Himmler: Reichs Fuhrer-SS (Cassell Military Paperbacks)

In a small museum in Munich lies a photograph of a man who looks for all the world like a harmless, myopic clerk. But, his peaked cap, bearing the death's-head insignia of the SS, exposes the truth: the man is Heinrich Himmler, and this is the chilling record of his rise to prominence in Hitler's Third Reich. As both SS police and Gestapo chief, and the person in charge of the camps in Eastern Europe, he presided over an empire of death. How could a man have such a disregard for human life? Through an exploration of Himmler's aberrant psychology, and the inner workings of the Nazi elite, some compelling and shocking conclusions emerge. A chilling study of the abuse of absolute power. "A thorough, conscientious and compulsively readable investigation."--A. L. Rowse, Sunday Telegraph.