In amongst the inexhaustible autopsy of Nazi atrocity comes this account of the life and war of Heinrich Himmler, Hitler inner-cronie and Architect of the Final Solution.
What is so challenging about Israeli director Lapa’s documentary is her wedding of the still staggering archival imagery to a relatively unknown trove of Himmler’s private correspondence. Letters home to his wife and children, his mistress, and fellow officers that she has narrated by various actors. The discrepancy between the sweet, even touching nature of the letters and Himmler's monumental industry of death is profound. “Despite all the work,” he writes, “I sleep well.”