British archives reveal

British secret service did murder SS chief Heinrich Himmler
(to stop him talking to the Americans)

DOCUMENTS discovered in Britain's Public Records Office, Kew, London, confirm revisionist claims that Himmler was liquidated by the British secret service on Churchill's orders, and did not commit suicide shortly after his capture as conformist historians have long maintained.

WINSTON Churchill had long agitated in his War Cabinet for a secret plan to be approved between the Allied leaders ordering the execution without trial of a number of the enemy leaders, including Himmler.

Meeting at Hyde Park in September 1944, Churchill had readily persuaded Franklin D Roosevelt to sign on to this plan for lynch justice, but after Churchill carried the document to Moscow in October 1944 Joseph Stalin surprisingly refused to agree, insisting instead on proper trials for all enemy war criminals.

THE "silencing" of Himmler raises again the question of whether Churchill really had been negotiating with Himmler for nearly a year.   In August 1944 the head of the secret service showed him at least one document "from Himmler," and Churchill assured the secret service chief that after reading it he had safely destroyed it: 'Himmler telegram kept and destroyed by me. WSC.31.viii'. Hitler was evidently aware of what Himmler was up to, because on September 12 the Reichsführer discussed with Hitler "peace feelers to Russia or Britain.   A few days later, however, on September 18, 1944, the British intercepted a German intelligence signal that Himmler 'forbids by W/T (wireless traffic) all contact with English since their offers are bluff' -- as no doubt they were.

Rumours emerged last year that Churchill had personally ordered the alleged silencing of Benito Mussolini, and that the order had been handed by an SOE officer to Italian partisans soon after. Mussolini and his entire Cabinet were liquidated by machine gun squads without trial in the closing days of the war.

In April 1945, Himmler moved to northern Germany and began negotiations through his own Intelligence chief Walter Schellenberg and Count Bernadotte, the Swedish emissary, to end the bloodshed in Europe. The negotiations went through Sir Victor Mallet, the British minister in Stockholm. Stalin was by this time pathologically suspicious of any separate negotiations between the Allied governments and the Nazi leadership. Himmler was thus the repository of some awkward secrets when he fell into British hands in May 1945.

For a while Churchill was inclined to deal with him. Admiral Cunningham, Britain's First Sea Lord, visited Churchill on April 13, 1945 and wrote this startling passage in his diary afterwards:

"During our interview the PM mentioned that Himmler appeared to be trying to show that he wasn't so bad as painted & PM said if it would save further expenditure of life he would be prepared to spare even Himmler. I suggested there were plenty of islands he could be sent to."

Real historians have long doubted the conformist version of how Himmler died, namely that he obligingly swallowed poison when he realised the game was up.

Patient research revealed that the official files on his death had oddities, discrepancies, and inconsistencies: the autopsy performed on the corpse did not give the cause of death; a vital page had been retyped; there was no message in the files of 21 Army Group, Field-Marshal Sir Bernard Montgomery's headquarters, reporting the event to London. Whatever had been there, it had gone.

Now come documents from the Public Record Office (record group FO 800, file 868), which provide more than just a smoking gun. What is truly extraordinary is not so much that the conformists have willingly overlooked the inconsistencies for over sixty years but that those involved in, or aware of, the murder -- who included Prime Minister Churchill himself -- had kept quiet about it.

The documents:

 

The first, dated May 10, 1945 is a Personal and Secret letter on Foreign Office stationery from Sir John Wheeler-Bennett, later a noted Establishment and Royal historian, to the famous British agent Sir Robert Bruce-Lockhart, of the Political Intelligence Department off the Foreign office -- which conducted Black propaganda against the enemy:

Further to our meeting yesterday morning, I have been giving some serious thought to the little H. situation.

We cannot allow Himmler to take to the stand in any prospective prosecution, or indeed allow him to be interrogated by the Americans. Steps will therefore have to been taken to eliminate him as soon as he falls into our hands.

Please give this matter some thought, as if we are to take action we will have to expedite such an act with some haste.

Lockhart minuted two days later in handwriting: "I agree, I have arranged for Mr Ingrams to go for a fortnight. R B-L, 12/May/1945."

It is significant to note from the diary of General Dempsey, commanding the British Second Army in Northern Germany (PRO file WO/285/12), that on Monday, May 21 he visited both the detention camp at Westertimke and the German concentration area between Bremervörde and Stade. We know that Himmler and his two adjutants Macher and Grothmann had been arrested at Bremervörde on May 21, 1945, but -- so the story goes -- Himmler was not identified until they arrived at Westertimke on May 23, 1945.

The former Reichsführer SS was carrying a letter to Field Marshal Sir Bernard Montgomery, the British field commander (which has vanished). His only cyanide capsule was found in his clothing after he had been ordered to strip naked, and it was handed to Michael Murphy, head of British Intelligence at the Second Army. According to The Illustrated London News story a few days later, a "second" capsule was surrendered to the medical officer at Himmler's final destination, the ominous house at No. 31a Ülzener Strasse in Lüneburg -- which raises a number of obvious questions.

After his identification, according to the official accounts, Himmler had answered questions, eaten a thick British Army sandwich, and been driven to the house in Lüneburg -- from which he emerged dead.

Although the British military files appear meticulous, even listing with suspicious detail every person present in the room at the moment of death, many facts did not fit into place.

The prisoner's nose had been broken, according to The Illustrated London News artist who sketched the body. How had he obtained the cyanide capsule he had allegedly been hiding in his mouth (let alone answer questions and bite into that sandwich)?

The capsule descriptions varied, and bore no resemblance to what the standard issue capsule actually looked like.

At 2:50 a.m. that night (it was now May 24, 1945) "Mr Thomas" wired from Bremen to the Foreign Office for Bruce Lockhart in a top secret code (jj jj jj jj is the clue: it was a one-time pad).

"Further to my orders we successfully intercepted H.H. last night at Lüneburg before he could be interrogated. As instructed action was taken to silence him permanently. I issued orders that my presence at Lüneburg is not to be recorded in any fashion, and we may conclude that the H.H. problem is ended."

Bruce Lockhart significantly noted on this telegram, "copy to PM" -- i.e., to Churchill -- "May 25".

Brendan Bracken, Churchill's obnoxious red-headed confidant, was also in on the action -- a war crime, despite Heinrich Himmler's dark record, as he was a prisoner of war who had surrendered to British custody.

"Mr Dear Top," he wrote on May 27 to Lord Selborne at the Ministry of Economic warfare, head of the SOE (PRO file HS series HS8/944),

"Further to the good news of the death of Little H, I feel it is imperative that we maintain a complete news blackout on the exact circumstances of this most evil man's demise. I am sure that if it were to become public knowledge that we had had a hand in this man's demise, it would have devastating repercussions for this country's standing."

Quite so: Britain's secret agents had secretly and criminally liquidated one of the most wanted men in history, for whose proper public trial and punishment the blood of millions of his victims cried out: and for no other visible reason than to conceal that for a few days toward the end of the war, Churchill had negotiated with him on peace terms.

"I am also sure [continued Bracken] that this incident would complicate our relationship with our American brethren; under no circumstances must they discover that we eradicated 'Little H', particularly so since we know they were keen to interrogate him themselves.

I am of the opinion that the special SOE/PWE Committee and team can now be dissolved, even though Mallet is still negotiating with W.S. [Walter Schellenberg] in Sweden. Perhaps you could let me know your opinion on this matter."

REAL historians will now need to do further work to identify the murderer, "Mr Thomas," and the part played by Robert Bruce-Lockhart, who was a principal figure in Britain's Black propaganda war together with Sefton Delmer.

Bracken ordered that all his papers be destroyed before his death. Bruce-Lockhart's diaries and papers are in the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, California; a sanitized edition of his diaries was published many years ago, and his papers have probably been weeded too.

It is known that when Himmler first established contact with the British, Churchill's initial response was to deal with him regardless of his reputation. But then the secret services stepped in. A fake communiqué was issued claiming that Himmler had offered to betray Hitler, and this caused much confusion and fury in Hitler's bunker in the last few days -- not to mention anguish to Himmler himself.

Himmler's Last Days

Until the last moment, he believed that he was to meet Montgomery, and when he took off his eye patch and identified himself as Himmler to the British camp commandant, he believed that he would be in the presence of the British commander soon after.

Instead, as Colonel Michael Murphy wrote in a handwritten report in an odd turn of phrase , "I therefore told him to dress, and wishing to have a medical search conducted, telephoned my G-II at my H.Q. and told him to get a Doctor to stand by at a house I had had prepared for such men as Himmler." This was the house from which Himmler emerged lifeless, wrapped in a blanket.

 

Now we know why.

 

From the files of the British Special Operations Executive, part of a series on Foxleys and Little Foxleys (assassination squads)......... There are several references to both Heinrich Himmler and his masseur Felix Kersten in the Foxley files; also present is a list of Sicherheitsdienst/SS personnel (including Walter Schellenberg, Otto Skorzeny, Heinrich Müller, etc., to be liquidated as little Foxleys) There is further a list of questions to put to Rudolf Hess in early 1945 about the situation in Germany and the suggestion that he be hypnotised to make him malleable. [In May 1944 the British used a truth drug on Hess, but failed to get anything out of him. [See David Irving, Hess, the Missing Years]. February 24, 1945 Six to eight thousand Russian tanks had been claimed destroyed since mid-January.  Still the General Staff’s belief was that the Red Army’s next move would be the assault on Berlin—regardless of the danger from Himmler’s army group.  General Ritter Bruno von Hauenschildt was designated commander of the Berlin district.  He attended Hitler’s daily war conferences.  The city’s antiaircraft batteries were regrouped into tight clusters situated where they could also command the main approach roads. The very day proved Guderian’s experts wrong.  Instead of continuing westward toward Berlin, Marshal Zhukov turned north against Himmler’s army group in Pomerania.  ~David Irving, Hitler's War In the file HS 6/626 a document dated March 16, 1945 lists only four authorised targets for assassination: these are Josef Göbbels, Otto Skorzeny, Otto Ernst Remer and Bruno von Hauenschildt (no mention of Himmler). The Foxley Report - an assessment of a plan to assassinate Hitler towards the end of World War Two - gives a fascinating picture of covert British operations in the later war years. The intelligence historian Mark Seaman discusses whether the plan had any chance of success. Duncan Anderson considers what might have happened the plan  had gone ahead, and had succeeded.

 

London, Saturday, July 2, 2005 AS Ben Fenton reports today, allegations that British intelligence was responsible for the poisoning of Heinrich Himmler in 1945 were based on forged documents, apparently planted in folders in the National Archives [Public Record Office] at Kew. So these claims which have dragged so many reputations through the mud, are complete rubbish. Somebody, somewhere, wanted to plant the idea that Himmler, the head of the SS, had been suing for peace between Britain and Germany since 1943, and that Winston Churchill was therefore terrified of allowing the Americans to interrogate him. The success of the forger's ploy opens up tremendous opportunities for us all to re-write history. We could all award ourselves dukedoms -- or the mineral rights to Yorkshire -- simply by slipping a fake document or two into the National Archives. On a whim, we could file a forged document recording the repeal of the European Communities Act, 1972. Or we could counterfeit the surrender of the American rebels to George III, giving the New World to the United Kingdom in perpetuity. This is, of course, precisely how totalitarian states operate. In George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-four, Winston Smith worked in a department dedicated to rewriting the past. It is deeply disquieting that somebody succeeded in corrupting files detailing such an important part of our history.