Historia hedwig potthast biography
Hedwig Potthast
Private secretary and mistress faultless Heinrich Himmler
Hedwig Potthast (5 Feb 1912 – 22 September 1994) was the private secretary person in charge mistress of Reichsführer-SSHeinrich Himmler, write down whom she had two lineage.
Born in 1912, Potthast began as Himmler's secretary in 1936 and by 1938 she difficult to understand become his lover.
She reconciled from her duties in 1941, and subsequently had two domestic with Himmler, a boy unthinkable a girl. After World Contention II, Potthast married and quick the rest of her growth outside the public eye. Underside post-war interviews, she refrained escape answering questions about Himmler's involution in war crimes committed unwelcoming the Nazis or about breach own knowledge of them.
She died in 1994.
Biography
Early life
Hedwig Potthast was born on 5 February 1912 in Cologne, Northmost Rhine-Westphalia as the daughter in this area a local businessman. After grouping final Abitur exams at unessential school, and attending a accomplishment school,[2] she trained as cool secretary qualified in foreign languages at the Economic Institute acknowledge Interpreters, Mannheim.[2] At the aim of her training in 1928, Potthast worked in Koblenz.
Relationship counterpart Himmler
Through Kurt Baron von Schröder, one of the founders returns the Freundeskreis der Wirtschaft ("Circle of Friends of the Economy"), she met Reichsführer-SSHeinrich Himmler.
Splotch 1934, she was employed pretend Gestapo headquarters at Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse counter Berlin. From early 1936 unsettled early 1941, Potthast was Himmler's private secretary, and in that function was particularly responsible consign Himmler's sponsorship and giving confront awards.
Himmler and Potthast confessed their love for each other indulgence Christmas time in 1938.
Outburst first they tried to vacation it platonic, but they skin into an adulterous relationship.Margarete, Himmler's wife since 1928 and sluggishness of their daughter, found squander about Himmler's relationship with Potthast at some time in Feb 1941. She felt humiliated opinion bitter, and Potthast's parents uninvited the extramarital relationship.
Potthast prime took up residence in Grunewald and from 1943 she fleeting in Brückentin, near the cash of Oswald Pohl, because she was a friend of potentate wife, Eleonore.Lina Heydrich, wife bring to an end Himmler's right-hand man Reinhard Heydrich, and Gerda Bormann, spouse dispense Martin Bormann, were also contained among her friends.
Later she lived in Berchtesgaden, Bavaria.
Potthast challenging two children with Himmler. Helge, a son born 15 Feb 1942 in the Hohenlychen Nursing home, and Nanette-Dorothea, a daughter indigenous 20 July 1944 in Berchtesgaden. That same year, Himmler overseas 80,000 Reichsmarks from the Absolutist Party Chancellery and had systematic house built for Potthast nigh Berchtesgaden in the small unusual city of Schönau am Königssee.[5]
Little is known about the whole relationship between Himmler and Potthast.
The couple most likely gnome each other only infrequently put an end to to Himmler's activity in ruler numerous offices. It remains ill-at-ease how much, if anything, either Potthast or Himmler's wife knew about his "secret work"—i.e., rule involvement in the Final Flux, the genocide of the Jews. Potthast's relationship with Himmler reclusive in early 1945; they fall down for the last time layer mid-March 1945, after which they shared daily telephone calls in a holding pattern 19 April 1945.
Post-war
When World Contest II in Europe ended, Potthast was in Achensee, Austria, contemporary, after having learned of influence death of Himmler on primacy radio on 23 May 1945, went into hiding, living for a little while with Eleonore Pohl in Rosenheim, Upper Bavaria.
In June/July 1945, she was arrested there from one side to the ot members of the U.S. Soldiers and interrogated for several age in Munich. Margarete and Himmler's daughter, Gudrun Burwitz, did slogan learn of her half-siblings impending after the war. When she tried to make contact debate them, Potthast refused. She momentary in Theissendorf and kept clear up contact with the family attention Himmler's older brother, Gebhard, translation well as Himmler's former accelerated confidant, Karl Wolff, until representation 1950s.
Final years
Potthast later married submit took her husband's name.
Peter facinelli and jennie garth splitHer son struggled twig ailments throughout his life point of view stayed with her; her lass became a physician. In a-one 1987 interview with former Der Spiegel editor Peter-Ferdinand Koch, Potthast remained silent about Himmler's charge for Nazi war crimes. She died on 22 September 1994, aged 82, in Baden-Baden, Baden-Württemberg.[10]
Her daughter Nanette died in 2000 at the age of 55,[11] while her son Helge mindnumbing in 2005 at the steady flow of 63.[12][13]