Fantasist: Academics have compiled over 700 of Himmler's letters and photographs . Heinrich Himmler - S.S. chief and organiser of the Holocaust of six million Jews - has been exposed as an insecure romantic fantasist who kept the secret of the mass Jewish extermination programme he directed from his wife and mistress in case it upset them. Academics in Germany have spent the last three years examining the letters, photos, memorandums - even a recipe book - of the most feared man in Nazi Germany after they were discovered in Israel. Himmler, who as S.S. Reichsfuehrer was in charge of the entire complex of concentration camps throughout Europe and oversaw the systematic murder of around six million Jews during the Second World War. But in the letters and diaries being serialised by Germany’s Die Welt newspaper he comes across as a foppish, even diffident accomplice to mass slaughter. In all, the SS commander sent some 700 letters to his wife, Marga. many evoking the 'banality of evil’ famously ascribed to his murderous SS lieutenant Adolph Eichmann, who organised the transportation of Jews to gas chambers. On the eve of Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of the Soviet Unon in June 1941, one of the letters Himmler wrote to his wife Marga said: 'Now it is war again. I knew it - I slept so badly.' Collection: A trove of letters, notes and photos that were in possession of an Israeli family. The letters are believed to be written by Nazi SS leader Heinrich Himmler and had not been shown to the public . Marga wrote back; 'There is a box of caviar in the fridge. Take that with you.' Twenty seven million Russians and millions more German soldiers were to die in the campaign that the Third Reich launched on June 22 that year. Himmler, who was in charge of the entire complex of concentration camps throughout Europe, wrote to Marga on July 7, 15 days after the invasion had begun, apologising for missing his wedding anniversary. 'I am so sorry I missed our anniversary for the first time', he wrote four days after the event. 'There was lots going on in these days. The fighting is very hard for the S.S.' Not that Himmler was anywhere near the frontline - the letter was sent from his holiday home in Bavaria. Historians have spent three years studying the archive, which belonged to a Jewish man before it was sealed in a bank vault in Tel Aviv, in order to test its authenticity, before coming to the conclusion that it is genuine. In an editorial Die Welt writes: 'At . first glance Himmler’s letters, especially his early ones, to his wife . revolve around mundane things. 'But they say much about the world of . ideas and the self-image of an apparently unfeeling, self-righteous . bureaucrat who became the pioneer and chief organizer of humanity’s . greatest crime - the Holocaust.' Himmler is seen here with his daughter, Gudrun . Himmler, who was in charge of the entire complex of concentration camps throughout Europe, is seen here inspecting a Russian prisoner of war . The newspaper adds: 'There was ´no word . about the countless crimes in which he was involved as Reichsführer SS, . or that he had arranged. 'Not a word about the persecution, deprivation . of rights and murder of approximately six million European Jews. And . barely a word about the ghettos guarded by his SS and his police, and . the death camps, which he also attended. Family: Heinrich Himmler in Valepp, Bavaria, with his wife Marga (back right) his daughter Gudrun (front centre), his son Gerhard (front right), and a friend of Gudrun (front left) ''I'm going to Auschwitz. Kisses, your Heini'. That was all what the closest advisor to Hitler wrote.' The Himmler correspondence was taken from his home at Gmund on the shores of Lake Tegernsee in Bavaria in 1945 as he went on the run. He had taken the identity of a lowly serviceman, shaved off his moustache and went walking across Germany before he was caught by a British patrol in May 1945. He committed suicide with a phial of cyanide hidden in his mouth before he could be questioned. Himmler met his future wife, Margarethe Siegroth, seven years his senior, on a train in September 1927 where, according to Die Welt, he displayed his 'anti-Semitism' on a trip from Berchtesgaden to Munich. From Christmas that year they were a partnership. Later she would write to him: 'I am so . happy to have a good bad man that loves his evil wife!' The academics . who authenticated the correspondence for Die Welt said that he often . referred to himself as a 'beast' and a 'wild man' in his letters to . Marga that fuelled the sexual fantasies of them both. 'My black soul thinks of only the most impossible things,' she wrote to him in 1928. He . refers to her often in the letters as 'beloved, golden woman,' and . describes himself as a 'good and wild Landsknecht' - a class of . mercenary soldier in Germany in the 16th and 17th centuries. They . traded insults about the Jews in letters before the war, and in one . Marga wrote: 'The Jew pack has much dread of you.'  In another. 'The Jew . remains the Jew!' Himmler . wrote back to her on June 21 1928; 'Don’t get angry about the Jews, . good woman, I can help you.' The previous year he wrote: 'I like Berlin . today because you are there, just like I would like the small poor . village where you came from if you were still there.' As head of the SS,  Himmler was one of the most feared men in Nazi Germany.  He was widely considered to be one of Adolf Hitler's key henchman during the Second World War . The young couple shared not only common . distaste for Jews. Also, the Imperial capital Berlin, where Marga . managed small private sanatorium at the beginning of their relationship, . not particularly good came away. 'Berlin is today like me because you . live there, just like me the poor small village would love if it were . your home', Himmler wrote on Christmas day 1927 at his girlfriend. 'The . system of Berlin, that does not treat well a good and pure woman like . you, I hate, and will always hate.' Historians spent three years studying the archive, which once belonged to a Jewish man . Himmler addressed his letters to his 'small, sweet, beloved wife' and later 'Beloved mummy.' But in 1938 he began a long term affair with his secretary Hedwig Potthast and fathered daughters Helge and Nanette-Dorothea with her. He called her 'My dear love' and the letters show he assauaged his guilt with his wife by sending her enormous food parcels later in the war from the conquered lands. The archive also reveals letters from Himmler’s and Marga’s daughter Gudrun, now living as an 85-year-old pensioner in Munich who assists still-surviving wanted Nazis to keep out of the claws of justice through the sinister Stille Hilfe - Silent Aid - organisation. On the actual day of the invasion of the Soviet Union the 13-year-old Gudrun wrote to him with a presience the regime’s hierachy did not possess: 'It's awful that we make war against Russia. They were our allies. Russia is soooo big.  When we take over the whole of Russia the fight will be very difficult.' The serialisation begins ahead of World Holocaust Memorial Day on Monday, which marks the date in January 1945 when the major Nazi slaughterhouse of Auschwitz was liberated by the Red Army. Commenting on the publication, Karen Pollock, Chief Executive of the Holocaust Educational Trust, said: 'The Nazis were not "monsters" but people who committed monstrous acts. 'As these photos and letters show, Heinrich Himmler was a family man - which makes the choices he made elsewhere in his life all the more shocking and incomprehensible.'
Academics have compiled over 700 of Himmler's letters and photographs .
The compilation even includes a recipe book which was found in Israel .
Himmler was worried Holocaust truth would upset wife and mistresses .
As SS chief Himmler was one of the most feared men in Nazi Germany .
Fantasist: Academics have compiled over 700 of Himmler's letters and photographs . Heinrich Himmler - S.S. chief and organiser of the Holocaust of six million Jews - has been exposed as an insecure romantic fantasist who kept the secret of the mass Jewish extermination programme he directed from his wife and mistress in case it upset them. Academics in Germany have spent the last three years examining the letters, photos, memorandums - even a recipe book - of the most feared man in Nazi Germany after they were discovered in Israel. Himmler, who as S.S. Reichsfuehrer was in charge of the entire complex of concentration camps throughout Europe and oversaw the systematic murder of around six million Jews during the Second World War. But in the letters and diaries being serialised by Germany’s Die Welt newspaper he comes across as a foppish, even diffident accomplice to mass slaughter. In all, the SS commander sent some 700 letters to his wife, Marga. many evoking the 'banality of evil’ famously ascribed to his murderous SS lieutenant Adolph Eichmann, who organised the transportation of Jews to gas chambers. On the eve of Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of the Soviet Unon in June 1941, one of the letters Himmler wrote to his wife Marga said: 'Now it is war again. I knew it - I slept so badly.' Collection: A trove of letters, notes and photos that were in possession of an Israeli family. The letters are believed to be written by Nazi SS leader Heinrich Himmler and had not been shown to the public . Marga wrote back; 'There is a box of caviar in the fridge. Take that with you.' Twenty seven million Russians and millions more German soldiers were to die in the campaign that the Third Reich launched on June 22 that year. Himmler, who was in charge of the entire complex of concentration camps throughout Europe, wrote to Marga on July 7, 15 days after the invasion had begun, apologising for missing his wedding anniversary. 'I am so sorry I missed our anniversary for the first time', he wrote four days after the event. 'There was lots going on in these days. The fighting is very hard for the S.S.' Not that Himmler was anywhere near the frontline - the letter was sent from his holiday home in Bavaria. Historians have spent three years studying the archive, which belonged to a Jewish man before it was sealed in a bank vault in Tel Aviv, in order to test its authenticity, before coming to the conclusion that it is genuine. In an editorial Die Welt writes: 'At . first glance Himmler’s letters, especially his early ones, to his wife . revolve around mundane things. 'But they say much about the world of . ideas and the self-image of an apparently unfeeling, self-righteous . bureaucrat who became the pioneer and chief organizer of humanity’s . greatest crime - the Holocaust.' Himmler is seen here with his daughter, Gudrun . Himmler, who was in charge of the entire complex of concentration camps throughout Europe, is seen here inspecting a Russian prisoner of war . The newspaper adds: 'There was ´no word . about the countless crimes in which he was involved as Reichsführer SS, . or that he had arranged. 'Not a word about the persecution, deprivation . of rights and murder of approximately six million European Jews. And . barely a word about the ghettos guarded by his SS and his police, and . the death camps, which he also attended. Family: Heinrich Himmler in Valepp, Bavaria, with his wife Marga (back right) his daughter Gudrun (front centre), his son Gerhard (front right), and a friend of Gudrun (front left) ''I'm going to Auschwitz. Kisses, your Heini'. That was all what the closest advisor to Hitler wrote.' The Himmler correspondence was taken from his home at Gmund on the shores of Lake Tegernsee in Bavaria in 1945 as he went on the run. He had taken the identity of a lowly serviceman, shaved off his moustache and went walking across Germany before he was caught by a British patrol in May 1945. He committed suicide with a phial of cyanide hidden in his mouth before he could be questioned. Himmler met his future wife, Margarethe Siegroth, seven years his senior, on a train in September 1927 where, according to Die Welt, he displayed his 'anti-Semitism' on a trip from Berchtesgaden to Munich. From Christmas that year they were a partnership. Later she would write to him: 'I am so . happy to have a good bad man that loves his evil wife!' The academics . who authenticated the correspondence for Die Welt said that he often . referred to himself as a 'beast' and a 'wild man' in his letters to . Marga that fuelled the sexual fantasies of them both. 'My black soul thinks of only the most impossible things,' she wrote to him in 1928. He . refers to her often in the letters as 'beloved, golden woman,' and . describes himself as a 'good and wild Landsknecht' - a class of . mercenary soldier in Germany in the 16th and 17th centuries. They . traded insults about the Jews in letters before the war, and in one . Marga wrote: 'The Jew pack has much dread of you.'  In another. 'The Jew . remains the Jew!' Himmler . wrote back to her on June 21 1928; 'Don’t get angry about the Jews, . good woman, I can help you.' The previous year he wrote: 'I like Berlin . today because you are there, just like I would like the small poor . village where you came from if you were still there.' As head of the SS,  Himmler was one of the most feared men in Nazi Germany.  He was widely considered to be one of Adolf Hitler's key henchman during the Second World War . The young couple shared not only common . distaste for Jews. Also, the Imperial capital Berlin, where Marga . managed small private sanatorium at the beginning of their relationship, . not particularly good came away. 'Berlin is today like me because you . live there, just like me the poor small village would love if it were . your home', Himmler wrote on Christmas day 1927 at his girlfriend. 'The . system of Berlin, that does not treat well a good and pure woman like . you, I hate, and will always hate.' Historians spent three years studying the archive, which once belonged to a Jewish man . Himmler addressed his letters to his 'small, sweet, beloved wife' and later 'Beloved mummy.' But in 1938 he began a long term affair with his secretary Hedwig Potthast and fathered daughters Helge and Nanette-Dorothea with her. He called her 'My dear love' and the letters show he assauaged his guilt with his wife by sending her enormous food parcels later in the war from the conquered lands. The archive also reveals letters from Himmler’s and Marga’s daughter Gudrun, now living as an 85-year-old pensioner in Munich who assists still-surviving wanted Nazis to keep out of the claws of justice through the sinister Stille Hilfe - Silent Aid - organisation. On the actual day of the invasion of the Soviet Union the 13-year-old Gudrun wrote to him with a presience the regime’s hierachy did not possess: 'It's awful that we make war against Russia. They were our allies. Russia is soooo big.  When we take over the whole of Russia the fight will be very difficult.' The serialisation begins ahead of World Holocaust Memorial Day on Monday, which marks the date in January 1945 when the major Nazi slaughterhouse of Auschwitz was liberated by the Red Army. Commenting on the publication, Karen Pollock, Chief Executive of the Holocaust Educational Trust, said: 'The Nazis were not "monsters" but people who committed monstrous acts. 'As these photos and letters show, Heinrich Himmler was a family man - which makes the choices he made elsewhere in his life all the more shocking and incomprehensible.'
Fantasist: Academics have compiled over 700 of Himmler's letters and photographs . Heinrich memorandums - even a recipe book - of the most there.' As head of the SS,  Himmler was one of the most feared men in Nazi Germany.  He was