IT could be any businessman’s desk diary, with its neatly typed lists of mundane appointments, travel arrangements and lunch meetings.

But Heinrich Himmler’s business was genocide.

Himmler's diaries have been discovered in an archive in Russia
14

Himmler’s diaries have been discovered in an archive in RussiaCredit: AP:Associated Press
The former chicken farmer was the head of the SS, put in charge of the Holocaust by Adolf Hitler and the creator of the system of extermination camps where millions of people were murdered.

His office diaries, lost for 71 years, have now been discovered lying in a Russian military archive.

And the sheer banality of the entries provides a chilling insight into the life of a doting father who started each day with a massage before heading off to organise the nitty-gritty of mass murder.

Himmler and his daughter at a sports event
14

Himmler and his daughter at a sports eventCredit: Getty Images
Overseeing Nazi death camps was just something to be fitted in between curling matches, sauna sessions, phone calls to his family and the occasional “transit” day — believed to be a code he used for seeing his mistress, Bunny.