Himmler's Secret War: The Covert Peace Negotiations of Heinrich Himmler (review)

Following a brief biographical sketch of Heinrich Himmler, Martin Allen weaves together a well-written and well-documented story of the SS leader's covert wartime negotiations with the Allies, beginning with Prince Max von Hohenlohe's trip to neutral Switzerland during October-November 1939. Despite the Venlo Incident in the fall of 1939 (Chapter Two), the British continued covert negotiations with Himmler (and for a time with Hitler's emissaries) with the intention, however, not of making peace, but rather to "encourage the Germans to attack Russia" (p. 92).

The British Special Operations Executive (SOE) along with the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), also known as MI6, began to carry out separate attempts at covert negotiations, hoping to upset the political equilibrium in Germany. Allen adeptly portrays the utmost secrecy which accompanied British efforts, revealed by documents at the National Archives in England released in the late 1990s, and the enmity between the SOE and the SIS, which "almost" became "a state of war" (p. 90).

British Intelligence first became involved with Hitler's attempt at negotiating some sort of peace with Britain in the fall of 1939 and the spring of 1940, an episode which they codenamed Operation HHHH. However, the British never intended to conclude an agreement with Nazi Germany, and instead hoped they could, by ruse, persuade the Germans to attack Soviet Russia. Sir Samuel Hoare, British Ambassador to Madrid, was the key go-between for the British.

Following the German invasion of Russia, the British continued what they labeled political warfare, behind the mask of covert negotiations with Himmler. However, the primary vehicle now would be the Political Warfare Executive (PWE), a top secret organization headed by Churchill's trusted friend, Brendan Bracken. The major intermediary for the negotiations from 1941 onward would be Victor Mallet, British Ambassador at Stockholm. Allen describes in detail the talks between the PWE and Himmler's emissaries, including Walter Schellenberg, and also points out that the PWE was so secret that not even the SOE or the SIS was aware of the negotiations.

Allen writes that the goal of the PWE was "to cause political instability in Germany, one strategy being to open a line of false negotiation with a leading Nazi in the hope of precipitating a leadership coup" (p. 157). PWE emerged as Britain's most important secret intelligence agency and would win the "battle for the control of political warfare against the remainder of British Intelligence" (p. 123). Himmler is portrayed as a novice, sincerely believing he could make a deal with the British and preserve his own future in German politics.

Allen also dispels the long-held belief that Himmler committed suicide, citing documents found in the National Archives that reveal that British Intelligence (PWE) had Himmler silenced (p. 283).

This is an excellent work, as Martin Allen describes the men involved and their motivations, identifies the various neutral intermediaries, and recounts Himmler's naïve conclusion that the conditions "at the end of the current conflict would be the same as had pertained to the First World War" (p. 235). Himmler mistakenly foresaw himself occupying a prominent position in postwar Germany.