Originally published in 1953, this masterly study of Heinrich Himmler is a forceful, dispassionate analysis of a man who rose from obscure beginnings as an agricultural student to a position of almost absolute power, until, in the Nazi twilight, he challenged Hitler himself. Outwardly insignificant, diffident—possessing neither the flamboyance of Goering nor the incisiveness of Goebbels—Himmler, head of the dreaded Secret Police, yet made himself the man most feared in the Nazi hierarchy—and as much by his 'friends' as his enemies. Only when the incredible facts about Himmler's extraordinary hold over his colleagues became known were the full depths of the infamy to which Nazism had brought Germany revealed. Based on journalist Willi Frischauer's unique knowledge of the background and sequence of events which gave rise to the Hitler regime, he manages to unearth the evidence, building up, stone by stone, the mosaic of Himmler's true portrait. A fully documented and unforgettable narrative.