Bild's Damian Imoehl, who helped uncover the old diaries, said, “The most interesting thing for me is this combination of doting father and cold-blooded killer.”
The entries include details of conversations with his wife Margarete and daughter Gudrun, interspersed with details of the executions he ordered.
In one entry, he wrote that he almost fainted when brain tissue from one of the Jews he had ordered executed in Minsk in 1941 splattered onto his coat. Himmler was known to be squeamish at the sight of blood.
On January 3, 1943, the diary notes that he had a massage scheduled for 10 a.m., lunch with other SS officers at 2 p.m., supper at 8 p.m., and an hour later ordered the execution of 10 Polish officers who refused to cooperate with the Nazis and the deportation of their families to concentration camps.
The notes show that despite enjoying playing cards, stargazing and watching Nazi propaganda movies, he did not allow his leisure time to interfere with his determination to exterminate Jews.