Heinrich Himmler was a Nazi German war criminal who was principally responsible for implementing the systematic extermination of millions via death camps such as Auschwitz, Treblinka, and Dachau. He was the German Interior Minister (1943-45), Head of both the Nazi SS (beginning in 1929) and the Gestapo (beginning in 1936), and Commander in Chief of German Home Forces (1944-45).

As the leading organizer of the Holocaust, he oversaw the slaughter of millions of Jews, mentally retarded individuals, gypsies, homosexuals, socialists, communists, and many other minorities, as well as virtually anyone else who dared oppose the Nazis and their abhorrent reign of terror. Those who were not killed outright were sometimes subjected to gruesome medical experiments by his SS doctors.

Date, time and place of birth: October 7, 1900*, at 3:30 p.m., Munich, Bavaria, Germany

Date, time, place and cause of death: May 23, 1945, at 11:14 p.m., 31a Ülzener Strasse, Lüneburg, Germany (Suicide - poison cyanide capsule)

* Himmler was not born November 7th as some editions of the Collier's Encyclopedia, Encyclopædia Britannica© and the Daily Celebrity Almanac by Bob Barry, all report. Encyclopædia Britannica carried the incorrect data for decades, but thankfully recent editions of EB have the correct data.