Nazi-occupied Europe.

Across the continent, millions are already trapped inside ghettos, concentration camps, and killing centers.

At the center of this machinery stands:

Heinrich Himmler.

Head of the SS.

Architect of the concentration camp system.

One of the most powerful men in the Third Reich.

Under his authority, the Holocaust is accelerating toward industrialized mass murder.

Yet while trains carry victims toward gas chambers…

…Himmler still writes affectionate letters home to his wife.

And she writes back with devotion.

Her name was:

Margarete Himmler.

A woman who shared her husband’s antisemitism…

…visited concentration camps herself…

…and later insisted she knew almost nothing about Nazi crimes.

THE WOMAN FROM THE GERMAN EMPIRE

Margarete Boden was born on September 9th, 1893 near Bromberg — modern-day Bydgoszcz in Poland — then part of the German Empire.

She came from a conservative landowning family.

During World War I, she trained and worked as a nurse.

After the war, she managed a private nursing clinic in Berlin with financial help from her father.

At first glance, her life appeared conventional.

But politics and hatred would soon consume it.

THE HOTEL MEETING THAT CHANGED HISTORY

In 1926, Margarete met Heinrich Himmler in a hotel lobby at the Bavarian resort town of:

Bad Reichenhall.

Himmler immediately considered her his ideal woman.

He was attracted especially to:

• her blonde hair
• blue eyes
• nationalist worldview

The couple bonded through:

• antisemitism
• racial ideology
• strict domestic values
• interest in herbal medicine and agriculture

THE WOMAN WHO HATED JEWS BEFORE THE HOLOCAUST

Long before the Holocaust reached its deadliest phase, Margarete expressed open hatred toward Jews.

In a 1928 letter to Himmler, she complained about a Jewish co-owner of her Berlin clinic and wrote:

“Those Jews are all the same.”

The hatred inside the marriage was mutual and ideological.

This was not a politically divided household.

THE MARRIAGE THE HIMMLER FAMILY DID NOT WANT

Margarete and Himmler married in July 1928.

But Himmler’s family disapproved of her.

She was:

• seven years older than Heinrich
• divorced
• Protestant rather than Catholic

Not a single member of Himmler’s family attended the wedding.

The rejection would linger throughout the marriage.

THE NAZI FAMILY DREAM

In August 1928, Margarete joined the Nazi Party herself.

The following year, the couple had a daughter:

Gudrun Himmler.

They also fostered the son of a dead SS officer.

The family attempted to live a rural nationalist ideal near Munich:

• gardening
• raising chickens
• selling agricultural products

But as Nazi power expanded, the Himmlers increasingly enriched themselves through property and valuables confiscated from murdered Jews.

THE WOMAN THE OTHER SS WIVES DESPISED

Despite being married to one of the most powerful men in Nazi Germany, Margarete remained deeply unpopular among elite SS families.

She tried hosting formal tea gatherings for wives of senior SS leaders.

But many mocked her appearance and personality behind her back.

Especially:

Lina Heydrich

wife of Holocaust architect:

Reinhard Heydrich.

Lina reportedly sneered:

“Size 50 underwear, that’s all there was to her.”

Others described Margarete as:

• humorless
• controlling
• cold
• bitter

Even within Nazi high society, she became isolated.

THE FEARED MAN WHO WAS APPARENTLY SUBMISSIVE AT HOME

Several Nazi insiders later claimed Himmler behaved very differently in private life.

Former Hitler Youth leader:

Baldur von Schirach

wrote that Himmler was “under his wife’s thumb.”

Others described the terrifying SS chief as strangely intimidated inside his own household.

The contrast disturbed observers even after the war:

A man capable of organizing genocide…

…yet apparently submissive at home.

THE AFFAIR THAT HUMILIATED HER

In 1936, Himmler hired a young secretary:

Hedwig Potthast.

By 1938, she had become his mistress.

Together they had two children.

Margarete eventually discovered the affair.

She reacted with bitterness and humiliation…

…but never divorced him.

The marriage survived largely as a formal arrangement while Himmler continued visiting mainly to see his daughter Gudrun.

THE WOMAN WHO VISITED OCCUPIED POLAND

During World War II, Margarete worked for the:

German Red Cross.

She traveled through occupied territories, including Poland.

In a diary entry from March 1940, after visiting Poznań, Łódź, and Warsaw, she wrote:

“This Jewish rabble… most of them don’t look like human beings.”

The dehumanization was explicit.

And it appeared long before the death camps reached full scale.

THE ONLY MAJOR NAZI WIFE WHO VISITED THE CAMPS

After the war, Margarete insisted she knew little about Nazi crimes.

But historians later pointed to a major contradiction:

She personally visited concentration camps.

Including:

• Dachau concentration camp
• Ravensbrück concentration camp

At Dachau, she inspected the camp’s giant herb plantation project.

At Ravensbrück, she toured the women’s camp.

Yet afterward, she remained publicly silent.

THE WOMAN WHO STILL PRAISED HIMMLER IN 1945

Even as Nazi Germany collapsed in 1945, Margarete still admired her husband.

In February 1945, she wrote to Himmler’s brother:

“How wonderful that he has been called to great tasks and is equal to them.”

By then:

• Auschwitz had already murdered over a million people
• death marches were underway
• concentration camps were overflowing with corpses

Yet she continued expressing pride.

THE FALL OF THE HIMMLER FAMILY

In April 1945, Margarete fled with her daughter toward northern Italy using SS assistance.

After Germany surrendered on May 8th, American forces captured them in Bolzano five days later.

During interrogation, Margarete attempted to shift responsibility entirely onto:

Adolf Hitler.

She claimed her husband had simply followed orders.

Investigators described her mentality as provincial and narrow-minded.

THE WOMAN WHO CLAIMED IGNORANCE

Margarete later testified at the:

Nuremberg trials.

She insisted she had no knowledge of Nazi atrocities.

But many historians have questioned how believable that claim truly was.

She had:

• visited camps
• traveled through occupied Poland
• lived beside the leadership of the SS state

And her own letters and diary entries revealed intense ideological hatred.

THE WOMAN WHO CALLED HIM “A GOOD, EVIL MAN”

Margarete Himmler died in Munich in 1967 at the age of 73.

Among the surviving records of her life is a haunting letter she once wrote to Heinrich Himmler:

“I am so lucky to possess such a good, evil man, who loves his evil wife as much as she loves him.”

Those words remain deeply disturbing to historians.

Because they suggest she understood, at least partly, what her husband truly was…

…and loved him anyway.

THE FORGOTTEN WOMAN BESIDE ONE OF HISTORY’S GREATEST KILLERS

Margarete Himmler never held political office.

She never signed extermination orders.

She never commanded concentration camps.

Yet she stood beside one of the central architects of genocide for nearly two decades.

She shared his ideology.

Shared his hatred.

Benefited from the system he built.

And even after millions died…

…she still described him as a “good man.”