When Katrin Himmler, the great-niece of Heinrich Himmler, the head of Hitlers SS and chief perpetrator of the Holocaust, was 15, one of her school mates asked during a history lesson if she was related to the Himmler.
Yes, she stammered, at which there was a deathly hush in the classroom and the teacher, embarrassed and unsure, quickly moved the lesson on.
As she grew older and married an Israeli Jew with whom she had a son Katrin realized that she could no longer avoid her family history.
Katrin Himmlers cool but meticulous examination of the Himmler story reveals, in all its dark complexity, the gulf between the normality of bourgeois family life and the horrors perpetrated by one member. This riveting family memoir provides essential new information on the private life and background of one of the twentieth century's most notorious killers - not a lone evil executioner, but a middle-class family man, loved and fully supported by his respectable German family.
It also offers a unique account of one women's courageous attempt to deal with her chilling inheritance.
1. I Never Called Him 'Grandfather: The Telephone Call
2. A Perfectly Ordinary Family: Gebhard, Anna and Their Sons
3. 'Bring Up the Children to Be German-Minded': Childhood in the German Empire
4. 'Just One Shell Hole after Another': the Collapse of the Old World
5. 'On Friday We're Going Shooting': The Brothers in the Freikorps
6. 'They All Went Wild with Excitement': The Putsch
7. Service and Sacrifice: The Years following the Pursch
8. 'We Must Be Happy': Henrich and Marga
9. 'Finally Got a Foothold in the Fortress': The Seizure of Power
10. "National Socialist Reliability': The Brothers' Rise
11. Educating People to Make Sacrifices for the Community: Gebhard - A Civil Servant's Career
12. 'Keep Marching. Keep Fighting. Keep Working': Ernst and His Friends
13. 'Ever Your Faithful Richard': Richard Wendler and His Brother-in-law
14. 'Do Not Forget Me: Your X': Heinrich's Mistress, Hedwig Potthast
15. 'They Can't Take Our Happy Memories away from Us': The Brothers and the end of the Third Reich
16. 'A Victim of His Brother': After 1945 - the New Beginning
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