Heinrich Himmler was Reich leader of the SS, head of the Gestapo and the Waffen SS, minister of the interior from 1943 to 1945 and thought to be the most powerful man in Nazi Germany, second only to Adolf Hitler. Himmler was born in Munich in the year 1900. He was born into a middle-class Catholic family. Educated at a secondary school in Landshut. Heinrich joined the army as an officer cadet at the age of 17 to fight in the First World War. He was enthusiastic to fight for Germany as most boys were, but the war was ended before he completed training.
             After the war, he drifted into one of the many right-wing organizations that were very common at the time. It is here that he came into contact with Hitler. He took part in the Hitler putsch (the attempt to overthrow the government) in 1923. He married Margaret Boden in1926, in that same year, he also became an assistant propaganda leader in the Nazi party. He joined the SS a division of the SA in 1925. In 1929 Hitler appointed him head of the SS, whose primary role was to act as bodyguard to Hitler. The size of the SS in1929 was 280 but due to Himmler's unrelenting enthusiasm and determination to impress Hitler, Himmler increased membership to 50,000 by 1933. Hitler was always afraid of an internal uprising (putsch) by the SA Himmler who took advantage of this. When Himmler 'discovered' (often believed created), Röhm's plan for the uprising Himmler was quick to react, instigating the Night of the Long Knives in 1934. Which eliminated Röhm (leader of the SA) and the SA as potential rivals for power and opened the way to the surfacing of the SS as an independent force. From here the SS grew stronger, becoming one of the more powerful departments in the Reich. In 1936, he won control of the entire police force throughout the Third Reich, with the title of Reichsfuhrer-SS and Head of the German Police, He created a state within a state, using his power to terrorize all opponents of Hitl...