Posted Friday, June 3, 2005

Friday, June 3, 2005; updated Sunday, June 5, 2005 [Partial translation in French]  On May 23, 1945 Britain's secret agents had secretly and criminally liquidated one of the most wanted men in history, for whose proper public trial and punishment the blood of millions of his victims cried out. British archives reveal British secret service did murder SS chief Heinrich Himmler (to stop him talking to the Americans) NOTE: About the authenticity of these new Himmler Documents DOCUMENTS discovered in Britain's Public Records Office, Kew, London, confirm revisionist claims that Himmler was liquidated by the British secret service on Churchill's orders, and did not commit suicide shortly after his capture as conformist historians have long maintained. [Partial translation in French] David Irving writes: - WINSTON Churchill had long agitated in his War Cabinet for a secret plan to be approved between the Allied leaders ordering the execution without trial of a number of the enemy leaders, including Himmler. See my book "Nuremberg, the Last Battle" and the forthcoming volume iii of the Churchill biography. Meeting at Hyde Park in September 1944, Churchill had readily persuaded Franklin D Roosevelt to sign on to this plan for lynch justice, but after Churchill carried the document to Moscow in October 1944 Joseph Stalin surprisingly refused to agree, insisting instead on proper trials for all enemy war criminals. David Irving recalls: IN 1999 my publishing imprint Focal Point Publications invited Californian writer Joe Bellinger to speak at Cincinnati on The Strange Death of Heinrich Himmler. He came to the same conclusions.    Impressed by his narrative there we paid him over $11,000 to enable him to travel to Washington and London to complete his research.    He never made those trips, never finished his manuscript, and unfortunately did not learn of the files which have now been released. THE "silencing" of Himmler raises again the question of whether Churchill really had been negotiating with Himmler for nearly a year.    In August 1944 the head of the secret service showed him at least one document "from Himmler," and Churchill assured the secret service chief that after reading it he had safely destroyed it: 'Himmler telegram kept and destroyed by me. WSC.31.viii'.    Hitler was evidently aware of what Himmler was up to, because on September 12 the Reichsführer discussed with Hitler "peace feelers to Russia or Britain."    A few days later, however, on September 18, 1944, the British intercepted a German intelligence signal that Himmler 'forbids by W/T (wireless traffic) all contact with English since their offers are bluff' -- as no doubt they were. See PRO file HW.1/3196. Rumours emerged last year that Churchill had personally ordered the alleged silencing of Benito Mussolini, and that the order had been handed by an SOE officer to Italian partisans soon after. Mussolini and his entire Cabinet were liquidated by machine gun squads without trial in the closing days of the war. In April 1945, Himmler moved to northern Germany and began negotiations through his own Intelligence chief Walter Schellenberg and Count Bernadotte, the Swedish emissary, to end the bloodshed in Europe. The negotiations went through Sir Victor Mallet, the British minister in Stockholm. Stalin was by this time pathologically suspicious of any separate negotiations between the Allied governments and the Nazi leadership. Himmler was thus the repository of some awkward secrets when he fell into British hands in May 1945. For a while Churchill was inclined to deal with him. Admiral Cunningham, Britain's First Sea Lord, visited Churchill on April 13, 1945 and wrote this startling passage in his diary afterwards: "During our interview the PM mentioned that Himmler appeared to be trying to show that he wasn't so bad as painted & PM said if it would save further expenditure of life he would be prepared to spare even Himmler. I suggested there were plenty of islands he could be sent to." Real historians have long doubted the conformist version of how Himmler died, namely that he obligingly swallowed poison when he realised the game was up. Patient research revealed that the official files on his death had oddities, discrepancies, and inconsistencies: the autopsy performed on the corpse did not give the cause of death; a vital page had been retyped; there was no message in the files of 21 Army Group, Field-Marshal Sir Bernard Montgomery's headquarters, reporting the event to London. Whatever had been there, it had gone. Now come documents from the Public Record Office (record group FO 800, file 868), which provide more than just a smoking gun. What is truly extraordinary is not so much that the conformists have willingly overlooked the inconsistencies for over sixty years but that those involved in, or aware of, the murder -- who included Prime Minister Churchill himself -- had kept quiet about it. The documents: The first, dated May 10, 1945 is a Personal and Secret letter on Foreign Office stationery from Sir John Wheeler-Bennett, later a noted Establishment and Royal historian, to the famous British agent Sir Robert Bruce-Lockhart, of the Political Intelligence Department off the Foreign office -- which conducted Black propaganda against the enemy: Further to our meeting yesterday morning, I have been giving some serious thought to the little H situation. We cannot allow Himmler to take to the stand in any prospective prosecution, or indeed allow him to be interrogated by the Americans. Steps will therefore have to been taken to eliminate him as soon as he falls into our hands. Please give this matter some thought, as if we are to take action we will have to expedite such an act with some haste. Lockhart minuted two days later in handwriting: "I agree, I have arranged for Mr Ingrams to go for a fortnight. R B-L, 12/May/1945." It is significant to note from the diary of General Dempsey, commanding the British Second Army in Northern Germany (PRO file WO/285/12), that on Monday, May 21 he visited both the detention camp at Westertimke and the German concentration area between Bremervörde and Stade. We know that Himmler and his two adjutants Macher and Grothmann had been arrested at Bremervörde on May 21, 1945, but -- so the story goes -- Himmler was not identified until they arrived at Westertimke on May 23, 1945. The former Reichsführer SS was carrying a letter to Field Marshal Sir Bernard Montgomery, the British field commander (which has vanished). His only cyanide capsule was found in his clothing after he had been ordered to strip naked, and it was handed to Michael Murphy, head of British Intelligence at the Second Army. According to The Illustrated London News story a few days later, a "second" capsule was surrendered to the medical officer at Himmler's final destination, the ominous house at No. 31a Ülzener Strasse in Lüneburg -- which raises a number of obvious questions. After his identification, according to the official accounts, Himmler had answered questions, eaten a thick British Army sandwich, and been driven to the house in Lüneburg -- from which he emerged dead. Although the British military files appear meticulous, even listing with suspicious detail every person present in the room at the moment of death, many facts did not fit into place. The prisoner's nose had been broken, according to The Illustrated London News artist who sketched the body. How had he obtained the cyanide capsule he had allegedly been hiding in his mouth (let alone answer questions and bite into that sandwich)? The capsule descriptions varied, and bore no resemblance to what the standard issue capsule actually looked like. And more (but wait for my upcoming Himmler biography). At 2:50 a.m. that night (it was now May 24, 1945) "Mr Thomas" wired from Bremen to the Foreign Office for Bruce Lockhart in a top secret code (jj jj jj jj is the clue: it was a one-time pad). "Further to my orders we successfully intercepted H.H. last night at Lüneburg before he could be interrogated. As instructed action was taken to silence him permanently. I issued orders that my presence at Lüneburg is not to be recorded in any fashion, and we may conclude that the H.H. problem is ended." Bruce Lockhart significantly noted on this telegram, "copy to PM" -- i.e., to Churchill -- "May 25". Brendan Bracken, Churchill's obnoxious red-headed confidant (left, with friend: Clementine loathed him), was also in on the action -- a war crime, despite Heinrich Himmler's dark record, as he was a prisoner of war who had surrendered to British custody. "Mr Dear Top," he wrote on May 27 to Lord Selborne at the Ministry of Economic warfare, head of the SOE (PRO file HS series HS8/944), "Further to the good news of the death of Little H, I feel it is imperative that we maintain a complete news blackout on the exact circumstances of this most evil man's demise. I am sure that if it were to become public knowledge that we had had a hand in this man's demise, it would have devastating repercussions for this country's standing." Quite so: Britain's secret agents had secretly and criminally liquidated one of the most wanted men in history, for whose proper public trial and punishment the blood of millions of his victims cried out: and for no other visible reason than to conceal that for a few days toward the end of the war, Churchill had negotiated with him on peace terms. "I am also sure [continued Bracken] that this incident would complicate our relationship with our American brethren; under no circumstances must they discover that we eradicated 'Little H', particularly so since we know they were keen to interrogate him themselves. I am of the opinion that the special SOE/PWE Committee and team can now be dissolved, even though Mallet is still negotiating with W.S. [Walter Schellenberg] in Sweden. Perhaps you could let me know your opinion on this matter."   REAL historians will now need to do further work to identify the murderer, "Mr Thomas," and the part played by Robert Bruce-Lockhart, who was a principal figure in Britain's Black propaganda war together with Sefton Delmer. Bracken ordered that all his papers be destroyed before his death. Bruce-Lockhart's diaries and papers are in the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, California; a sanitized edition of his diaries was published many years ago, and his papers have probably been weeded too. It is known that when Himmler first established contact with the British, Churchill's initial response was to deal with him regardless of his reputation. But then the secret services stepped in. A fake communiqué was issued claiming that Himmler had offered to betray Hitler, and this caused much confusion and fury in Hitler's bunker in the last few days -- not to mention anguish to Himmler himself. Until the last moment, he believed that he was to meet Montgomery, and when he took off his eye patch and identified himself as Himmler to the British camp commandant, he believed that he would be in the presence of the British commander soon after. Instead, as Colonel Michael Murphy wrote in a handwritten report in an odd turn of phrase to which we drew comment two months ago, "I therefore told him to dress, and wishing to have a medical search conducted, telephoned my G-II at my H.Q. and told him to get a Doctor to stand by at a house I had had prepared for such men as Himmler." This was the house from which Himmler emerged lifeless, wrapped in a blanket. Many months ago we had already detected that page 2 of the three-page report in the British Second Army intelligence unit's war diary, recording Himmler's death, had been retyped at roughly the same time -- on the same report pad and using the same typewriter, but by a different hand: clearly indicating that it had been sanitized for some purpose which could only be surmised. Now we know why. Our thanks to Steve Kippax in London for additional research and providing the document scans. Kippax's special interest is in the British and German Special Forces in WWII and after, and he has studied SOE, OSS, Abwehr and SD in depth  [Partial translation in French]   Radical's Diary No.26: " I noticed that page 2 of the 1945 Second Army diary, which relates this episode at length, has been retyped on the same typewriter as used for pages 1 and 3, but by a different typist." Illustrated London News runs early story on the "suicide" of Himmler "Sergeant Carl Sutton," or "Norman Redford" took illicit photos of the body Description in Feb 1964 by former colonel (British Army) Michael Murphy on the death of Heinrich Himmler, May 1945, written to biographer Heinrich Fraenkel Selkirk Panton writes (May 1954) on Himmler's end Sunday Times publishes new Hitler, Himmler photos War diary on death of Himmler, and Substance of Message from GS9 2nd Army 24 May 45 to GS9 21 A Gp