Heinrich Muller Had Little to Do with the Shoah

Except, of course, attending the Wannsee Conference which was a criminal conspiracy to commit serial mass murder (genocide of the Jews). Which made him as guilty as Reinhard Heydrich – or Adolf Eichmann.

M;ller was brought to the conference (by his boss Reinhard Heydrich) for bureaucratic reasons: he was the nominal boss of Adolf Eichmann – head of the “Jewish” Referat IV-B4 which nominally belonged to Gestapo (hence the ‘IV’). In reality, however, Eichmann reported directly to Heydrich – to M;ller’s relief.

M;ller was born into a family of a Bavarian police officer so there is no surprise that he ended up becoming the chief of police in Germany – albeit political police. In his youth, he was a real forward thinker: just prior to the outbreak of the Great War he completed an apprenticeship as an aircraft mechanic.

During the last year of the war, he served in the Luftstreitkr;fte (air arm of the imperial German) as a pilot for an artillery spotting unit. He was very lucky (or very good pilot – or both) as chances for survival in this occupation were slim.

He was decorated several times for bravery (including the Iron Cross 1st and 2nd class, Bavarian Military Merit Cross 2nd Class with Swords and Bavarian Pilots Badge). He was brave indeed – once he flew solo to bomb… Paris. 

Soon after the war ended, he (predictably) joined the Bavarian Police.

Although not a member of any Freikorps, M;ller was involved in the suppression of the communist risings in the early post-war years. After witnessing the shooting of hostages by the revolutionary “Red Army” in Munich during the Bavarian Soviet Republic, he acquired a lifelong hatred of communism – and most likely intense dislike of Jews (BSR was run by Jews).

During the years of the Weimar Republic, Heinrich M;ller was head of the Munich Political Police Department, having risen quickly through the ranks due to his spirited efforts.

It was while serving in a police capacity in Munich that M;ller first became acquainted with many members of the Nazi Party (NSDAP) including Heinrich Himmler and Reinhard Heydrich, although during the Weimar period he supported the Bavarian People’s Party.

Interestingly, during the Nazi putsch that deposed the Bavarian government of Minister-President Heinrich Held, M;ller advocated using force against the Nazis to his superiors. So, he was no friend of the Nazis either.

Once the Nazis seized power, M;ller’s knowledge of communist activities placed him in high demand. Unlike all other attendees of Wannsee Conference, M;ller did not subscribe to the Nazi ideology: he was quintessential apolitical cop.

M;ller was determined to serve the German state, irrespective of what political form it took, and believed it was everyone’s duty, including his own, to obey his superiors without question.

Authors of an internal Nazi Party memorandum could not understand how “so odious an opponent of the movement” could become head of the Gestapo, especially since he had once referred to Hitler as “an immigrant unemployed house painter” and “an Austrian draft-dodger”. So, he was no friend of Der F;hrer either.

Another memorandum stated the M;ller was by “no means a National Socialist” and would persecute the Nazis with the same zeal that he demonstrated persecuting the Left – if ordered to do so by his superiors.

M;ller joined the SS in 1934… not being a member of NSDAP (something unheard of in the Third Reich). By 1936, with Heydrich head of the Gestapo, M;ller was its operations chief (de-facto, it was run by the latter).

British author and translator Edward Crankshaw described M;ller as “the arch-type non-political functionary” who was “in love with personal power and dedicated to the service of authority, the State”… regardless of its kind.

One of M;ller’s first major acts occurred during the unprecedented Kristallnacht pogrom, when he ordered the arrest of between 20,000 and 30,000 Jews. Which most likely prevented a bloodbath as these were the most likely to resist (Russian pogroms proved that such resistance could lead to dozens of dead on both sides).

Heydrich also tasked M;ller to create a centrally organized agency to deal with the eventual emigration of the Jews (which was done and had nothing to do with any violence against the Jews).

While the nominal chief of the Reich Central Office for Jewish Emigration was Reinhard Heydrich, it was M;ller who actually run its operations. Shortly thereafter, M;ller took official charge of this office but then handed control over to Adolf Eichmann.

In September 1939, when the Gestapo and other police organizations were consolidated under Heydrich into the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA), M;ller was made chief of the Gestapo (RSHA “Amt IV”). To get this position, he had to join NSDAP which he finally did. To distinguish him from another SS general named Heinrich M;ller (a very common name), he became known as “Gestapo M;ller”.

M;ller did have full information about the Holocaust; however, there is no evidence that he was personally involved in the genocide of the Jews (Heydrich and then Kaltenbrunner gave orders directly to Eichmann bypassing M;ller). However, he did pass certain orders to Einsatzgruppen.

Once the conference concluded, M;ller, Heydrich, and Eichmann remained afterwards for additional “informal chats” – which, however, were between Heydrich and Eichmann with M;ller being just present.

In April 1945, M;ller was among the last of the Nazi loyalists assembled in the F;hrerbunker as the Red Army fought its way into the city center of Berlin. He was (allegedly) last seen there in the evening of May 1st.

From that day onwards, he was never seen or heard from again and no trace of M;ller has ever been found after the war. Some historians are of the opinion that he was most likely killed or committed suicide during the chaotic fall of Berlin, but his body, if recovered, was never identified.

Another possibility is that he made a successful escape from the F;hrerbunker, reached Switzerland and joined Heinrich Himmler’s Die Neue SS (most likely, as its chief of security).