Key Takeaways
- The
- Mt. Rushmore of Evil
- series begins with Heinrich Himmler, focusing on his role as Hitler's right-hand man and SS head.
- Himmler, an agriculture student turned bureaucrat, was a fervent Nazi idealist driven by ideology, not personal gain.
- He was the architect of the Holocaust, orchestrating the deaths of 11 to 20 million people, including Jews and Eastern Europeans.
- Himmler's early life, marked by a strict father and personal insecurities, fueled his obsession with racial purity and order.
- Post-WWI Germany's economic and political instability, including hyperinflation, created fertile ground for extremist groups like the Nazis.
- The Nazi Party, initially leveraging Hitler's charismatic rhetoric and simple solutions, rapidly grew despite failed coup attempts and leadership internal conflicts.
- Himmler's immersion in occult, pseudoscientific, and Volkisch ideas significantly shaped his genocidal vision and policies.
Deep Dive
- The series
- The Mt. Rushmore of Evil
- commences with Heinrich Himmler, identified as Adolf Hitler's right-hand man and head of the SS.
- Himmler, initially an agriculture student, became a bureaucratic figure in the Nazi regime, achieving the position of
- Nazi Number Two.
- .
- The criteria for the
- Mt. Rushmore of Evil
- include individuals who perverted institutions for immense damage, with Himmler potentially being the worst of the group.
- Himmler is presented as the key figure for understanding Nazism, in contrast to Adolf Hitler, who is deemed a
- cult of personality
- figure with contradictory characteristics.
- Himmler was characterized as a
- white person nerd
- obsessed with Aryan superiority, whose physical appearance notably contrasted with the Aryan ideal he promoted.
- Himmler was recruited into the Nazi party by Ernst Röhm, a World War I veteran and effective organizer known for his lack of a moral compass and significant capacity for violence.
- Early Nazi tactics involved roving groups like the Stormtroopers (SA) intimidating and suppressing dissent through street violence and assassinations.
- Between 1919 and 1923, right-wing groups like the SA were responsible for 354 politically motivated murders, significantly more than left-wing groups (22).
- Ernst Röhm lived openly as a gay man in the Weimar Republic, attending gay nightclubs, an ironic fact given the Nazi Party's later stance against homosexuality.
- Himmler's administrative skills, driven by his pursuit of Aryan purity, led him to become the architect of the Holocaust and the mass murder of Eastern Europeans.
- He oversaw concentration camps where up to 2 million people were executed, targeting Jews, LGBT individuals, and communists.
- The Einsatzgruppen, death squads of a few hundred men each, murdered between two and three million people in Eastern Europe under Himmler's direction.
- Himmler consolidated power by heading both the SS and the Gestapo, directly orchestrating the deaths of 11 to 20 million people.
- He aimed to engineer the deaths of 50 million people, believing this mass murder was morally justified for his vision of an Aryan Europe.
- Heinrich Himmler was born in Munich in 1900 to socially prominent parents, with his father tutoring Prince Heinrich of Bavaria, who became Himmler's godfather.
- Germany's relatively recent unification in the 1890s led to changes in aristocratic structure and power dynamics, contributing to societal unrest and the eventual rise of figures like Himmler.
- The severe, institutionalized violence and strict rules prevalent in 19th and early 20th-century Germany profoundly influenced Himmler's development and the broader Nazi ideology.
- Himmler suffered from neurotic anxiety, stemming from his father's strict upbringing, which led to constant stomach cramps and a meticulous habit of documenting his activities.
- The hosts suggest an inherent trait of hate in Himmler from birth, noting childhood anti-French sentiment and a perceived natural inclination towards expressing hatred.
- His physical appearance, described as sickly and unattractive, was humorously mocked, with comparisons made to figures like Pee-wee Herman.
- Himmler's drive for power was fueled by a desire to overcome his perceived shortcomings and a lost connection to Bavarian royalty after his godfather's death.
- The conspiracy theory that Germany lost World War I due to being 'stabbed in the back' by Jews provided simplistic answers for complex events and failures.
- In April 1919, Himmler joined two right-wing paramilitary groups, highlighting the proliferation of such organizations in post-WWI Germany, not just the Nazi Party.
- One of these groups was led by Rudolf von Sebottendorf, who chaired the Tule Society, an occult organization that notably used the swastika symbol before the Nazis.
- The swastika, originally an ancient symbol of good luck found in various Asian cultures, was adopted by groups like the Tule Society for its aesthetic appeal and later for propaganda.
- The connection between the Tula Society and the Nazi Party, particularly regarding occult theories, has been overstated, though Anton Drexler, founder of the German Workers' Party, was a member.
- Hitler strategically distanced himself from the Tula Society as his rise to power progressed, contrasting with Himmler's fervent belief in esoteric ideas.
- The Tula Society, founded in 1919 by Walter Nauhaus, adopted the swastika, interpreting it as an ancient Aryan symbol, and developed a mythology of white people originating from a mythical island named Tula.
- By 1917, the Tula Society was obsessed with finding the origins of the Aryan race and ensuring its purity, inventing lore to create a strong national spirit.
- Himmler, influenced by Tula Society members, embraced pseudoscientific and pseudohistorical ideas, including a racist interpretation of the Atlantis myth.
- This myth posited Aryans as Atlanteans who caused their own destruction through hubris, combined with pseudoscience like phrenology and eugenics, which were gaining traction.
- By the 1920s, German occult beliefs centered on Atlantis being Iceland or Greenland, with Himmler deeply involved in Areosophy, fusing theosophy with an Aryan focus.
- He absorbed the ethno-nationalist Volkisch Movement, which promoted territorial expansion for Imperial Germany to accommodate its growing population and reclaim past greatness.
- Inspired by Hans Gunther's book advocating for Germans as
- warrior farmers,
- Himmler pursued agricultural studies at the Technical University in Munich at age 19.
- His agricultural apprenticeship required one year of practical experience, but he failed to complete even five days due to illness from paratyphoid fever.
- During his hospital stay, Himmler immersed himself in conservative nationalist literature, reinforcing his views that Jews started World War I and forced Germany's surrender.
- He abandoned hands-on labor, enrolling at the University of Munich, where he joined a racist fencing fraternity and reportedly gained confidence after receiving his first scar.
- Himmler was described as lacking charisma and social graces, struggling with personal relationships due to shyness and uncertainty, making him unlikable even to associates.
- Psychological analysis suggests he suffered from an attachment disorder, leading to high, undefined expectations of others and resulting frustration, coping with strict social formalities.
- His college diaries reveal an anxious individual seeking acceptance but struggling to connect, and an unsuccessful romantic life, leading to a public declaration of virginity until marriage.
- Himmler held extreme
- Madonna whore viewpoint
- views on women, idealizing desexualized figures focused solely on procreation and subservience.
- Himmler faced economic hardship and social isolation in the early 1920s, finding community in a right-wing paramilitary group gaining traction due to Adolf Hitler's charismatic leadership.
- The Nazi Party, with Hitler becoming leader by 1921, experienced rapid growth, reaching over 20,000 members by 1922, attributed to his persuasive speaking and simple messaging.
- Hitler's ideology, influenced by the Volkisch movement, focused on German expansion, repopulation, and the extermination of Jews and communists.
- Both Hitler and Himmler rejected pacifism, socialism, democracy, and humanism, instead embracing a harsh, action-oriented approach.
- The Beer Hall Putsch of 1923 was a failed coup attempt by Hitler, resulting in 16 Nazi deaths and three paramilitary deaths.
- Hitler's subsequent light prison sentence is highlighted as a missed opportunity to stop the Nazi movement before its momentum became unstoppable.
- Himmler did not participate in the Putsch and returned to live with his parents during Hitler's imprisonment and the banning of the Nazi Party.
- Germany experienced a period of cultural and economic stabilization in 1924, while Hitler was in jail and Ernst Röhm temporarily left to lead the Bolivian army.