"I felt like a pressure cooker, he recalls. My children had never seen me like that. I wasn't myself. Lenkeit explains that, at age 47, he had just discovered by chance and in horror that his maternal grandmother, Hedwig Potthast (1912-1994) had been the lover of Heinrich Himmler, head of the SS and the Gestapo, and one of the architects of the murder of six million Jews during Adolf Hitler's Nazi regime."
"He learned that they had had a son, Helge, and a daughter, Nanette Dorothea, during World War II. And that the daughter was his mother. And that he, therefore, was the grandson of Himmler, the mass murderer and Nazi war criminal. I had to process all of this, Lenkeit says over the phone from Benalmadena (Malaga), where he settled seven years ago after moving from Mexico. When 47 years of your life are a lie, a large part of your identity dies."
Henrik Lenkeit is a 47-year-old Christian pastor and life coach living in Benalmádena on Spain's Costa del Sol, married to a Mexican citizen and father of three. On August 20, 2024, he discovered that his maternal grandmother, Hedwig Potthast (1912–1994), had been the mistress of Heinrich Himmler and bore him two children, including Lenkeit's mother. The revelation made him realize he is Himmler's grandson and triggered an identity crisis, intense emotional turmoil and a period of mourning. He reacted by researching Himmler, comparing family photos and processing the shock of a hidden Nazi lineage.
Read at english.elpais.com
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