Heinrich Himmler's own legitimate daughter does not seem to be ashamed of her heritage - the two illegimate children born to his mistress are wiped from the family tree so it is possible that they never took their father's name. Katrin Himmler is a freelance author, holding readings and lectures in Germany and abroad, above all for students. Her most disturbing discovery was that her grandfather had directly caused the deportation and death of a Jewish engineer, a Major Schmidt, deputy manager of an engineering firm, who had been protected because of his expertise.

She interweaves each brother's story of their journey as a soldier during World War I through to their involvement in the Nazi Party and their work during the war. This book is a remarkable document - it seems quite apparent that the 1939-1945 years of the family tree should have been expunged but Katrin seems to want to explain that history is what happened and this is why these three brothers took the paths they did. She is the granddaughter of Ernst Himmler (1905–1945), who was the younger brother of Heinrich Himmler, one of the leading figures of Nazi Germany.It seems a metaphoric turning of her back on the dark heritage she can never escape from - but she and her partner have agreed that they are determined to make their child understand where he comes from.

Despite the opportunity to take her spouse's surname, she chose to keep the name Himmler, rather than deny her heritage.

Himmler is one of the protagonists of the television documentary Hitler's Children (in German: "Meine Familie, die Nazis und Ich") [4] of the Israeli director Chanoch Zeevi about descendants of the Nazi elite, amongst them Rainer Höss. Despite her family being told her grandfather Ernst had had no interest in politics, Katrin discovered that he was an enthusiastic Nazi who had joined the party in 1931, and was also an officer in the Schutzstaffel (SS). That she was able to take on the challenge of writing about a relative which most people would never admit to, and to do so in such a candid and objective manner is admirable.