German expat priest discovers he is grandson of evil Holocaust architect Heinrich Himmler
A German expat has revealed the shocking moment he discovered his grandfather was Hienrich Himmler, one of the most evil figures in modern history.
Henrik Lenkiet, a Malaga-based couples therapist and evangelical pastor, said he was watching a documentary about the Nazis when he recognised the face of his grandmother, Hedwig Potthast.
She was described as being Himmler’s personal secretary and mistress during the Second World War.
‘I suddenly realised I was looking at my grandmother’s face,’ he told Der Spiegel.
‘I felt completely hollow inside, it was as if my entire past had crumbled in a single moment.’
Himmler was the head of the feared SS and one of the architects of Adolf Hitler’s ‘final solution’, aka the Holocaust, which systematically killed more than six million Jews.
Lenkeit grew up in northern Germany believing his grandfather was Hans Staeck, the man who married his grandmother in 1955.
His ‘Mutti’, as he called her, lived in Baden-Baden, a kind, soft-spoken woman who offered him chocolate and lessons about being ‘a good person.’
Henrik now lives near Malaga, where he works as a therapist and evangelical pastor.
He moved to the Costa del Sol in 2018 with his Mexican wife and their three children.
It was there that he saw the documentary and began his own research.
According to The Times, The Independent and De Telegraaf, Lenkeit soon confirmed that he is the biological grandson of Himmler – one of the most powerful men in Nazi Germany.
After recognising his grandmother’s face, he carried out months of personal investigation, including cross-checking dates, locations and family documents.
He discovered that Himmler and his grandmother Potthast had maintained a relationship from 1938 onwards, when she worked as his secretary.
Two children were born from that union: Helge (1942) and Nanette-Dorothea (1944), with the latter being Lenkeit’s mother.
Confirmation came when he found Nanette’s birth certificate, which listed Himmler as her father.
‘Some 47 years of my life weren’t real,’ he told The Telegraph. ‘I felt anger, sadness, fear – it was like going through grief.’
‘If I could bring my grandfather back to life, I’d give him a good beating,’ he once said in an interview.
Yet over time, Lenkeit has learned that inheriting evil doesn’t mean repeating it.
‘We don’t choose our blood,’ he said. ‘But we do choose what we do with it.’
Speaking from his home, he told De Telegraaf that his work helping others has become a form of redemption.
He counsels couples, preaches about reconciliation, and speaks openly about the silence that still hangs over many German families who never confronted their Nazi past.
‘In Germany we say: ‘We lie in our own pockets’,’ he explained, meaning people deceive themselves.
‘We like to think we would have done the right thing… but who can be sure?’
Lenkeit now warns about the dangers of rising far-right movements in Europe.
‘The ideas that justify hatred or exclusion never die completely,’ he said. ‘That’s why I speak, because staying silent is exactly what my family did.’
