Head Of The Gestapo

Evening Post, Volume CXXXIX, Issue 122, 25 May 1945, Page 5

Head Of The Gestapo

SUICIDE AFTER BEING CAPTURED

LONDON, May 24.' Heinricri Himmler, former head of the Gestapo and Reichminister of the Interior, is dead. He committed suicide last night at British 2nd Army headquarters at Luneburg. A correspondent describes how Himmler was captured and how he died. On Monday- evening, Himmler and two of his SS staff, wearing civilian clothes, were stopped by British troops making a routine check on all civilians crossing a bridge over" the canal which links the Elbe and the "Weser west of Hamburg. Himmler was disguised with a black patch on his right eye, and had shaved off his moustache. He gave the name of Heizmger, and produced papers showing that he had been discharged from the army.

The British troops were suspicious, for the German army had been ordered not to issue any more discharge papers. Himmler was handed over to the field security police. They did not recognise him, and sent him on for special questioning. He spent last Tuesday and Wednesday being moved from one prisoner-of-war cage to the next. Himmler was still not recognised yesterday evening, but when he realised that he was being put aside for special inquiry he sent his adjutant to *ask for an interview with the camp commandant, and to him he announced his identity. Himmler then asked to be taken to a senior British officer. He was first searched for weapons and poison. He was then made to dress in British army clothes, but was given no trousers or coat. Wrapped in a blanket, he was driven to 2nd Army • headquarters. There a doctor searched • him again for poison. After examining his body, the doctor told Himmler to open his mouth. At first the doctor saw nothing, and told Himmler to move nearer the light. The doctor then put his finger inside Himmler's mouth. Himmler jerked his head back and bit down on the doctor's finger. The doctor saw a small black object, the head of a phial of potassium cyanide. -Himmler's teeth crushed it and he swallowed it. The doctor, together with a staff officer and a sergeant-major who were in the room, lifted Himmler .as he fell. They gripped him by the throat and tried to stop him swallowing the cyanide. They used a stomach pump on him, but it was too late, and in 15 minutes Himmler died, at 11.4 p.m. Three Russian officers saw his body and were given the relative photographs and reports. BODY AWAITS THE GRAVE Eec. 12.20 p.m. LONDON, May 24. Tonight the body of Himmler, the most feared man in Europe, chief of ; Hitler's Gestapo, and architect of the ■ horror camps, lies in a red-roofed villa which is the British 2nd Army head- . quarters, says Reuters correspondent. Himmler's cold, grey, bespectacled, thin-lipped face, half-covered with a grey British blanket, looks towards the ceiling, his body clothed in a British Army collarless shirt, slacks, and socks. Beside the body are a bucket, a cup, and water splashes made while British Army doctors laboured for 15 minutes to save him. - . ". Himmler kept his grim secret to the last. Although he was in British hands for three days, he was able to conceal an inch-long phial of potassium cyanide in his mouth until the medical examination.