Major Alan Edwards of the Military Intelligence Museum , Chicksands, Bedfordshire, writes to Mr Irving, October 6, 2005: "After you left I carried out some further research in the collection and found the accessional data on the items you photographed. An extract is enclosed from Accession No. 22387. This was given to us by a then Captain Donald McPherson who worked in the Control Commission Germany." [Text follows:]

HERE is the story. On 21 May 1945 Himmler set out with some other SS officers to try to pass through the Allied lines and reach his native Bavaria. He had shaved off his moustache, wore a black eye patch over his left eye, and put on army uniform.

His party was stopped between Hamburg and Bremerhaven by British guards at a control point. At some stage Himmler took off the eye patch, put on his pince-nez, and identified himself. He was taken to Second Army Headquarters where he was stripped and examined by an army doctor. When the doctor tried to examine his mouth, Himmler bit into a vial of cyanide in the space between two teeth. A stomach pump, emetics, and artificial respiration were tried in vain in an effort to resuscitate him.

Towards the end of May, shortly after this, I went to see another officer at Control Commission on some matter and noticed that he was wearing a black eye patch over one eye. I said: "Are you trying to play Himmler?" He replied that he was wearing Himmler's actual eye patch, that all his belongings had been sent to our Headquarters from Second Army and had been put in a room, the number of which he gave me. "If you hurry along, there may be something left."

All that remained were the blanket in which Himmler had been sick, the framework of his rucksack, and some razor blades and a tube of shaving cream which he had acquired in Denmark. I took the shaving cream and razor blades which I now send to you. Others had taken his black silk shirts, silk pyjamas, silk socks, silk handkerchiefs, and his cigarette case, all monogrammed with his initials, two overlapping H's. One officer used to parade in the mess sporting Himmler's braces, sticking his thumbs under the straps and stretching them back and forth, for they were made of that wartime rarity, the finest elastic.

Heinrich Himmler dossier

 

Statement dated February 11, 1964, by former colonel (British Army) Michael Murphy on the death of Heinrich Himmler, May 1945

The capture of Heinrich Himmler and other Leading Nazis, May 1945, report by Sergeant Britton