Acknowledgements
This book was written, with interruptions from other publications, over the
last ten years and in various places: in London and Munich, in Washington,
Frankfurt, and Essen, as well as almost everywhere I spent time during those
years.
First and foremost, I should like to thank my colleagues and students at
Royal Holloway College, University of London, who were once again
willing to enable me to complete this work by generously allowing me
periods of research. A series of research institutes gave me vital support by
granting scholarships and visiting fellowships that provided the opportunity
to discuss my work with others: the Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies
at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum, the Fritz Bauer Institute in
Frankfurt, and the Cultural Studies Institute in Essen.
In addition, in the last few years I have had the opportunity of presenting
my work as it developed at a number of universities, in particular Freiburg,
Stanford, Exeter, Oxford, and London (German History Seminar), also at
the Villa Ten Hompel in Mu
¨
nster, at the Wewelsburg Documentation
Centre, and at the Imperial War Museum.
I was also able to have intensive discussions about Himmler’s personality
with a group of psychoanalysts in Hamburg and a circle of psychotherapists
in Cologne; the discussions with both groups made a distinct and lasting
impact on my work on Himmler. I should like to thank all those who took
part in these gatherings: Christiane Adam, Sabine Bru
¨
ckner-Jungjohann,
Petra Demleux-Morawietz, Gundula Fromm, Beata Hammerich, Ulrich
Knocke, Dr Ba
¨
rbel Kreidt, Rita Krull-Wittkopf, Johannes Pfa
¨
fflin, Dr Peter
Pogany-Wnendt, Erda Siebert, Dirk Sieveking, Dr Bernd Sonntag, and
Matthias Wellershoff.
Dr Andreas Kunz, director of the branch of the Federal Archive in
Ludwigsburg, drew my attention to the memoirs of Colonel Eismann,
Himmler’s military colleague on the staff of the Army Group Vistula. Mrs
Christa Schmeisser, in the head administrative office of the Bavarian