(Secret State Police
). Serving as Reichsführer
and later as Commander of the Replacement (Home) Army and General Plenipotentiary for the entire Reichs administration (Generalbevollmächtigter für die Verwaltung), Himmler rose to become one of the most powerful men in Nazi Germany as well as one of the persons most directly responsible for the Holocaust.
As overseer of the concentration camps, extermination camps, and Einsatzgruppen
(literally: task forces, often used as killing squads), Himmler coordinated the killing of some six million Jews
, between 200,000 and 500,000 Roma, many prisoners of war, and possibly another three to four million Poles, communists, or other groups whom the Nazis deemed unworthy to live
or simply "in the way", including homosexuals, people with physical and mental disabilities
, Jehovah's Witnesses
and members of the Confessing Church
.
Ich bin Heinrich Himmler. (I am Heinrich Himmler.)
The best political weapon is the weapon of terror. Cruelty commands respect. Men may hate us. But, we don't ask for their love; only for their fear.
I still lack to a considerable degree that naturally superior kind of manner that I would dearly like to possess.
My honor is my loyalty.
In the brief monthly reports of the Security Police, I only want figures on how many Jews have been shipped off and how many are currently left.
Anti-Semitism is exactly the same as delousing. Getting rid of lice is not a question of ideology, it is a matter of cleanliness. In just this same way anti-Semitism for us has not been a question of ideology but a matter of cleanliness.
I hope to see the very concept of Jewry completely obliterated.