Margarete Himmler (née Boden), also known as Marga Himmler (9 September 1893 – 25 August 1967), was the wife of Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler. Youth, first marriage, and divorce Margarete Boden was born in Goncarzewo near Bromberg, the daughter of landowner Hans Boden and his wife Elfriede (née Popp). Margarete had three sisters (Elfriede, Lydia and Paula) and a brother. In 1909, she attended the Höhere Töchterschule (High School for Girls) in Bromberg, then a city in the German Empire (now Bydgoszcz, Poland). Himmler trained and worked as a nurse during the First World War followed by a stint at a German Red Cross hospital at the war's end. Her first marriage was short and produced no children. Due to the economic support of her father, she was able to operate and direct a private nursing clinic in Berlin. Marriage to Heinrich Himmler Himmler met his future wife, Margarete Boden, in 1927. They met during one of his lecture tours and remained thereafter in written contact. In one surviving letter, Boden refers to Heinrich Himmler as the "Landsknecht with the hard heart" but she was nevertheless impressed by his romantic style of writing and his sincere love for her. The blonde, blue-eyed nurse corresponded perfectly to Heinrich Himmler's ideal woman. Seven years his senior, Boden shared his interest in herbal medicine and homoeopathy, and was part owner of a small private clinic. They shared an excessive propensity for efficiency, neatness, longed for strict domesticity, and both preferred a parsimonious lifestyle. From her husband she received a consistent diet of anti-Semitism and diatribes against Communists and Freemasons. Her anti-Semitism was evident in a letter to Heinrich Himmler dated 22 June 1928, in which she made disparaging remarks about the co-owner of the private clinic in Berlin, gynaecologist and surgeon Bernhard Hauschildt, exclaiming, "That Hauschildt! Those Jews are all the same!" Heinrich and Margarete married in July 1928. Initially, Heinrich struggled with the decision to reveal his relationship with Margarete to his parents, partly due to her being seven years older, but also because she was a divorcee, and foremost, because she was a Protestant. None of Himmler's family members attended the wedding, so Heinrich’s groomsmen were the father and brother of the bride. Ultimately, Heinrich Himmler's parents accepted Margarete, but the family kept their distance from her and remained that way throughout the length of the relationship. The couple had their only