On May 23, 1945, Heinrich Himmler, Reichsführer (Reich Leader) of the Schutzstaffel (SS; Protection Squadron), while in Allied custody, committed suicide by biting into a cyanide pill in his mouth.
Himmler was a main architect of the Holocaust, and set up and controlled the Nazi concentration camps. He was both Chief of German Police and Minister of the Interior, overseeing all internal and external police and security forces, including the Gestapo (Secret State Police). As facilitator and overseer of the concentration camps, Himmler directed the killing of some six million Jews, between 200,000 and 500,000 Romani people, and other victims; the total number of civilians killed by the Nazi regime is estimated at 11 – 14 million people.
By April 1945, realizing the war was lost, Himmler tried to open peace talks with the Western Allies without Hitler’s knowledge shortly before the end of the war. Upon learning of this, Hitler dismissed him from all his posts and ordered his arrest. Himmler attempted to go into hiding, but was detained and arrested by British forces once his identity became known. While in British custody, he committed suicide on May 23, 1945.
By the time of his death, World War II was officially over. Admiral Karl Doenitz, head of the German Navy and Hitler’s successor, had surrendered Germany in instruments signed on May 7 and May 8, 1945. The scattered German units across Europe surrendered before and after the official surrender dates.
Apart from Hitler (who committed suicide on April 30, 1945) as well as Himmler, other high-ranking Nazi officials who took their own lives were Joseph Goebbels (Minister of Propaganda) and his wife after poisoning their six children with cyanide, on May 1, 1945; Martin Bormann, Secretary to the Fuhrer and chief of the Nazi Party Head Office, determined to have already died perhaps by suicide, on May 2, 1945; and Hermann Goering, Vice-Chancellor and head of the Luftwaffe, on the night before his execution, on October 15, 1946.
Hermann Hess, former Deputy Fuhrer, also committed suicide by hanging while serving life sentence in Spandau Prison in August 1987. He was 93 years old, and speculation arose that he was murdered, pointing to his advanced age, that he could not have been physically capable of hanging himself.