Vistula, which proved unable to halt the advance of the Red Army
into Pomerania. Yet as early as mid-1942, anticipating the eventual
defeat of his country and working secretly in concert with SD chief
Walter Schellenberg, Himmler had begun to explore the possibili-
ties of a negotiated peace that would ensure his position in a postwar
Germany. In late 1944, Himmler even agreed, mostly through the
influence of his masseur Felix Kersten, to make some humanitarian
concessions regarding the destruction of European Jewry. His secret
peace overtures, as relayed via Count Folke Bernadotte of Sweden,
not only failed to impress the Western Allies but were revealed by
the press in late April 1945. Hitler angrily denounced this move as
“the most shameful betrayal in human history” and expelled him
from the party in his final political testament. Assuming a false
identity—Heinrich Hitzinger of the undercover military police—
Himmler attempted to return to Bavaria but was captured by British
troops and brought to Lüneburg (Lower Saxony). On 23 May, before
any interrogation took place, he committed suicide by swallowing a
vial of potassium cyanide concealed in his mouth. See also NIGHT
OF THE LONG KNIVES.HINDRICHS, ARMIN. A valued agent of the Ministerium für
Staatssicherheit (MfS) active in the Federal Republic of Germany
(FRG), Armin Hindrichs was imprisoned at Bautzen during the
1950s. After agreeing to work for the MfS, Hindrichs (code name
talar) resettled in the FRG in 1960 and became associated with the
Gesamtdeutsches Institut, a federal research center in Bonn regarded
as a primary enemy target by the MfS. In 1972, Hindrichs joined the
staff of the leader of the Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands in
the Bundestag, Herbert Wehner. Reflecting the importance of his
high-level information, Hindrichs was transferred to the Hauptver-
waltung Aufklärung in 1978. A Düsseldorf court found him guilty
of espionage in 1996 and issued a three-year prison sentence.
HIPPEL, THEODOR VON (1890–?). The creator of the special
forces unit of the Abwehr, Theodor von Hippel served as a junior
officer in World War I in German East Africa (now Tanzania) and
observed firsthand the success of irregular warfare against Allied
colonial troops. Joining the Wehrmacht in 1935, he attempted to
HIPPEL, THEODOR VON • 191