About Himmler's Double

'There in the doorway stood the man who Benny instantly believed was Heinrich Himmler. He gazed upon the man responsible for the deaths of millions. Instead of being exultant in his discovery, he found his mouth had dried and he felt extreme fear. Icy fingers seemed to clutch at his spine'

The book's initial 1943 setting describes Himmler's awakening to the increasing prospect of Nazi Germany losing the War. As Hitler's right hand man, Himmler wields almost unlimited power in the upper echelons of the Nazi hierarchy.

Himmler realizes that he will be unable to survive alone after the war's end and weaves the web to compromise a junior SS officer to assist his own survival plans, when the time is right.

His subordinates find a 'double' for both Himmler himself and Martin Bormann, the Nazi party secretary. This was not unprecedented as Hitler himself had a 'double'. However the 'double' had a very slightly different face than Himmler and the services of SS Doctor Josef Mengele are used, at the holocaust centre of Auschwitz in Poland, to make changes through careful minor surgery. Mengele actually uses Jewish prisoner surgeons to perform the task as he lacks the practical skill and experience.

The task of getting a double to commit suicide in Himmler's place was not the original plan. The circumstances that would lead to the double wishing to take his own life were comparatively simple to arrange.

At the War's end Himmler and his young aide literally drop out of sight to live for six months or so, in a specialist facility originally intended for Nazi Werewolf resistance fighters.

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