'OW Heinrich Himmler, the chief of the S.S. Nazi troops and of the Gestapo, rose from humble beginnings to one of the most powerful positions in Nazi Germany and Nazi-occupied Europe, through the exercise of the most cunning cruelty and disregard of common humanity, was described over Radio Station XCDN on Saturday night by Mr. John Harford. It is a story of the deepest craft and lack of scruple, carried out with murderous ruthlessness. The talk follows:—
You may wonder why I have chosen to talk about the efficient but colourless; the repellent and bestial figure of Himmler, who might well have been described as possessing a "genius which is purely ministerial, essentially governmental, accurate in all its forecasts and incredibly shrewd." These words, written in fact about Joseph Fouché, the Minister of Police of the Directory in France, of Napoleon and of Louis XVIII, are by Balzac who found Fouché the ablest man he had ever come across, It is precisely because they fit Fouché, that I have applied them to Himmler, far the two men have a great deal'in common; and it is precisely because of the similarity of their achievements that I have chosen Himmler for this portrait, Fouché planned Napoleon's seizure of power with the same mixture of cunning and treachery as Himmler planned the massacre of the S.A, in June 1934 which put Hitler firmly in the saddle,' Both are completely amoral personalities. Both have been underrated; for each in his period has been a real fashioner of history,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.