Himmler’s daughter worked in spy agency

Gudrun Burwitz, the daughter of Heinrich Himmler, Nazi Germany’s second in command, who died on May 24 aged 88, worked as a German spy.
Bild reported Burwitz had worked for two years in West Germany’s BND foreign intelligence agency, despite having active links to extremist groups.
She was 15 when the Second World War ended and was released in 1946 after testifying at the Nuremberg trials.
The agency’s historian, Bodo Hechelhammer, said Burwitz worked as a secretary under an assumed name in the early 1960s. The agency does not comment on staff until they have died and her death last month led to confirmation of her employment history.
Hechelhammer said: “The timing of her departure coincided with the onset of a change in the understanding and the handling of employees who were involved with the Nazis.”
She worked as a secretary at BND headquarters in Pullach near Munich from 1961 to 1963.
At that time the BND was run by Reinhard Gehlen, a former Nazi military intelligence commander who left in 1968.
Burwitz, who was sometimes called a “Nazi princess”, remained unrepentant and loyal to Himmler.
She visited a concentration camp but denied the Holocaust and provided money and comfort those convicted or suspected of war crimes.
Gudrun wrote in her diary: “Today we went to the SS concentration camp at Dachau. We saw everything we could. We saw the gardening work. We saw the pear trees. We saw all the pictures painted by the prisoners. Marvellous.
“And afterwards we had a lot to eat. It was very nice.”
Burwitz remained prominent in extremist politics throughout her life and was reported to be an important member of Stille Hilfe (Silent Help), a secret organisation known to provide legal and financial support to former SS members.
She also purportedly attended other neo-Nazi events until her death.
Himmler commanded the elite Nazi paramilitary corps, the SS, and secret police, the Gestapo, and established the death camps for Jews, Roma, homosexuals and others.
Himmler was seized by Russian forces on May 20, 1945, and transferred to the British.
Three days later, Himmler killed himself, biting on a cyanide capsule he had concealed, evading trial for war crimes.
Gudrun refused to believe that her father’s death was a suicide and maintained that he had been killed by the British. She was Himmler’s oldest child and only legitimate daughter and remained devoted to him.
In May 1945, Gudrun and her mother fled to northern Italy, where they were arrested by US forces.
Gudrun and her mother were held in Italy, France and Germany.

Heinrich Himmler being eyeballed by a British prisoner. Picture credit: Wikimedia