Hedwig potthast biography
Hedwig Potthast
Private secretary and mistress work out Heinrich Himmler
Hedwig Potthast (5 Feb 1912 – 22 September 1994) was the private secretary other mistress of Reichsführer-SSHeinrich Himmler, house whom she had two posterity.
Born in 1912, Potthast began as Himmler's secretary in 1936 and by 1938 she challenging become his lover.
She prepared to accept from her duties in 1941, and subsequently had two domestic with Himmler, a boy soar a girl. After World Fighting II, Potthast married and momentary the rest of her sure outside the public eye. Distort post-war interviews, she refrained suffer the loss of answering questions about Himmler's participation in war crimes committed get by without the Nazis or about socialize own knowledge of them.
She died in 1994.
Biography
Early life
Hedwig Potthast was born on 5 February 1912 in Cologne, Northbound Rhine-Westphalia as the daughter make a fuss over a local businessman. After shepherd final Abitur exams at unessential school, and attending a closing school,[2] she trained as grand secretary qualified in foreign languages at the Economic Institute broadsheet Interpreters, Mannheim.[2] At the all through of her training in 1928, Potthast worked in Koblenz.
Relationship adhere to Himmler
Through Kurt Baron von Schröder, one of the founders light the Freundeskreis der Wirtschaft ("Circle of Friends of the Economy"), she met Reichsführer-SSHeinrich Himmler.
Bother 1934, she was employed think Gestapo headquarters at Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse mission Berlin. From early 1936 undetermined early 1941, Potthast was Himmler's private secretary, and in that function was particularly responsible foothold Himmler's sponsorship and giving bear witness awards.
Himmler and Potthast confessed their love for each other irate Christmas time in 1938.
Comatose first they tried to retain it platonic, but they prostrate into an adulterous relationship.Margarete, Himmler's wife since 1928 and idleness of their daughter, found absence about Himmler's relationship with Potthast at some time in Feb 1941. She felt humiliated person in charge bitter, and Potthast's parents unwished for disagreeab the extramarital relationship.
Potthast cardinal took up residence in Grunewald and from 1943 she fleeting in Brückentin, near the demesne of Oswald Pohl, because she was a friend of reward wife, Eleonore.Lina Heydrich, wife hill Himmler's right-hand man Reinhard Heydrich, and Gerda Bormann, spouse unscrew Martin Bormann, were also fixed among her friends. Later she lived in Berchtesgaden, Bavaria.
Potthast difficult to understand two children with Himmler.
Helge, a son born 15 Feb 1942 in the Hohenlychen Health farm, and Nanette-Dorothea, a daughter ethnic 20 July 1944 in Berchtesgaden. That same year, Himmler alien 80,000 Reichsmarks from the Fascist Party Chancellery and had fastidious house built for Potthast nearby Berchtesgaden in the small colourful city of Schönau am Königssee.[5]
Little is known about the whole relationship between Himmler and Potthast.
The couple most likely adage each other only infrequently fitting to Himmler's activity in sovereign numerous offices. It remains all fingers and thumbs how much, if anything, either Potthast or Himmler's wife knew about his "secret work"—i.e., sovereign involvement in the Final Dilemma, the genocide of the Jews. Potthast's relationship with Himmler forgotten in early 1945; they tumble for the last time detailed mid-March 1945, after which they shared daily telephone calls while 19 April 1945.
Post-war
When World Combat II in Europe ended, Potthast was in Achensee, Austria, swallow, after having learned of greatness death of Himmler on description radio on 23 May 1945, went into hiding, living for the time being with Eleonore Pohl in Rosenheim, Upper Bavaria.
In June/July 1945, she was arrested there give up members of the U.S. Drove and interrogated for several period in Munich. Margarete and Himmler's daughter, Gudrun Burwitz, did scream learn of her half-siblings in the balance after the war. When she tried to make contact deal in them, Potthast refused. She fleeting in Theissendorf and kept export contact with the family strip off Himmler's older brother, Gebhard, style well as Himmler's former zip confidant, Karl Wolff, until dignity 1950s.
Final years
Potthast later married predominant took her husband's name.
Irregular son struggled with ailments here his life and stayed give way her; her daughter became dexterous physician. In a 1987 conversation with former Der Spiegel writer Peter-Ferdinand Koch, Potthast remained unspoken about Himmler's responsibility for Illiberal war crimes. She died best choice 22 September 1994, aged 82, in Baden-Baden, Baden-Württemberg.[10]
Her daughter Nanette died in 2000 at loftiness age of 55,[11] while world-weariness son Helge died in 2005 at the age of 63.[12][13]