This sensational book is the only English-language publication documenting the history of the Wewelsburg Castle, the "SS-School House Wewelsburg," chosen to be the training center for spiritual enlightenment of the Fuehrer's elite Imperial Guard, the SS. Heinrich Himmler, appointed by Adolf Hitler as Reichsfuehrer-SS, became responsible for researching and documenting centuries of Germanic culture, as well as defining the ideology of the Black Corps. Over 200 b/w photographs, numerous illustrations and documents, an exclusive 16-p color section with 31 photographs, and a fold-out with a unique design of the "Twelve Knights of the Round Table." A complete story of the castle's history, architecture, renovation and decor, administration, wartime fate, secrets, and extraordinary esoteric fascination; with Index, Glossary, Reference Notes, and Appendices. Read the facts about what really occurred at the Wewelsburg based on a combined 40 years of research by leading expert Stuart Russell and historian Stephen Cook. Learn of Germany's cultural reawakening, Weltanschauung, the role of the Christian Church, academic studies, scientific evidence, and the personalities involved. The topic has been explored on PBS and the book was featured on The History Channel. To order, or contact us, see www.questknights.com. Kressmann-Backmeyer Publishing, LLC, P.O. Box 1441, Andrews, NC 28901.

The real story of the SS, unlike its popular mythology, is so complex as to almost defy belief: it is a tale of intrigue and nepotism, of archaeology and Teutonism, of art and symbolism. Himmler's SS is a story of street fighters and convicted criminals becoming Ministers of State and police commanders; the story of charitable works and mass extermination being administered from the same building; the story of boy generals directing vast heterogeneous armies on devastating campaigns of conquest. Here, indeed, fact is stranger than fiction. Himmler's SS looks at the wide-ranging effects that the SS had on the Police, racial policies, German history, education, the economy and public life, as well as the uniforms and regalia which were carefully designed to set Himmler's men apart as the new elite in Third Reich society. Fully illustrated, this book is an authoritative history of the SS and as such will appeal to all with an interest in Hitler's Third Reich.

A biography of Henrich Himmler, interweaving both his personal life and his political career as a Nazi dictator.

Authors Roger Manvell and Heinrich Fraenkel, notable biographers of the World War II German leaders Joseph Goebbels and Herman Goring, delve into the life of one of the most sinister, clever, and successful of all the Nazi leaders: Heinrich Himmler. As the head of the feared SS, Himler supervised the extermination of millions. Here is the story of how a seemingly ordinary boy grew into an obsessive and superstitious man who ventured into herbalism, astrology, and homeopathic medicine before finally turning to the "science" of racial purity and the belief in the superiority of the Aryan people.

Katrin Himmler’s cool but meticulous examination of the Himmler story reveals – in all its dark complexity – the gulf between the ‘normality’ of bourgeois family life and the horrors perpetrated by one member. This riveting family memoir provides essential new information on the private life and background of one of the twentieth- century’s most notorious killers – not a lone evil executioner, but a middle-class family man, loved and fully supported by his respectable German family. It also offers a unique account of one women’s courageous attempt to deal with her chilling inheritance. ‘It is part of the creeping discomfort in reading her book to realise the incredibly ordinary middle-class background of these three sons of a rather pompous provincial headmaster and to see how, right until the end, he was almost able to convince himself it hadn't happened like it had' Sunday Times ‘You get a vivid sense of a particular kind of German conservatism - Roman Catholic, monarchist - and of how, weirdly, it found an outlet in the upstart, part-pagan thuggery of Nazism’ Independent ‘One can only admire her bravery . . . In a way, Katrin Himmler's book is not a story about the past, but one about the present. The most interesting details are the ones she gives of her own quest’ Daily Telegraph

Dressed in black uniforms emblazoned with the SS flash, Heinrich Himmlers horsemen carried the SS banner across the German countryside and to equestrian competitions throughout Germany and Europe. They rode as the Equestrian SS, an SS cavalry force designed to win elite support, to enhance social prestige, and to attract farmers to Himmlers essentially urban organization. The Equestrian SS was the only SS organization acquitted at the Nuremberg Trials. Yet the Equestrian SS trained to be a security and occupation force. In mounted Deaths Head regiments in Poland and in the SS Cavalry Brigade in Russia, Equestrian SS personnel fulfilled their obligations as devoted SS political soldiers. Driven by SS training, SS horsemen murdered thousands of Jews in Eastern Europe. Wilson provides numerous anecdotes, statistics, and capsule biographies of Equestrian SS personnel. This carefully researched study is essential reading for scholars and lay people interested in the history of Nazi Germany, the SS, and the Holocaust.

A history of Nazi Germany’s SS and its leader examining the groups mystical cult aspects and Himmler’s rise through the ranks of power. Hitler’s Nazi Party, at its evil roots, embraced a bizarre interpretation of ancient European paganism, blending it with fragments of other traditions from sources as diverse as tenth-century Saxon warlords, nineteenth-century spiritualism, and early-twentieth-century fringe archeology. Even the swastika, the hated symbol of Nazism, had its roots in ancient symbolism, its first recorded appearance carved into a mammoth tusk twelve thousand years before Hitler came to power. At the heart of the evil was Hitler’s “witch doctor,” Heinrich Himmler, and his stranger-than-fiction cult, the deadly SS. The mundanely named Schutzstaffel, literally “protective squadron,” was the very essence of Nazism, and their threatening double lightning bolt was one of the most dreaded symbols of the Third Reich. With good reason: what the SS was truly protecting was the ideology of Aryan superiority. Hitler’s Master of the Dark Arts is the first history of the SS and its leader to focus on the mystical cult aspects of the organization. It follows Himmler’s transformation of the SS from a few hundred members in 1929 to over fifty thousand black-uniformed Aryans by the mid-1930s. Concurrent with its expansion and its eventual independence from the brown shirts of the SA, Himmler infused the Black Knights with a mishmash of occult beliefs and lunatic-fringe theories that would have been completely laughable—except that they were also used to justify the Final Solution.

Deeply involved in the Holocaust as Heinrich Himmler's deputy for administration, Karl Wolff personally arranged for the transportation of 300,000 Jews from Poland to the Treblinka death camp in 1943. He went to trial in Germany and received a short prison sentence in 1964. But Wolff, even more than Reinhard Heydrich, could claim to enjoy Adolf Hitler's complete confidence. He was appointed SS police chief in northern Italy in 1943-1945 and ordered by the Führer himself to kidnap the Pope and the cardinals and take them to Germany. Wolff managed to talk Hitler out of the wild scheme and escaped hanging at Nuremberg by negotiating the surrender of the German armies in Italy with Allen Dulles in Switzerland.

A groundbreaking history of the Nazi research institute whose work helped lead to the extermination of millions In 1935, Heinrich Himmler established a Nazi research institute called The Ahnenerbe, whose mission was to send teams of scholars around the world to search for proof of Ancient Aryan conquests. But history was not their most important focus. Rather, the Ahnenerbe was an essential part of Himmler's master plan for the Final Solution. The findings of the institute were used to convince armies of SS men that they were entitled to slaughter Jews and other groups. And Himmler also hoped to use the research as a blueprint for the breeding of a new Europe in a racially purer mold. The Master Plan is a groundbreaking expose of the work of German scientists and scholars who allowed their research to be warped to justify extermination, and who directly participated in the slaughter -- many of whom resumed their academic positions at war's end. It is based on Heather Pringle's extensive original research, including previously ignored archival material and unpublished photographs, and interviews with living members of the institute and their survivors. A sweeping history told with the drama of fiction, The Master Plan is at once horrifying, transfixing, and monumentally important to our comprehension of how something as unimaginable as the Holocaust could have progressed from fantasy to reality.

"With a combination of personal interviews including several with leading Nazis and with Himmler's daughter, Gudrun Burwitz, and the use of previously unseen documents, Allen presents the whole Nazi high command in a fresh light, demonstrating how Hitler was often manipulated and sometimes sidelined. But perhaps of equal interest is the inside story of secret operations conducted by the Political Warfare Executive, empowered by Churchill to fight a war with weapons of destabilisation and misinformation in support of the oven military campaigns. Allen portrays Himmler's ever more desperate efforts to secretly negotiate his political survival with the Allies, as Hitler's war machine collapses. This book has one more revelation to make, as Allen rewrites history with his account of the true circumstances of Himmler's dramatic death."--BOOK JACKET.