire to serve my country, my race, and my Fuhrer. Moreover, I understood my SS men and knew how to secure their loyalty to myself, my Fuhrer, and to the rightful cause which was the movement of the Reich to secure its rightful place in the domination of Europe. Next to my Fuhrer, there was no one more capable of achieving this but myself.

Changing focus—what was the turning point in the Second World War? When did the tide switch when you Nazis were on such a roll?

The Battle of Britain. Had we aggressed a few more days, we would have destroyed the Royal Air Force and that would have taken the Commonwealth out of the war. They would have sued for peace and therefore the Americans would not have joined the European Theater. This was solely Goering’s fault. Hermann Goering. Goering poorly advised my Fuhrer while he pursued his own lavish and to that end Goering was responsible for treachery against the Reich and he was the triggering factor in the irreversible downfall of the Reich and the furtherment of the Germanic racial cause. Goering. Lucifer Goering was the Reich and my Fuhrer’s equivalent of the anti-Christ.

Looking back, what do you make of Adolf Hitler’s mental state?

Toward the end of the war, he was a tired and stressed man who was abandoned by many who he served. He was not well. But my Fuhrer rose up out of our deepest need when the German people had come to a dead end. He was one of those brilliant figures which always appear in the Germanic world when it has reached a final crisis in body, mind, and soul. Gothe was one such figure in the intellectual sphere, Bismark in the political—my Fuhrer in the political, cultural, and military combined. It was ordained by the Karma of the Germanic world that he should wage war against the east and save the Germanic peoples—a figure of the greatest brilliance was incarnate in his person.

Seventy years of history would argue that point.

History views in different ways, in different times, in different peoples. With great solemnity and effect, it is clear to me that my Fuhrer is a person who men will regard in centuries to come with the same reverence that they accord to Christ.

Herr Himmler, your military actions are certainly at odds with your Christain upbringing.

I dismissed Christain doctrine once I became aware the Supreme Deity had chosen the German people to rule the world and to achieve this was impossible by loving one’s enemy or turning the other cheek. The teachings of Christ are for the weak with no stomach to ensure the rightful survival of their sub-species. Aryan people are genetically proven to be the strongest sub-species and, to this cause, I dedicated my life to the service of my people and to my Fuhrer. I apologize to no one. Heil Hitler!