Eighty years ago Himmler is arrested and kills himself

 

Heinrich Himmler, the former head of the SS was captured by the British army under the false identity of Sergeant Hizinger of the security police, junior in rank but liable to automatic arrest. The British did not  recognise him. He was dishevelled, had shaved his trademark moustache and wore an eye patch,  but after a few hours he spontaneously disclosed his identity. A doctor searched him for poison and found a capsule in his mouth which he tried  to remove. Himmler fought back and succeeded in biting onto the cyanide capsule, which killed him in ten minutes. This left only ex-foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop of the Third Reich's top leadership still alive and at large.

Churchill formally resigned as prime minister and asked for a dissolution of Parliament. The Parliament elected in November 1935 had lasted long than any in modern times. Given the time that would elapse before the ensuing general election, George VI asked him to form a  goverment. This would be no more than a short-lived caretaker government which was entirely Conservative. Churchill had hoped that the Liberals would have particpated and provided a fig-leaf relic of national government.

What was to become the United Nations organization was beginning to take proper shape at the San Francisco conference. Even though only forty-six nations were represented it was possibly the largest international gathering ever with 3,500 people involved: 850 formal delegates, their advisers and the staff of the conference, the embryo of today's UN. A crucial decision of principle was made which endures today albeit in rather different form. The leading allied powers - China, France, Great Britain, the Soviet Union and the United States  - would each hold a veto over decisions.