Himmler's Suicide Doesn't Make Any Sense

[Stubble]

I was listening to 𝔉𝔩𝔬𝔬𝔡 today and he was going over Himmler. He reviewed this David Irving oration. This is the first time I've ever heard the narrative of how Himmler committed suicide.



It doesn't make any damn sense.

[Archie]

I've moved this here. Stubble, can you give us a summary of the key points?

I watched that Irving speech a while ago. IIRC the main points are 1) the suicide capsules are large, around 2 inches, 2) the British reports say Himmler's capsule was confiscated when he was brought into custody, 3) it is unlikely that Himmler would have had a spare capsule in his mouth as, again, the capsules were large, and he was reported to have eaten in the car shortly before his death.

[Stubble]

You pretty much nailed it boss. Goes further.

Let's look at when he took it. I mean, that's pretty basically the wrong time. If the man were going to punch his own ticket it wouldn't have been exactly when he was being searched for the instrument of suicide, would it? He had every opportunity before capture and before the search. He didn't do it. Then he magically has a massive cyanide pill in his mouth no one can see and manages to off himself with it, then, his nose gets broken or whatever?

Then there is the guard interview where he speaks in American English. Why? Why is the guard speaking in American English?

Then there is the evidence of a beating.

I'm pretty sure he died during an interrogation 'gone too far' because he wouldn't answer the questions 'the right way'.

While there is a lot I disagree with Irving on with regard to The H, here, I think he makes a compelling case about Himmler's suicide.

(Sorry for putting this in the wrong section, it does fit much better here).

[Archie]

An image of an SS suicide capsule.



The metal casing is 46 mm.

It would be good to confirm the documents he references. Maybe they are available at his archive site?
viewtopic.php?t=655

[Archie]

Incidentally, the whole suicide-capsule-in-a-false-tooth thing that you see in spy movies is mostly a myth. Spies and pilots were sometimes given suicide capsules but they were usually just kept in the case or perhaps sewn into the clothes. You would only be able to hide it your mouth for a limited amount of time.

This article acknowledges the idea is pretty much a myth. But it seems to take the Himmler story as given.

https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/c ... s-not-real

“I think the reason it’s become such a popular pop culture trope is because there have been a number of people who have hidden cyanide capsules in their mouths, and certainly they use their teeth to use it,” says Vince Houghton, curator at the International Spy Museum in Washington, D.C. “Himmler’s a good example of this. Actually there are a lot of Nazis that chose that way out.”

So the scenario that is envisioned must be that Himmler ditched the casing and had the ampule in his mouth (presumably for many hours) and bit it when the doctor tried to look in his mouth.

[Stubble]

I mean, procedure was followed, he was stripped and given a blanket, then the Dr inspected him. He turns up dead, with a broken nose, of apparent suicide, after being arrested and, you know, not committing suicide...

Some sixty years later, Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler’s death remains shrouded in mystery.

https://archive.is/20230821062421/https ... n-mystery/

There, he was stripped and given a blanket to wear because he would not put on a British uniform before being medically examined by a British doctor. Once more the medic was looking for SS cough drops. Again, the British doctor found no sign of the so-called lethal pill. While Murphy listened, Himmler ranted how he was too important to deal with “underlings.” He wanted to talk to General Dwight D. Eisenhower, supreme commander of Allied forces in Europe. From that, he went on to the need for the Western Allies and the defeated Germans to band together to fight against the Soviet Union before it was too late.

Watching all this, the British doctor started to have second thoughts. Himmler was too confident, too smug. It was as if he still had some last ace up his sleeve. He stopped the interrogation and asked Himmler to come over to the window where there was more light. He wanted to look into the German’s mouth. It was then that Himmler must have realized the game was up.

As the medical officer put his finger into Himmler’s mouth and spotted the cyanide capsule, Himmler bit down hard. The doctor yelled and pulled out his bitten finger in the same instant that Himmler swallowed the contents of the hidden capsule.

While the guy is talking, intelligibly, with an entire fucking cigar butt in his mouth basically...

Who writes this shit...

Seriously, go put a 380 acp cartridge in your mouth and try to talk intelligibly. That's basically what we are talking about regarding size, and even proximate shape, ironically.

People can't even talk intelligibly with a cotton ball in their mouth, but this guy has an ampule the size and shape of a 380 acp in there and everybody is just, yup, he's so smooth and articulate, he has to have an ace up his, blanket I guess? Time to go stick my finger in his mouth...

[Hektor]

Incidentally, the whole suicide-capsule-in-a-false-tooth thing that you see in spy movies is mostly a myth. Spies and pilots were sometimes given suicide capsules but they were usually just kept in the case or perhaps sewn into the clothes. You would only be able to hide it your mouth for a limited amount of time.

This article acknowledges the idea is pretty much a myth. But it seems to take the Himmler story as given.

https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/c ... s-not-real

“I think the reason it’s become such a popular pop culture trope is because there have been a number of people who have hidden cyanide capsules in their mouths, and certainly they use their teeth to use it,” says Vince Houghton, curator at the International Spy Museum in Washington, D.C. “Himmler’s a good example of this. Actually there are a lot of Nazis that chose that way out.”

So the scenario that is envisioned must be that Himmler ditched the casing and had the ampule in his mouth (presumably for many hours) and bit it when the doctor tried to look in his mouth.

Let's translate the following to the Himmler case:

The next time you see some movie villain’s henchperson chomp down on a fake tooth to avoid being interrogated, keep in mind that it’s not him taking the easy way out—it’s the screenwriter...

'The next time that they tell you that Himmler did chomp down on a fake tooth to avoid being interrogated, keep in mind that it’s not him taking the easy way out—it’s those that push the narrative'.

If Himmler was bent on suicide, it's more likely he'd did so prior to being apprehended. Fake teeth have more issues than Joe Average thinks. And perhaps one should consider what the motive from the Allied side was. What would have happened if Himmler survived e.g. or would have been put on public trial? I think the Norman-Masur-Report on his meeting with Himmler can give you an idea what would have happened.

[borjastick]

Both Archie and Hektor are correct. The Himmler 'suicide' claim and story is at best fake news and in my own way of expressing it would say it is total bollocks. I have seen many times over my lifetime that any dictator or senior leader of a regime or enemy always ends up deaded. What the victor never wants is a living regime/enemy leader surviving and telling very uncomfortable truths to the world. So what happens? They get killed, strung-up, taken out the back and shot in the head or in Himmler's case 'committed suicide'. Don't buy it and never did.

[Wahrheitssucher]

.
WW2 history researcher Mark Felton made six Youtube videos looking at and analysing the death of Heinrich Himmler.

I haven’t found the time to watch all six episodes yet, so I can’t comment on them.

Interested individuals can watch all six in one video here:

[Wahrheitssucher]

.
Mark Felton’s very detailed video six-episode analysis of the inconsistencies and curious details of the official British narrative regarding Heinrich Himmler’s death, dealt with what he thought was Himmler’s last 24hours which were in British custody.

He has recently released a new video revealing it was actually “48 hours” as although the official narrative is that he was only knowingly in British custody for part of one day, that was a calculated deception.
Both of Himmler’s adjutants (who were arrested with him) revealed in their interrogations that they were apprehended and recognised on the 21st of May, NOT the 22nd.
That is also corroborated by the official dispatch of the Artillery Officer who was in charge of the checkpoint which apprehended him.
So why did the official narrative claim he was arrested on the 22nd of May?

This is yet further proof of Allied WW2 lies and deceptions.

The natural question is to ask why would the Brits need to lie about that.
The obvious answer is because they murdered him.

But the same question still persists. As, after the years of demonisation propaganda, plus Churchill giving permission to arrest certain top Reich officials “dead or alive”, who would have protested about that?

The answer appears to be revealed by the FACT that not a single word of the over 11 hours of interrogation of Himmler by numerous Intelligence and MI5 officers has ever been revealed. Not a single word! Nothing from one of the top three of the Third Reich hierarchy. (Hmmmm?)

The ONLY one who interviewed and recorded the viewpoint of Himmler at the end of the war was the joo working for the World Jooish Council, named Norbert Masur.
[See here: viewtopic.php?p=26628#p26628]
From that conversation it will be seen that Himmler calmly, intelligently and robustly refuted the holyH atrocity propaganda of a genocide of jooze by mass-gassings in ‘extermination camps’.
Presumably the Brits killed him because after talking with him over two days they were realised he was going to ruin their holyH, ‘atrocity propaganda’, PR campaign.

., .,. ,., .,

Here is a seventh episode by Mark Felton, with evidence he has recently found detailing some of the deceptions in the official British narrative:

[Wetzelrad]

WW2 history researcher Mark Felton made six Youtube videos looking at and analysing the death of Heinrich Himmler.

Irving's speech is very impressive, but Felton's video digs in a little deeper on Himmler's death, and he surprisingly doesn't shy away from any of the points Irving made, at least not the salient ones. It's a good presentation. Here are some key points.

Felton notes that the photos of the body were, in a sense, staged:

Spoiler

(00:40:24) The front parlor, unlike the official report and illustrations from the period, was unfurnished and freezing cold, the windows standing wide open.
[...]
(00:50:09) It was decided to photograph the corpse in situ and three men were involved in this. Sergeant Carl Sutton of the Army photography unit and Sergeant McCandle and Ken Gordon of Pathe News who were to shoot some film of the scene, the room now having been refurnished to make it appear more homely instead of an interrogation center.

There was also a glaring omission from the dentists during the postmortem exam. Broken glass shards were not noted:

Spoiler

(00:52:45) The army dentists examined Himmlers teeth, though their report seen here does not note any fragments of glass in the mouth that would have been present if Himmler had bitten down on a glass ampule of cyanide. This is a strange omission, and perhaps is evidence that the cyanide story wasn't yet quite right, or at least worked out by the intelligence officers.

When the body was later exhumed, it was somehow missing most of its teeth:

Spoiler

(01:00:35) It appears that some doubt had crept into the identification of Heinrich Himmler in May 1945, doubts that led to the decision to exume Himmler's corpse and conduct a second examination. The man chosen to conduct this examination was the highly experienced Dr. Ian Morris of Unit Number Two, War Crimes Commission [...] Incredibly, Morris was not given Dr. Bond's original postmortem report nor Colonel Brown's dental report. He instead had some German X-rays of Himmler's teeth.

But incredibly, most of Himmler's teeth were missing. As Colonel Brown's diagram shows, Himmler had all of his teeth when examined on the 25th of May, 1945. But at some time between then and his burial, most of them had been pulled out. Was this deliberate destruction of dental evidence to prevent identification of the body, particularly as the Soviets turned up with Himmler's actual dental chart for comparison? Dr. Morris could not really come to any conclusions regarding the identity of the body due to its state of preservation and missing teeth, meaning that the identification of the man who died in the front parlor at 31a remains contentious today.

Here's where Felton talks about how illogical Himmler's suicide was:

Spoiler

(00:42:03) The question is, why would Himmler have committed suicide at the point alleged by the official British report on the affair? This was the third physical search he had been given that evening, and he had been treated well, given food and drink, offered fresh clothing, and not abused in any way. It should be remembered that Himmler had voluntarily revealed his identity to the Allies, which seemed strange if he was planning to commit suicide. He had had plenty of opportunities to kill himself before his arrival: at 31a Uelzener Strasse, when he was first arrested on the bridge, the night he spent in the mill sleeping on grain sacks, when he arrived at Kolkhagen camp, during his interview with Major Sylvester, in the car ride to Luneberg with Colonel Murphy. It doesn't make sense.

I would guess the pushback to this is something like--Himmler revealed himself to the Allied authorities because he hoped to gain something from his identity becoming known, but then he was forced to use the cyanide capsule only because its discovery was imminent. I'm not sure that makes sense to me. Then again, criminals/fugitives often do desperate, illogical things.

Finally, here is Felton's treatment of alternative theories:

Spoiler

(00:42:49) It has been suggested that the man who died in the parlor at Uelzener Strasse was a double, but I find it hard to believe that all of Himmler's closest staff would have voluntarily accompanied a double into British captivity instead of escaping with their boss, especially as two of them, General Otto Ohlendorf and Dr. Gebhardt were wanted war criminals who would in due course be tried and hang for their crimes.

Various theories are currently abroad concerning what precisely happened to Himmler in that house in Luneberg, given that he was the most high-profile Nazi prisoner that the British had captured, Herman Goring having surrendered himself to the Americans.

Theory one is that Himmler committed suicide as the official report states by use of a concealed cyanide capsule in his mouth during Dr. Wells' medical examination.

Theory two is that the man who committed suicide was not Himmler but a double. And I've stated the reasons why I think this theory doesn't hold water.

Theory three, Himmler was forcibly given a cyanide capsule during the course of the examination in order that the British could claim that he had committed suicide. Why? Perhaps to protect certain important British politicians, perhaps also including Prime Minister Churchill from public humiliation if Himmler was allowed to publicly testify at the Nuremberg trials as he was privy as head of various police and intelligence services to secret negotiations allegedly made between the British and German governments in 1940 to 41 to end the war and also many other very embarrassing things involving British and even American intelligence services and the Nazis.

What truth there is in any of this is very hard to sort out due to certain archival sources still being classified or inaccessible to historians. Himmler certainly knew everyone's dirty secrets as he had spent years accumulating information through his spy networks and also his control over the Abwehr German military intelligence following the removal of spy master Admiral Wilhelm Canaris following the July plot. It cannot be discounted as a theory for several reasons. The primary one being the refusal of the British government to release all of its files on Himmler's capture and demise until 2045, 100 years after his death, indicating intelligence interest in the entire case and something that needed to be covered up.

Theory number four is a newish one, but not beyond the realms of possibility either. Several researchers suggest that company Sergeant Major Austin beat Himmler to death, and the suicide story was concocted to cover up this event. Austin would only have done such a thing if ordered to do so. I managed to obtain a full copy of Himmler's postmortem examination report, and in it the pathologist notes some abrasions on his heels. Himmler's nose was slightly bent to the right, and some facial asymmetry was noted on the corpse that was not seen in the photos of a live Himmler, but no injuries consistent with being beaten to death. I'm inclined to dismiss this last theory, as such a messy execution method would make it very difficult to make it look like suicide by cyanide.

Felton suggests Himmler might have been killed because he could have brought "embarassing" revelations to bare. I wonder if he considered that among those may have been a denial and refutation of the Holocaust. Even within the assumption that the larger narrative of the Holocaust is true, Himmler would have had much to deny, like the massive lies about Majdanek and Dachau that are now admitted as such. That alone could have been enough reason. Then again, we are all myopic about the Holocaust today, whereas in 1945 it did not loom so large over other events.

Here is a seventh episode by Mark Felton, with evidence he has recently found detailing some of the deceptions in the official British narrative:

This one hits much of the same material but in a punchier format. Felton's discovery that MI5 was involved but their presence hidden is explosive. However the video gets a bit derailed with speculation about MacDermot. Still, an excellent presentation for the first 30 minutes.