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Heinrich Müller

Heinrich Müller ( Munich , 28 of April of 1900 - date of death unknown, but evidence points to May 1945 ) was a major general of the SS known as ” Gestapo Müller “. Head of Section IV of the RSHA , ie, the dreaded Gestapo German . He held this position from 1939 until the end of the war.

Biography

Early times

Müller served as a pilot during the First World War . After being demobilized, he joined the police in Munich during the Republic of Weimar in Germany . Soon Müller became known as a skilled anticommunist investigator, who did not usually respect the legal norms to achieve his objectives. He also fought the Nazis with virulence, prompting him to later face major problems in order to be admitted to his party before 1939, six years after Hitler came to power. After the seizure of power by the Nazis, Heinrich Himmler and Reinhard Heydrich were consolidating the regional police units with a view to building a state secret police, which would be known as Geheime Staats Polizei and whose acronym ” Gestapo ” would be the terror of Germany . Müller entered the SS in 1934 with number 107,043 and began a meteoric career as a police officer . When being created in 1939 the Reich Main Security Office , or RSHA , Müller was named Head of Section IV (corresponding to the Gestapo ).

World War II

Müller was forced to enter the (National Socialist German Workers Party Nazi ) on 30 May 1939 under number 4583199, as demanded Heinrich Himmler , head of the SS , to continue in office. The following day (31 of May) was decorated with the Order of the Blood (Blutorder) Ad-Honorem, decoration that was granted to the first Nazis that participated in the coup d’etat of 9 of November of 1923 or to whom, like Müller , Rendered special services to the Reich. This decision was heavily criticized, considering the older Nazi leaders that Müller did indeed participate in those events, but on the other side. The Nazi hierarchies had no doubt that he was also implicated in the deaths of fourteen National Socialist militants during those events.

Some officials, including Hermann Goering and Rudolf Hess , detested. The own Himmler did not profess any sympathy because of some serious personal encounter with him in the past, but Heydrich thought that Müller was a born officer, determined to serve faithfully the established power, whatever its sign, and managed to impose his appointment. As head of the Gestapo, Müller was responsible for implementing measures of repression against Jews and other minorities, as well as identifying and prosecuting the democratic and communist opposition that faced the Nazi regime. Adolf Eichmann , who headed the Jewish Resettlement Office of the Gestapo , was directly subordinate to Müller. Once started the Second World War , Müller and Eichmann were key to catalyze the deportation and extermination of the elements Jews of Europe .

He was also responsible for the appointment of Joseph Meisinger , his personal friend, as head of the office for the repression of so-called social crimes, which included gambling, homosexuality and abortion . Müller was directly involved in other criminal matters, as related station Gleiwitz , in the Himmler Operation , on the border with Poland , which simulated a confrontation of Polish soldiers against Germany and constituted the excuse to unleash the Second World War . He also participated in the organization and implementation of the Venlo incident , which dismantled much of the British intelligence network in Europe.

He was promoted to SS Gruppenführer ( General Division of the SS ) on November 9, 1941.

Müller ( first on the right ), Heydrich, Himmler, Nebe and Huber, head of the Gestapo in Vienna.

As head of the Gestapo participated in the Conference of Wannsee 20 of January of 1942 to coordinate the call ” Final Solution ” of the Jewish problem in Europe . Müller was the one who ordered and signed the ” Bala Decree ” ( Kugel Erlass ) on March 2, 1944, authorizing the shooting of prisoners of war who attempted to escape. He also authorized the torture of Wehrmacht officers who were involved in the attempt on Hitler on 20 of July of 1944 . His zeal to dismantle the German resistance after the bombing prompted Hitler to award him the Cross of the War Service Cross with Swords in October 1944 . Müller also directed intelligence and counterintelligence operations. Its most spectacular success was the dismantling of the Soviet espionage network that operated in Berlin and which the world would know as “Rote Kapelle” ( Red Orchestra, sometimes mistakenly referred to as “Red Chapel”), which operated between 1942 and 1945 in Capital of the Reich . This information network had been successful in gathering information of political and military interest within Germany and sending it to Moscow . Müller and his team managed to capture a good part of these secret agents and “flip” them to their service to send false reports to the USSR .

Latest times

Towards the end of the war, Müller still believed in the defeat of the allies, even pointing out that the Battle of the Ardennes of December 1944 would lead to the recovery of Paris by the Nazis . It was last seen 29 of April of 1945 when it coordinated the interrogation and execution of general of Division SS Hermann Fegelein in the bunker of Berlin . Later it disappeared, and although it was declared its death in May of 1945 , to the being investigated the tomb was verified that its body was not there. In the following years it was said that Müller had enlisted in the NKVD Soviet and had died in 1952 in Moscow . There were also alleged interrogations of Müller, according to which he had been held by the CIA in 1947, but some experts later maintained that they were manipulated.

In the 1990s the version circulated that at the end of the war he had fled to Argentina and that in the 1960s he was abducted and abducted by an elite group of the Czechoslovak army, in the style of Operation Eichmann , Executed.

Professor Johannes Tuchel, director of the memorial of the German resistance, believes he knows where he is buried, according to a death certificate , Heinrich Müller died in the last days of the war, near the seat of the Luftwaffe (Wehrmacht) . Documents show “almost certain” that Müller was buried in August 1945 in the garden of the headquarters of the Luftwaffe, and then taken to the cemetery Jew in Grosse Hamburger Strasse. However, the director of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Jerusalem , Efraim Zuroff, known for its performance of finding Nazi war criminals , said that we must caution that only a DNA test would confirm whether he was buried in Berlin . Zuroff quoted in a telephone interview from London:

The Nazis who wanted to escape many times took steps to create fake documents pretending their death. I would be very careful of such reports without forensic evidence.

It is not yet known if every effort will be made to find Müller’s bones in Berlin.

Testimonies about Müller after the war

One of the most decisive elements was the testimony of her lover, a Berliner named Anne Schmid, who last saw Müller on April 24, 1945. The testimony in addition to Heinz Pannwitz, who was one of his assistants in Berlin during The last days, captured by the Russians and released in 1957, said he saw and examined Müller’s corpse in the Berlin subway with two shots on his back. However, this testimony was never taken into account. Her secretary, a young woman named Barbara Hellmuth, did not hear from him again.

Awards and promotions

Ascensions in the SS

In the ranks of SS ranks, Müller had the following promotions:

  • 20 of April of 1934 : Sturmführer (Head of Platoon) assigned to the SD , service of Information of the SS .
  • As July 4 as 1934 : Obersturmführer ( Lieutenant ).
  • As January 30 as 1935 : Hauptsturmführer ( Captain ).
  • As April 20 as 1936 : Sturmbannführer ( Major ).
  • As November 9 as 1936 : Obersturmbannführer ( Lieutenant Colonel ).
  • As January 30 as 1937 : Standartenführer ( Colonel ).
  • 20 of April of 1939 : Oberführer (General).
  • 14 of December of 1940 : Brigadeführer (General of Brigade) and Generalmajor der Polizei ( 16 of December of 1940 ).
  • 9 of November of 1941 : Gruppenführer (General of Division) and Generalleutnant der Polizei , its last promotion.

Decorations

  • Knights of the Cross of Merit of War with Swords
  • Cross of Merit of War of First Class with Swords
  • Second Class War Merit Cross with Swords
  • First Class Iron Cross with the 1939 Brooch
  • Second Class Iron Cross with the 1939 Brooch
  • Second Class Bavarian Military Merit Cross with Swords
  • Golden Party Plate
  • Sudetenland Medal
  • Commemoration Medal of March 13, 1938
  • Cross of Honor to the Combatants

In fiction

  • He is the historical protagonist in the report Müller novel of Antonio Manzanera, (Umbriel 2013) after the declassification of important documents in the USA.
  • It appears in the popular novels of Philip Kerr that belong to its series Berlin Noir .
  • He is the protagonist of the novel horsehair of Damocles , of Javier Perez Fernandez , Azorín Prize of Novel 2006. In this work still appears like police commissioner during the Weimar Republic . Also stars in the novel The Thorn poppy , the same author and also in the years of the Weimar Republic .
  • The physical resemblance to the protagonist of the German film The Life of Others (the actor Ulrich Mühe, who played the Hauptmann Gerd Wiesler) is so impressive that it is impossible to think that it is a coincidence, even though this film Is responsible for the activities of the Stasi in the German Democratic Republic .
  • It appears like one of the personages with whom Stirlitz interacts in the novel Seventeen instants of a spring , written by Yulián Semiónov.
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