Very interesting! So it was Hess who actually wrote Mein Kampf. He gets little credit for it; most people think Hitler wrote the book himself.
What a story about Himmler—it’s hard to imagine. There was quite a gulf between the NAZI ideal and the NAZI reality, wasn’t there? In Hitler’s inner circle, at least in some cases, loyalty must have trumped all else.
Himmler was a piece of work.
According to the pre-war standards he set for membership in the SS, he would never have been allowed in.
Of course once the SS started losing men the standards were relaxed.
Hitler’s inner circle were nearly all old pre-war party henchmen.
Hess, Himmler, Goering and others were all old party hands who never defied the leader.
To do so was a death sentence.
Even if you were a loyal party member, inner party politics and jostling for power could get you killed.
Just ask Ernst Rohm.