Trying to Understand Heinrich Himmler

“You never truly know someone until you've walked a mile in his or her shoes.”-Unknown. How do we truly understand someone and know who they are? As people, we tend to judge others without realizing that they became the way they are through experiences and how they were brought up. In Susan Griffin’s “Our Secret” she discusses the abnormal strict childhood experiences of Heinrich Himmler. The main question that Griffin answers are: how did he become this way? We only knew him as a Nazi leader but we did not truly understand him and why he did the things he did.

Griffin talks about how Himmler had an extremely strict father that was so stern, that he would constantly watch over Himmler’s shoulder as he was writing in his journal everyday. Himmler had what seemed like a traumatic, fearful childhood. “What could make a person conceive the plan of gassing millions of human beings to death? In her work, she traces the origins of this violence to childhood” (Griffin 340). Was his dad to blame for all this? Possibly, but the main idea is how do we really understand someone and place ourselves in their shoes.

“Heinrich’s character is hardly apparent, over time this stilted style becomes his own. As one reads on, one no longer thinks of a boy who is forced to the task, but of a prudish and rigid young man”(Griffin 341) At around the age of 10, Himmler is considered a grown up by his father and he can no longer have a childhood. Himmler would snitch on his other classmates, and he was considered an outcast. He learned how to be superior from his father and those who were below him were a lot less unimportant. Himmler discovered he did have a purpose in life because his father told him what to do. Himmler went into the military and gai...

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...wn and the town was for racial inequality. That person disagrees with how his or her town reacts towards people of color, so that does not mean that the town’s “way of life” is in that person. Yes, at times our environment influences us but it is mostly by our experiences as we grow.

Unfortunately, to be able to really know a person can be difficult. One needs to place themselves in their shoes and see how they view the world. Most times that person will have dark secrets, which another person will never know about. “Now you know all about it, and you will keep quiet, he will tell them. Now we share a secret and we should take our secret to our graves” (Griffin 336).

To fully know someone else’s desires, secrets, wishes, how they felt, what they liked, would probably be one of the most difficult things. It takes a lot of time and effort to actually know someone.