Himmler (Peter Padfield's Second World War)

by Peter Padfield

The course of the 20 July conspiracy seems to indicate that he was prepared, as ever, to watch the game and toy with treason, but when the moment came he failed to act and simply allowed power to flow back to its original source. Probably he was relieved inwardly that, by sparing Hitler, Providence had taken the decision out of his hands; he could continue to serve his Führer. After 20 July his importance as perpetual second man became more marked. His powers had increased dramatically. The Army in disgrace had lost whatever moral and political authority it had retained to that date. By contrast Himmler, whose Waffen-SS grew to thirty-eight divisions – at least in name – had been entrusted with command of the Home Army and with raising the new ‘people’s divisions’; behind all his titles as Reichsführer-SS and Chief of the German Police, Minister of the Interior, Chief of Army Armaments and commander of the Replacement Army, he was Minister of War in all but name, overall chief of intelligence, chief of the concentration camp labour and industrial complex, and had taken over responsibility for the V rocket production programme;