Next to Adolf Hitler, Heinrich Himmler (1900-1945) was the most powerful man in Nazi Germany. As head of the Nazi SS, he controlled the Gestapo, the SD, Germany's civil and legal authorities, the concentration camp system, various racial campaigns and institutes, and 35 armed military divisions.
Himmler joined the Nazi Party in 1923, and became the head of the SS in 1929, when the SS was Hitler's corps of personal bodyguards. After Hitler gained power in 1933, Himmler gradually brought all of the various police forces of the Third Reich under his own direct control. Himmler used this vast network to implement the murder of millions of people and to exploit certain populations under German control for slave labor. After the defeat of Germany in World War II, Himmler killed himself by swallowing poison.
