Assess Himmler’s role and significance in WWII conflict Essay

Himmler fueled by his extreme racial ideology of the destiny of a Great German Empire and his rooted hatred for Jews was one of the key mechanisms for which established his role and significance within the conflict of WWII as the architect of genocide through the propagandistic manipulation of the SS mentality in calcifying them against the sheer immorality of the elimination of the Jews. His philosophical belief of the war as a struggle of races nevertheless were occasionally compromised by the necessity of military personnel towards the end of the war and economic necessities which the Jewish population had the potential of providing. This leads to his role in directly implementing policies to fund the SS and thus ensure its ongoing influence throughout the war, as well as assisting the war effort through forced labour over building roads and canals. Despite this, Himmler’s key contribution to the nature of the war was the elimination of the Jews. Himmler throughout the course of WWII maintained the fundamental and powerful racial ideology of the superiority and inevitable conquest of the Germanic-Nordic. The rooted hatred of Jews was the ultimate racial and ideological foe of Hitler, as he stated himself in a speech in 1943 to the SS â€Å"This is a struggle of races.† It is through this belief of the war as a means of conquering a racial enemy and through such asserting German power with Lebensraum provided the basis for which established Himmler’s role within the conflict as the man who significantly orchestrated the attempted extermination of the Jewish race. The genocide which Himmler facilitated in implementing was the expression of one of Hitler’s key war aims to conquer the Jewish threat, and assert racial superiority of the Aryan race, of which Himmler undoubtedly shared and was, delegated the task of administering the racial polices. Thus, Himmler monitored a campaign of which involved his own private army, designed to wipe out the enemies of Nazism behind the lines- that is, in the Eastern areas already conquered by the troops. The need for the future was to incorporate all the Nordic peoples into the Germanic Reich and eliminate those who were alien and inferior of which did not only comprise of Jews but also Mongols and the Asiatic race. This resulted in the ghettoisation and eventual resettlement of Jews, for example in 1942 Himmler ordered the total resettlement in concentration camps of the Polish Jews of which ultimately resulted in over three-quarters of the Warsaw Gehtto’s inhabitants being transported to Treblinka, the death camp. As a main architect of Genocide, he established Auschwitz which resulted in the mass extermination of two million Jews. Therefore, a large part of Himmler’s significance was his ability to implement into practice the mentality and ideals of Hitler and consequently be responsible for the enormity of human deaths and genocide. Himmler was also given the instruction to and was responsible for the Germanisation of conquered territory which consistent of his obsession with racial superiority inherently involved the elimination of unassimilable races. In Holland, Himmler’s deportation orders removed almost three-quarters of the Jewish population. In Yugoslavia and Greece, the proportion of Jewish losses by deportation was extremely heavy. The attempted racial cleansing of conquered- foreign nations demonstrate Himmler’s role within the conflict as not only attempting to eliminate an entire race, but also forcefully imposing Nazi racial ideologies and interest upon other nations, regardless of whether they had being won over by anti-semitism, as Italy had not being. This was done with the intent of fulfilling the racial aim of the war and the attainment of Lebensraum for which provided resources for the war effort and a step towards fulfilling Himmler’s goal of a powerful German-Nordic Empire. Himmler’s ideological standpoint played an important role not only in his implementation repression and murder against Jews but it was also a means of which Himmler hardened the SS psychologically to withstand the atrocities in implementing genocide. He offered the troops a vision of racial conflict throughout history in which the Jews played a critical part. Furthermore, through propagandistic speeches he accentuated the racial hated of the SS and compelled his men to realize the notion of murdering one’s own race if they don’t efficiently implement his policies of extermination through labour as â€Å"because if the anti-tank ditch is not dug, German soldiers will die†. Also, in order to ensure the efficiency in the implementation of his polices Himmler addressed commanding officers of the SS divisions where he spoke of the great fortress of Eurpoe of which they were privilege to defend and increase. Therefore, throughout the war Himmler’s role, specifically within the holocaust involved psychologically motivating and hardening his subordinates and those implementing the act of genocide through the propagandistic delivery of his own racial and philosophical ideologies, imposing them upon others and calcifying them against the atrocities they would implement. Himmler’s role in boosting the ‘morale’ of the SS was crucial to the extent of the exterminations. Furthermore, Himmler was significant in the establishment of death camps and labour camps which irrevocably set in motion the Final Solution, the systematic elimination of Jews, gypsies and homosexuals of Eastern Europe. Though Auschwitz was HImler’s principal death camp which consumed two million Jews, there were others in Poland and Russia at which the organized gassing and shooting of Jews, Slavs and gypsies took place during the years 1942-44. The policy was extermination through work for those prescribed as medically fit for labour, immediate extermination for the ill and old. Thus, the policy for mass extermination of Jews was combined the economically related interest of compelling the Jews to work to death in the prospect of the labour used for German’s war efforts. In addition, Himmler’s realization of the economic necessities has resulted in the outright sale of Jewish liberties. At the end of 1942 he financed an entire SS division in Hungary by the sale of emigration permits to Jews. As Padfied concluded, Himmler was in favour of compromise with his policy of extermination in certain cases where the financial gain far exceeded the disadvantage of the survival of certain Jews. Furthermore, Himmler’s interest in contributing to the overall national interest of contributing to the war effort through forced labour and his willingness to compromise his racial ideologies to serve practical economic necessities such as the maintenance of the SS demonstrates the notion that in addition to being the architect of genocide, he was also responsible for ensuring the continuous functioning of the SS and the somewhat limited products of forced labour, as a means of extermination. Nevertheless, maintaining an effective and operational SS was crucial to the success and extent of the extermination policies. Therefore, despite Himmler’s nuance in compromising racial ideals by selling Jewish liberties as in this example, the overall interest that underlines his motivations continue to be the fundamental philosophical belief of the unassimilability and danger of the Jewish race and the need for extermination in a war described by him in a 1942 speech as â€Å"a struggle of race†. The impact of Himmler’s racial policies of genocide affected the nature of the war in that it is one which involved the systematic elimination of a race, as it is not just the outcome of total war, which Himmler claimed it to be in 1944 but also it was inherently a part of a nation’s purpose to the war and the means of achieving a philosophical and ideological goal. However, Himmler’s role within the war was not limited to the question of race, by 1943 due to the fall of Stalingrad and reverses in Africa, Hitler allowed for the expansion of the Waffen SS. Thus, by 1943, short on German SS personnel Himmler recruited 8 new divisions of men of which none were of German racial origin. For example, Bosnian Moslems were recruited and an entire SS division of anti-Bolshevist Ukrainians were formed. The effectiveness of these SS divisions in serving the needs of the German army varied however overall its inability to alter the direction of the war after Stalingrad and the expansion of Himmler’s military ambitions towards the end of the war demonstrate the somewhat limited significance he played to the overall outcome of the war. Furthermore, this can be seen towards the end of the war where Himmler under the pressure of both the advancing Russian army and Hitler’s rage drove him into retreat and lose regard for his armies, thus conducting a purge.