Margarete Himmler
Margarete Himmler (née Boden; 9 September 1893 – 25 August 1967), also known as Marga Himmler, was the wife of Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler.[1][2]
Margarete Himmler
25 August 1967 (aged 73)
Margarete Siegroth
Marga Himmler
Nurse
Youth, first marriage, and divorce[edit]
Margarete Boden was born in Goncarzewo near Bromberg, the daughter of landowner Hans Boden and his wife Elfriede (née Popp).[3] Margarete had three sisters (Elfriede, Lydia and Paula) and a brother.[4] In 1909, she attended the Höhere Töchterschule (High School for Girls) in Bromberg, then a city in the German Empire (now Bydgoszcz, Poland). Margarete trained and worked as a nurse during the First World War followed by a stint at a German Red Cross hospital at the war's end.[2]
Her first marriage was short and produced no children. Due to the economic support of her father, she was able to operate and direct a private nursing clinic in Berlin.[5]
Second World War[edit]
Once World War II began, Himmler helped operate a military hospital affiliated with the German Red Cross. By December 1939, she was supervising the Red Cross hospitals in Military District III (Berlin-Brandenburg). In this position, she led missions into the territories and countries occupied by the German Wehrmacht.[27] In March 1940, Margarete recorded a business trip to German-occupied Poland, so she was certainly a witness to events there. In her journals, written while serving, Himmler wrote, "Then I was in Posen, Łódź and Warsaw. This Jewish rabble, Polacks, most of them don't look like human beings and the dirt is indescribable. It's an incredible job trying to create order there."[28]
For her efforts, Himmler reached the rank of colonel in the German Red Cross.[29] In February 1945, in writing to Gebhard Himmler, Margarete said of Heinrich, "How wonderful that he has been called to great tasks and is equal to them. The whole of Germany is looking to him."[30]
Heinrich Himmler was close to his first daughter, Gudrun, whom he nicknamed Püppi ("dolly"); he phoned her every few days and visited as often as he could.[27] Hedwig and Margarete both remained loyal to Himmler. Margarete and Heinrich Himmler last saw one another in April 1945, sharing time together with Gudrun at their Gmund residence.[31]
Assessment[edit]
Peter Longerich notes that Margarete Himmler probably did not know about the official secrets or planned projects of her husband during the Nazi era.[27] She said after the war she did not have any knowledge of Nazi crimes, but she remained a committed National Socialist and was certainly anti-Semitic.[39] Jürgen Matthäus described her as a typical Nazi who wanted the Jews gone, and observed that despite any efforts contrariwise to isolate herself from the regime and its crimes, she profited from them.[40]