Sidney Excell
Sidney Excell | |
---|---|
Born | 23 December 1906 Chatham, Kent, England |
Died | December 1990(1990-12-00) (aged 83–84) |
Allegiance | United Kingdom |
Service/ | British Army |
Rank | Major |
Sidney Excell (23 December 1906 – December 1990) was a British Army major during World War II. He is remembered for the 1945 arrest of Nazi Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler in Bremervörde, Germany.
Early life
Educated at marine school in Chatham, Excell worked as an apprenticed shoe maker before joining the metropolitan police and then volunteering for the Palestine Police, in which he served in the 1930s. There he met his wife, Lisa, a Russian-Polish immigrant. They then left Palestine and went to England (British police were not allowed to fraternise with Jews or Arabs in Palestine). They were then married in Epping Essex.
Arrest of Himmler
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/7f/Himmler_Dead.jpg/220px-Himmler_Dead.jpg)
On 22 May 1945, the British Army were manning a checkpoint at the Bremervorde Bridge in West Germany when three men were brought in for questioning and their documents examined. One, claiming to be "Heinrich Hitzinger", raised suspicion, and Excell arrested all three. British soldier Arthur Britton soon identified "Hitzinger" as Heinrich Luitpold Himmler. The next day, while in custody in Lüneburg, Himmler committed suicide by poison, biting into a capsule of potassium cyanide before he could be interrogated.
Life after World War II
Excell continued to serve in the British Army. He was medically discharged from the army after contracting rheumatoid arthritis in his hands. He then went on to serve in the British Mandate Police in Palestine. Later, he worked for the London Electricity Board as an electrical engineer until he retired.
He died from heart failure in 1990 and is survived by two sons, four grandsons and three granddaughters, all of whom still carry his surname.
References
- v
- t
- e
- Reichsführer-SS
- Chief of German Police
- Minister of the Interior
- Ideology of the SS
- Personal Staff Reichsführer-SS
- Freundeskreis Reichsführer-SS ("Circle of Friends of the Reichsführer-SS")
- Adolf Hitler
- Reinhard Heydrich (Chief of the RSHA)
- Ernst Kaltenbrunner (successor as Chief of the RSHA)
- Karl Wolff (Chief of Personal Staff)
- Hedwig Potthast (secretary)
- Rudolf Brandt (Personal Administrative Officer to RFSS)
- Hermann Gauch (adjutant)
- Werner Grothmann (aide-de-camp)
- Heinz Macher (second personal assistant)
- Walter Schellenberg (personal aide)
- Karl Maria Wiligut (occultist)
the Holocaust
- The Holocaust
- Romani genocide
- Crimes against Poles
- Crimes against Soviet POWs
- Persecution of Slavs in Eastern Europe
- Persecution of homosexuals
- Persecution of Serbs
- Suppression of Freemasonry
- Persecution of Jehovah's Witnesses
- Persecution of black people
- Kommandostab Reichsführer-SS
- Deutsche Volksliste
- Operation Reinhard
- Hegewald
- Posen speeches
- Himmler-Kersten Agreement
- Margarete Himmler (wife)
- Gudrun Burwitz (daughter)
- Hedwig Potthast (mistress)
- Gebhard Ludwig (older brother)
- Ernst (younger brother)
- Katrin Himmler (great-niece)
- Heinz Kokott (brother-in-law)
- Richard Wendler (brother-in-law)
- Operation Himmler
- Army Group Upper Rhine
- Army Group Vistula
- Operation Nordwind
- Erhard Heiden (predecessor as Reichsführer-SS)
- Karl Hanke (successor as Reichsführer-SS)
- Falk Zipperer (closest friend)
- Karl Gebhardt (personal physician)
- Felix Kersten (personal masseur)
- Hugo Blaschke (dentist)
- Sidney Excell (man who arrested Himmler)