Clearly something like this must not be allowed to happen again.It was Sgt Maj Austin who had suggested, after the Prutzmann episode, that the safest way to avoid such an outcome was to knock a prisoner out with a sandbag and search him before he regained consciousness. He had even prepared a sandbag, should it be necessary, for future prisoners, but the idea was abandoned as not being acceptable to the spirit of the Geneva Convention.By now, Himmler was standing naked in the centre of the room Wells began his examination, leaving the mouth until last. In his account, the doctor observed to his wife that Himmler had delicate hands and that “his finger nails were cut to a point, which in a man I have always coupled, probably quite wrongly, with sex perversion”.Before taking up medicine, Dr Wells had qualified as a dentist, and he was fascinated by Himmler’s teeth which he was able to see clearly when the Sergeant Major shone a bright light into the prisoner’s mouth. “They were goodish teeth with a certain number of gold fillings and some small round amalgam ones in the fissures of his molars, the cups of which were rather unduly flattened, I thought. But what I did see was a small blue tit-like object sticking out of the lower sulcus [groove] of his left cheek That was something abnormal. That more likely was it [the poison].”Wells’s concern was not that he had seen the capsule, but whether Himmler realised that he had. Had his eyes given him away? Himmler had been watching him intently throughout the examination.

To carry on the deception, the doctor shook his head negatively at Austin and added nonchalantly that to satisfy everyone he would do the examination again. Himmler remained im-mobile and impassive.The doctor began his examination all over again, starting with the feet and ending up with the face. He was determined to get his finger into Himmler’s mouth when he was least expecting it and to flick out the capsule. Then came the moment of truth: Himmler must have realised it was all too late and bit the doctor’s finger.In the aftermath of the suicide, when Capt Wells was trying artificial resuscitation, he also called for a cardiac stimulant. One of the officers waiting outside the room tried to telephone Rear HQ – but the telephone did not work Finally, a messenger was sent down to Rear HQ. A party was going on in the officers’ mess, and when the messenger appeared in a distressed state and gasped “Must have cardiac stimulant”, the revelling officers thought it was a huge joke and answered “Come and have a drink, old man.” It took the soldier several minutes to convince them he really did want a cardiac stimulant – and why.When Capt Wells pronounced Himmler dead, the room, he wrote, was suddenly filled with a dozen officers who seemed to appear from nowhere. He noticed that Col Murphy was not among them; he was, he was told, in the lavatory vomiting.”I went to him and from the outside of the lavatory door inquired tenderly of him.

He replied gruffly that he was all right, which of course was quite untrue I hated him – arrogant little pup If he didn’t let me in, I’d kick the door down. I returned to the room to be shortly followed by the colonel, now with a pea green tinge to his complexion.”Before rigor mortis began to set in, the body was dressed in the army shirt and trousers that Himmler had arrived in and covered in a blanket. The corpse was then propped up with pillows for the official pictures to be taken. The Reichsfuhrer’s glasses were rescued from Sgt Maj Austin’s pocket and put back on Heinrich Himmler’s nose. He looked such an ordinary little man.In his diary, Maj Whittaker recorded that “Jimmie the dentist wanted to take out a couple of teeth as souvenirs but I said ‘No’. A good thing, as various doctors and dentists came to take measurements. What a party! Himmler cannot have been photographed as much before.

Major GR Atkins prepared the death mask, which is still kept at the Royal Dental Corps Museum at Aldershot.”It was no party for Wells. “Of what interest could it be to me whether they took photographs of the incident or not and from what position if any? How could they realise that to a doctor the death of a person and its consequences, however important, can never mean as much as saving a life? I suddenly felt tired. Where their interest was starting mine had ended.”As I went towards the door, Brigadier Williams A/Q and BGS [Assistant Quartermaster and Brigadier, General Staff] arrived This seemed to me like a breath of fresh air. He was a man who represented the very best type of regular soldier and, believe me, this is saying a great deal A person you could trust and would instinctively follow.

As I told him once more the story of what had happened, for the first time I felt as if I had let the side down.”He would have none of it and spoke comforting words. It was a very good thing that the country should be saved the expense of a long legal investigation into the unending crimes of at least one Nazi criminal, and I have no doubt that he was right. All the same, I felt – but it does not really matter what I did feel.”As Capt Wells left the villa he was met by “a little man with the green beret of the Intelligence Corps”. He invited the doctor to his office and offered him a whisky and water.