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40 Fascinating Facts About the Relatives of Nazis After WWII

Khalid Elhassan March 14, 2019 24 min

3. Himmler Was a Loving and Doting Father to His Own Children

Himmler was a monster capable of carrying out a genocide whose victims included millions of children, but that did not keep him from being a loving father to his own offspring. They included a daughter, Gudrun, a foster son whose SS father had died, and two illegitimate children, Helge and Nanette, whom he fathered upon his personal secretary. Himmler was particularly close to his daughter Gudrun, whom he nicknamed Puppi (“dolly”). His official responsibilities kept him away for long stretches, but he made sure to phone her every few days and see her as frequently as he could.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.