The real Heinrich Müller. Was the image created by Leonid Bronev similar to the original? Heinrich Müller: biography, activities and interesting facts

According to the head of the German organization "Museum of the German Resistance" Johannes Tuchel, he was able to find reliable evidence in the archives that the former chief of the secret state police - Gestapo, SS Gruppenführer Heinrich Müller was buried in August 1945 in a common grave in a Jewish cemetery in the capital area Berlin-Mitte. The historian handed over the relevant documents to the German newspaper Bild.

His corpse, which was in a makeshift coffin, was discovered by one of the funeral teams in the American sector of Berlin. Müller was in a general’s uniform, and in the left pocket of his jacket there were documents with his photograph, Tuchel claims.

According to the historian, members of the funeral team identified Mueller and reported the discovery to the American command. An order was received to bury his body in a Jewish cemetery in a common grave.

Tuchel also quoted from the police report the words of a worker from this team, Walter Luders. In 1963, he reported the following: “I compared this color photograph (in the Mueller ID - Izvestia)…. "I can say that the face in the photograph was identical in appearance to the remains."

Heinrich Müller was born in 1900 in Bavaria. In October 1939, shortly after the outbreak of World War II, he became chief of the Gestapo. Directly reporting to him was Adolf Eichmann, who was in charge of Department IV-B-4, responsible for the “final solution to the Jewish question.”

After the death of Adolf Hitler and a number of his closest associates, Müller's trace disappeared. He was not among those Nazi bosses who surrendered to the Western Allies, nor among those whose graves were found and whose corpses were identified. There were rumors that Mueller allegedly ended up in the USSR. There were reports with references to the German BND intelligence about his possible stay in Albania, South America, and southern Africa. According to the latest available evidence, a man resembling him was spotted in the summer of 1949 in Karlovy Vary, Czech Republic.

There is not yet sufficient evidence to close the question that it was Müller who was buried in Berlin. I'm not saying it's not true. But the only way to check this for sure is DNA testing, that is, exhumation of the remains, says “Nazi hunter”, head of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Israel Efraim Zuroff.

The news that Müller's corpse could have been resting in the Jewish cemetery in the German capital all this time has already caused a harsh reaction from representatives of the Jewish communities.

It is monstrous that one of the main fascist sadists is buried in a Jewish cemetery. This act grossly violated the memory of innocent victims,” said Dieter Graumann, chairman of the Central Council of Jews in Germany.

Russia also reacted to the news.

The head of the Gestapo was the main culprit in the extermination of millions of Jews. This is a terrible tragic paradox. Muller cannot lie next to Jewish graves and must be reburied in another place, says Alla Gerber, president of the Holocaust Foundation.

According to the Simon Wiesenthal Center, total quantity Nazi criminals and their collaborators, whose fate still remains unknown, number in the thousands. It is assumed that before today About 15 thousand former guards and employees of concentration camps could survive and are now hiding around the world.

The new story involving Gestapo chief “Papa Müller” comes as the Wiesenthal Center’s “Last Chance II” campaign is in full swing in Europe. For data on the whereabouts of wanted criminals, you can receive a reward of €25 thousand. The promotion takes place in Germany, Austria, Poland, Romania, Hungary, Croatia, Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia.

According to Zuroff, it is too early to disclose the results. In November, the second stage of Operation Last Chance II will begin in eight more cities, including Munich, Leipzig, and Dresden. Only then will the data obtained in Berlin and Hamburg be disclosed.

Heinrich Müller(German) Heinrich Müller, April 28, 1900 - disappeared in May 1945) - head of the secret state police (IV department of the RSHA) of Germany (1939-1945), SS Gruppenführer and Lieutenant General of Police (1941).

(In Tatiana Lioznova’s film “Seventeen Moments of Spring”, where Mueller played Leonid Bronevoy, in 2008 the film “Hitler Kaput!” was released, where Muller played (or rather, parodied) Yuri Galtsev.).

Biography

Born in Munich into the Catholic family of gendarmerie official Alois Müller (1875-1962).

Education

From 1906 he attended primary school in Ingolstadt, after which his parents sent him to a workers' school in Schrobenhausen. In 1908 he was transferred to a school in the city of Krumbach.

In 1914, Müller became an apprentice at the Bavarian aircraft factory in Munich. In 1917 he volunteered for the front. He served as a military pilot. In 1919 he was transferred to the reserve.

Police service

In 1919, Müller joined the Bavarian police and worked as an assistant in the police directorate in Munich for ten years.

In 1929, Secretary of Police. Specialization: fight against communists.

In 1933, inspector of the political department.

Third Reich

After the National Socialists came to power, Müller served under the leadership Reinhard Heydrich, who became the head of the political department of the Munich police. In 1934, Heydrich transferred Müller, along with 37 Bavarian colleagues, from Munich to Berlin. Müller automatically became an SS Untersturmführer.

In 1936, he received the rank of SS Obersturmbannführer and Chief Police Inspector.

At the end of 1936, the party leadership in Munich spoke out against his promotion. In a “strictly confidential political characterization,” the head of the Gau Munich-Upper Bavaria wrote: “Chief Inspector Heinrich Müller is not a party member. (...) Only by virtue of his employment in the secret state police does he enjoy the honorable right to wear the uniform of an SS Obersturmbannführer.” Party workers from Munich admitted that Müller, even before 1933, “was very tough, partly without paying attention to legal provisions, fought against the left." However: “With all his enormous zeal and incredible ambition, if it were necessary to persecute the right, then Müller would do everything to achieve recognition from his superiors.”

Because: “He was clearly not a National Socialist.” Even “worse than from a political point of view,” according to the Munich Gau administration, were some of Müller’s character traits. Rationale: “He is an unceremonious person, does not tolerate people around him who interfere with his desire to move up the career ladder (...), but he willingly allows himself to be praised for work that he himself did not do. At the same time, he is not shy about violating the elementary concepts of camaraderie.”

Conclusion: “There is no reason for preferential promotion of Müller, since he has no merit in the cause of national upliftment.” Just in case, the Munich leadership of the Gau asked for the person responsible for Muller local group NSDAP in Pasing. From there the following answer came: “We do not know how Müller received his honorary title in the SS. (...) We can hardly imagine him as a party member.” Another short note: “Donation for Eintopf Day of 40 pfennigs.”

Nevertheless, Müller proved that specialists like him could make a career in National Socialist Germany, even if the party opposed them. In January 1937, shortly after he received a letter from Munich negative characteristic, Chief Inspector Müller jumped three steps hierarchical ladder, becoming the Chief Regierungsrat and the Criminal Rat. Shortly thereafter he received the rank of SS Standartenführer.

In 1939, under pressure from the party office, he finally joined the NSDAP.

In October 1939, Reichskriminaldirector Müller, who continued to speak the Bavarian dialect even in Berlin, was appointed head of Section IV of the Main Directorate of Reich Security, that is, the Gestapo. The department included the following sectors: IV A 1 Communism, Marxism, IV A 2 Prevention of sabotage, IV A 3 Reaction, opposition, liberalism, legitimism, emigration, IV A 4 Service for protection and prevention of assassination attempts, IV B 1 Political Catholicism, sects, IV В 3 Masons, IV В 4 Questions of Jewry.

In November 1941, he received the rank of SS Gruppenführer and Lieutenant General of Police.

Due to his professional knowledge and lack of political prejudice, Müller could feel his superiority over many representatives of the top of the Reich and remained independent even in relation to Himmler, Borman and to your immediate superiors Heydrich and his successor Kaltenbrunner.

Head of Political Intelligence Walter Schellenberg and the head of the criminal police Arthur Nebe Muller repelled himself with one of his appearance: parting in the middle, shaved head, compressed lips, caustic gaze, constantly trembling eyelids.

Müller carried out his duties with zeal and ruthlessness - searching for and neutralizing the “enemies of the Reich.” In particular, he personally supervised the liquidation of the underground organization "Red Chapel", as well as the defeat of the Resistance movement on July 20, 1944 and, above all, the search and capture of the fugitive Arthur Nebe.

In October 1944, Müller was awarded the Knight's Cross of the War Merit Cross with swords. At the same time, the “various methods of modern prevention” he developed in the fight against enemies of the state were noted.

Müller's tracks were lost in May 1945. It is reliably known that on April 29, 1945, in the Fuhrer’s bunker, he interrogated Hitler’s brother-in-law, SS Gruppenführer Hermann Fegelein, who was accused of desertion and executed.

Disappearance

There are several versions of Mueller's death. According to one of them, he died in May 1945 in Berlin. In August 1945, the corpse of an SS Gruppenführer with a certificate in the name of Heinrich Müller was discovered on the territory of the Ministry of Aviation. His body was first buried in the Greater Hamburger Street Cemetery and then in the Lilienthalstrasse Garrison Cemetery in Berlin-Neukölln. In September 1963, by order of the prosecutor's office, the grave was opened. Three skeletons and one skull were found in it. The examination found that the remains had nothing to do with Muller.

According to another version, Muller fled to Latin America. Various possible places of his stay were named: Argentina, Chile, Bolivia, Brazil, Paraguay.

In the 1990s, Mueller's Recruiting Talks and Diaries were published in the United States, which many consider a "literary hoax." According to this “American” version, Mueller was recruited by the CIA, subsequently lived in the United States and died in California in 1982.

However, the CIA itself proceeded from the fact that Mueller died in early May 1945 in Berlin.

Heinrich Müller in popular culture

In the USSR and Eastern Europe The image of Muller, depicted in the novels of Yulian Semyonov and especially in the film by Tatiana Lioznova “Seventeen Moments of Spring”, where Muller was played by Leonid Bronevoy, became very famous. The film image of the Gestapo chief, created by the director and actor, is one of the most striking in the series, although it is very far from the historical prototype. Leonid Bronevoy claimed that if he had known the appearance of the historical Muller, he most likely would not have agreed to play this role.

In the novels of the same Semyonov “Expansion-I”, “Expansion-II” and “Expansion-III”, which tell about the post-war work of Isaev- Stirlitz to identify the National Socialist underground in Spanish-speaking countries, Muller identified as the main figure in the Nazi intelligence network, who established its work in Latin America.

According to the author, while in the mountains of Argentina, Muller “pulled the strings” of almost all world politics, including the development of atomic weapons, trying to preserve and restore the fragments of National Socialism, and revive the Third Reich. In the final part of the trilogy, Stirlitz, together with American intelligence officer Paul Rowman, kidnap Muller and transport him by plane to an unknown place. Stirlitz is wounded by security officers from the Soviet consulate, to which he turned for help, arrested as a “Nazi hireling” and taken to the USSR. Muller's fate remains unknown; he is not mentioned anywhere else in the sequels of the series. It is obvious that with such scant archival information about the fate of the Gestapo chief after May 1945, Semyonov presented readers with an obvious fiction.

In 2008, the film “Hitler Kaput!” was released, where Muller played (or rather, parodied) Yuri Galtsev.

Name: Heinrich Müller

Age: 45 years old

Date of death: 1945

Activity: Chief of the Secret State Police, SS Gruppenführer

Marital status: was married

Heinrich Müller: biography

Heinrich Müller is one of the historical figures whose fates are constantly the subject of discussion. Having played an important role in the implementation of the plans, the SS Gruppenführer passed away, leaving many mysteries. His death is still surrounded by a veil of secrecy.

Childhood and youth

Heinrich Müller was born on April 28, 1900 in Munich. The son of a former gendarme became the only child in the family after the death of his sister. Having survived the tragedy, the parents tried to give their son everything he needed and often spoiled him. School teachers they noted that Heinrich loved to lie and grew up as an unpleasant child.

Primary school Müller was located in Ingolstadt. After the family moved to Schrobenhausen, the young man studied at a workers' school. He then lived for some time in Krumbach and eventually ended up in Munich, where he became an apprentice at an aircraft factory. For 3 years, Heinrich studied a new specialty, but decided not to continue working in his profession. At this time the First began world war, but he was not taken to the front due to lack of experience.

In 1917, the young man volunteered for the army and began to study the necessary disciplines. Six months later, as a pilot student, he continued his training in order to go to an air unit. In the last year of battles, Henry defended the honor of his homeland as a pilot.

Muller's character has not changed over time. As in his youth, he wanted to distinguish himself and attract attention. This involves brave, risky missions behind enemy lines. For his valor, Germany awarded the defender two Iron Crosses of the 1st and 2nd degrees. In 1919, Müller was discharged from the army with the rank of sergeant major.

After working briefly as a freight forwarder, Heinrich decided to seek a calling in the police. There he completed his training program high school. Higher education Mueller never received it.

Career and government activities

By the age of 20, he had earned a reputation working in the political department of the Munich police. Henry chose not the most decent methods of advancement career ladder, filling pages with denunciations against the Communist Party, the Comintern and Soviet intelligence. The policeman had no friends among his colleagues. Everyone found him repulsive and sinister.

After the purge of 1933, many of Müller's colleagues were fired, but Heinrich was lucky: his superiors were interested in him. The reports helped to stay in a warm place. However, in 1936, promotions were stalled by strained relations with the NSDAP. Its representatives believed that, by pursuing leftists, the policeman violated the rule of law and did not clearly enough advocate National Socialism. Müller was recommended for removal from the party.

The disagreement did not stop the power-hungry German. In Munich they were unhappy with him, but Heinrich managed to curry favor and take a big step in his career. In 1933, regional police departments were united into the political police, of which he was appointed advisor. In 1937, Müller became an SS Standartenführer. He himself contributed to his entry into the party in 1939. The position of chief of the Gestapo was not long in coming. There was a lot in Mueller's biography high ranks. By 1941, he managed to become a lieutenant general of police.

His obsequious attitude to work and the meticulousness with which he accumulated information on people close to power were rewarded. The SS Gruppenführer had hidden trump cards up his sleeve against any high-ranking official, including Heinrich Himmler and, as well as the immediate superior of Reinhard Heydrich.

After the death of the latter, Muller's progress slowed down. He became subordinate to Ernst Kaltenbrunner, the head of the Reich Security Main Office, but this did not reduce the power of the official who encouraged repression.

A competent strategist and tactician was ready for any turn of events. He provided for himself necessary documents and reporting quarters near the Fuhrer's bunker. The folder with information on each member of the Reich was his personal property and untouchable property, to which only Hitler had access.

Müller ensured that the Fuhrer's policy towards Jews and representatives of other nationalities was observed. During World War II, the head of the Gestapo planned the extermination of concentration camp prisoners. Heinrich Müller has millions of people killed, subjected to torture and terrible deaths. He decided the fate of the enemies of the Reich and those whom he called such, and also led criminal proceedings. The Gruppenführer often fabricated cases, as in the case of the attack on the Gleiwitz radio station by prisoners in the Polish military uniform.

Mueller's interest extended to foreign intelligence. Gestapo agents worked in Moscow from 1942 to 1945. The Nazi had no doubt about Germany's victory in World War II, despite the failures of the operations. His confidence called into question his loyalty to German authority. Rumors began to spread that Mueller was a double agent.

During his time with the police, only a few photographs of Mueller were taken. He took care of his own safety, having excellent memory and analytical thinking. Müller was almost the only member of the SS who did not have a corresponding tattoo under his arm with a characteristic sign and blood type. The SS men were identified from such images.

Personal life

A careerist and bloodthirsty strategist, Müller focused exclusively on gaining power. Therefore, his personal life was unsuccessful. In 1917, at a tram stop, he met Sophia Dishner, the daughter of the owner of a printing house and publishing house. In 1924 the wedding took place. The wife gave birth to a son and a daughter. The children saw little of their father, since he was rarely at home.

The wife did not share Müller’s National Socialist zeal, which did not correspond to the image he created. There was no talk of divorce, but after becoming the head of the Gestapo, Müller took a mistress. He was credited with an affair with secretary Barbara and clerk Anna. While in a relationship with the latter, Muller rented a house for his family. At the end of 1944, he ordered the departure of loved ones to the safer Munich. Sofia Dishner survived her husband and died in 1990 at the age of 90.

Death

Heinrich Müller is one of the few Nazis who escaped the Nuremberg tribunal. On May 1, 1945, he appeared at a reception with Hitler in a white dress uniform, publicly declaring his readiness to die by drinking poison. The investigation confirmed that at the time of Hitler's suicide, Müller was at the Fuhrer's bunker, in the basement of the Reich Chancellery. On the night of May 1–2, 1945, a group of fascists tried to break through the Soviet cordon. Müller could have supported the attempt to escape, but did not do so, realizing the risks of captivity.

Mueller's cause of death remains a mystery. During the cleansing of the Reich Aviation Ministry on May 6, 1945, the corpse of a man was found with personal belongings and a Gruppenführer ID. However, there were rumors that the main Nazi of the Reich managed to survive. He was allegedly seen in the Soviet Union, Latin America and other countries. According to American journalists, Mueller became a US CIA agent in a foreign country, but the authenticity of this data has not been established.

Program “Life after death” about Heinrich Müller

Mueller's death remains a mystery. According to his mistress, the Nazi burned his own documents. In the bunker, he had enough time to dress the corpse in his uniform and escape. The 45-year-old conspirator secured “life after death” for himself by faking his own death. He could blend in with the crowd of refugees without being recognized. It is known that during the fighting in Germany, a plane flew from Berlin towards Switzerland. This means that pilot Müller could have escaped.

Not a single version of how the life of the Gestapo chief ended has been confirmed. Reasoning on this subject was published by Gregory Douglas in the book “Gestapo Chief Heinrich Müller. Recruitment conversations (Diaries)".

Being one of the most terrible persons of the 20th century, Muller remained in the memory of posterity as a brutal killer. The image of this sinister figure in the film “” was embodied.

Awards

• Golden Knight's Cross of Military Merit
• Knight's Cross "For Military Merit"
• Cross "For Military Merit"
• Cross "For Military Merit"
• Iron Cross 1st Class 1914 and Buckle 1939
• Iron Cross 2nd class 1914 and buckle 1939
• Order of Military Merit
• Gold party badge of the NSDAP
• Medal "In Memory of October 1, 1938"
• Medal "In Memory of March 13, 1938"
• World War I Cross of Honor 1914/1918
• German Olympic medal of honor, 1st class
• Badge for achievements in sports SA in bronze

Heinrich Müller was a mysterious figure during his lifetime and remained so after his disappearance in 1945

By the time the Nuremberg trials began, there was several documented evidence of the death of Gestapo chief Müller, who fled from justice at the end of World War II. Therefore, the person directly involved in the death of millions of people was not in the dock, nor even among the accused.

It subsequently turned out that Muller's remains were not in any of the graves that were indicated in various testimonies. The bodies of the “Müllers” were transferred and reburied, studied and examined, those involved and witnesses were interrogated, but there is still no complete certainty that one of those exhumed or buried is Heinrich Müller. So where did he go?

NKVD recruitment

Due to the uncertainty that the Gestapo chief was dead, he was put on the international wanted list and was sometimes even found somewhere: either in South or Central America. Shellenber d, for example, spoke about a certain person who returned in 1950 from Soviet captivity a German officer who swore that he saw Muller in the USSR and not at all as a prisoner. Walter Schellenberg knew Müller very well and was sure that the version of NKVD recruitment had a right to exist. After all, Muller never hid his interest in this organization.

His excellent knowledge of the work of the NKVD, which the Gestapo chief admired, helped him build a career in his homeland. It is likely that this same knowledge subsequently helped Muller not only buy his own life, but also stay afloat well in the enemy’s camp.

And given that Muller was also a valuable source of information from the highest circles of the Third Reich, any of the victorious countries would have wanted to have him in their arsenal of consultants.

Versions about Mueller's whereabouts varied dramatically. Then he was seen in one of the countries South America, then documents appeared allegedly indicating that Müller managed to return to his homeland and was working for the Stasi, the intelligence agency of the GDR. It must be said that none of the versions subsequently stood up to criticism. The most detailed version was the American trace of Heinrich Muller.

Friends forever

In the mid-nineties of the last century, Muller's diaries were published by an American publishing house. The rights to his recordings of the American period and transcripts of Mueller's recruiting conversations with CIA officers belong to a certain Gregory Douglas from the provincial town of Monroe, Wisconsin.

Gregory is a man without a specific occupation. He never studied anywhere, only graduated from a regular school and served in the army. Nevertheless, he was somehow connected with American intelligence.

According to him, the Gestapo chief lived in America until he was 87 years old and died of a heart attack, which occurred due to the fact that Muller never denied himself food, alcohol, or smoking.

There were always plenty of people who attributed to themselves acquaintance with odious personalities who had disappeared for the whole world. Most often they turned out to be swindlers trying to hit the jackpot on a sensation. The version about the authenticity of the diaries lasted quite a long time because Muller’s son, who read the diaries and talked with Gregory, allegedly confirmed that the turns of speech and jokes could not have been more typical of his father.

American version

Washington, 1948. In the Georgetown University area, a quiet man moved into an ancient villa. Strong build and short stature - in general, the most inconspicuous appearance. “...if you also hire servants and have proper furniture, then this will be decent housing,” the arrival wrote in his first American diary. That same week, the author complained that he would prefer to be somewhere in the tropics, but would have to follow fate, which decreed otherwise.

Gregory Douglas allegedly first saw Mueller in 1963. After the war, it was not customary in America to talk about the SS, German politics or the ideology of the Third Reich. Therefore, everything that “Muller” subsequently told Douglas was new to him.

Douglas considered his interlocutor very interesting person. He mastered it perfectly English. Naturally, the exoticism of Muller’s stories, the piquancy of the very fact of communicating with a legendary man hidden from everyone, the exciting feeling of involvement in world secrets enchanted young man. His stories are full of respect for one of the most famous criminals of the past.

Müller's ring, given by Himmler on November 9, 1936. On the engraving inside there is Müller's SS number - 107043. Source: YouTube frame

The Mystery of the Amber Room

Douglas recounts with pleasure how lightly his interlocutor treated the precious paintings and other art objects stolen from the Soviet Union that were in his collection. He thought it was funny. Douglas testifies that he saw parts of the Amber Room in the Mueller house, that he could make public catalogs of secret sales of famous auctions.

The catalogs allegedly previously belonged to Muller, and after his death they remained at the disposal of Douglas.

Allegedly, only five people knew who was hiding behind the inconspicuous appearance. He was not recognized, although “Müller” never changed. Very few photographs of him have survived: he forbade filming himself for newsreels and practically did not take part in public events. And who would look for him in the very lair of his former enemy?

Müller was a valuable member of the NSDAP before and during World War II. And he could become an equally valuable CIA consultant after graduation. However, the CIA itself resolutely denies the fact that Mueller worked for them and puts forward the version that he nevertheless died in Berlin in early May 1945.

"Seventeen Moments of Spring"

In general, according to Gregory, “Mueller” spent all twenty years of communication with him trying to justify himself. He believed that both he and the Gestapo were being slandered undeservedly. At the same time, Douglas himself said that “Müller” was never troubled by his conscience either for the stolen values ​​(“we stole from them, they stole from us, the Americans stole from everyone” - allegedly the words of Müller), or for the lives destroyed by the Gestapo. The interlocutor told Douglas: “Ethics and morality are excellent standards, my friend, but they are not an effective remedy.”

Adolf Eichmann, the SS Obersturmbannführer in his testimony called Müller a spider sitting in the center of the web. He always knew everything about everything and everyone, practically without leaving the table. Unlike Douglas, who admired Mueller, Eichmann said many unpleasant things about his former boss, trying to shift responsibility for the massacres from himself. Perhaps because he himself was caught by the Mossad, convicted and sentenced to death penalty, while his boss managed to escape.

In general, people who knew Heinrich Müller told completely different things about him. One of his teachers, for example, noted the boy’s liveliness of mind, and the second noted his tendency to lie and promiscuity.

Adolf Eichmann, a former subordinate of Müller, walking in Ramle prison shortly before his execution. Photo: wikimedia.org

In any case, it has been so many years since one of the most disgusting characters of World War II is dead. In our memory he will remain a character with a face Leonid Bronevoy from the epic film “Seventeen Moments of Spring”. The actor did not like this role of his: Bronevoy was accused until his death of the fact that in his performance Muller turned out to be cunning and dangerous, but endowed with charm, and therefore attractive in his own way.

SS Gruppenführer and Police Lieutenant General Heinrich Müller (04/28/1900 - ?), from 1939 to 1945. - Head of the IV Directorate of the RSHA (Gestapo). No. in the NSDAP - 4583199, No. in the SS - 107043.

Heinrich Müller was born on April 28, 1900 in Munich in the family of a former policeman and then a certified gardener Alois Müller and his wife Anna, and was the only child in the family. Heinrich studied quite well and in 1914 was enrolled as an assistant mechanic in the Bavarian aviation workshops. In 1917, he volunteered for the front and on June 11 of the same year he was enlisted in the Air Force. By 1918 he had completed flight training and from April he fought on the Western Front and made an independent raid on Paris. On July 13, 1919, he was demobilized with the rank of vice-sergeant major and was a Knight of the Iron Cross, 2nd and 1st classes.

On December 1, 1919, he entered the service of the Munich police, and in 1920 he was transferred to the security service of the Munich police department, where his duties included the fight against left-wing movements (communists, Marxists, etc.). Müller was considered the main specialist in the secret activities of the Communist Party, so in 1933, when the Nazis purged the police apparatus, he was left in his previous position. He presented memos to the new superiors about the secret activities of the Communist Party and the intelligence work of the Comintern and Soviet intelligence. In 1923, privately, he received a secondary education, and in 1929 he passed the specialty exam “very well” and received the position of secretary in the police.

Reinhard Tristan Eugen Heydrich

On June 17, 1924, Heinrich Müller married the daughter of the wealthy printing house owner and publisher Otto Dischner, Sophia, whom he met back in 1917 under rather prosaic circumstances: they were waiting together for the same tram. The marriage was not very successful, the spouses often lived separately, and already as the chief of the Gestapo, Müller took on a mistress. Their marriage produced two children: son Reinhard and daughter Elisabeth. It should be noted that Muller’s wife lived for 90 years and died on March 3, 1990 in Munich.

On September 1, 1933, Müller was transferred to the Bavarian Political Police, which had already become independent and was subordinate to Reinhard Heydrich. Heydrich highly appreciated professional qualities“the silent Bavarian” and constantly provided him with all kinds of support and promoted him, although being an employee of the Munich criminal police until 1933, he dealt many sensitive blows to the Nazis during the years of their underground struggle.

Historian Richard Evans wrote:
“Müller has always been a supporter of discipline and order. He carried out the tasks assigned to him as if they were military teams. A true workaholic who never took a day off, Müller was determined to serve the German state regardless of which government was in power and believed that it was a universal duty to obey."

On April 20, 1936, Heinrich Müller became a member of the SS, received the rank of SS Sturmführer and was assigned to the SD Main Directorate. "How Müller rose to the rank of leadership position we don’t understand in the SS,” wrote the local leadership of the NSDAP to Munich in 1936. In the political police, and then in the Gestapo in department II 1, Müller was involved in the fight against communists, Marxists, trade union movements, etc., he was excellent familiar with the Soviet state security system. Muller admired the methods of the NKVD. He said that he would like to know how the security officers managed to force Marshal Tukhachevsky to sign a testimony that he worked for German intelligence. Probably, Muller said with envy, the Russians have some. those are drugs that even make marshals weak-willed.

The Gestapo chief hardly went on vacation and was never sick. He did not travel around the country, but sat in his office. He basically stayed in the background and was silent. Müller cut his hair very short, almost bald, only leaving a tuft of hair in front, separated by a parting. He was short, with brown eyes. By the way, for Himmler, dark eye color was a sign of inferiority. He did not like the dark-eyed and dark-haired Bavarians. But an exception was made for the efficient worker Mueller. In 1935 he led the unification of the Bavarian political police and the Gestapo. Personally supervised the compilation of the Gestapo card index.

He moved up the ranks of the SS quite quickly: in April 1936 he received the rank of SS Sturmbannführer, in November - SS Obersturmbannführer, and in 1937 - SS Standartenführer. After the annexation of Austria, he was there for several months as an inspector of the Security Police and SD. He joined the NSDAP only on May 31, 1939. He quickly continued his career growth: in 1939 he received the rank of SS Oberführer, in 1940 - Major General of Police and SS Brigadeführer, and in 1941 - Lieutenant General of Police and SS Gruppenführer - in this rank he ended the war.

One of Mueller's first cases was the Blomberg-Fritsch case.

He was responsible for the development and implementation of the provocative operation in Gleiwitz, in which he was responsible for the delivery of corpses of concentration camp prisoners (“canned food”) and coordinating the actions of groups of SS men posing as German border guards and Polish soldiers who attacked the customs point in Hochlinden. The operation, codenamed "Canned Food", carried out by the SS, which served as the pretext for the German attack on Poland on September 1, 1939, which became the beginning of World War II, was carried out on August 31, 1939.

The provocation was organized by Reinhard Heydrich and his subordinate, the head of Group VI-F (sabotage), SS Sturmbannführer Alfred Naujoks, on the instructions of Adolf Hitler.

He led the investigation into the activities of the underground organization "Red Chapel". On January 20, 1942, Müller was among fifteen senior Nazi leaders present at the Wannsee Conference, where the decision on the Jewish question was made. In January 1942, he received the Cross of Military Merit, second class, with swords.

On September 27, 1939, Müller was appointed chief of the IV department of the RSHA (Gestapo). In 1941 he was appointed Commissioner for Eastern European Countries and was responsible for the destruction of Soviet prisoners of war and the deportation of Soviet citizens. Under his direct subordination was a department that carried out “preventive arrests,” the order for which he personally gave. He was one of the few people in the Third Reich who was informed about all the events taking place.

In June 1943, Müller was sent to Rome to find out the reasons that allowed Italian Jews to avoid arrest.

Since 1943, according to Schellenberg, Müller has been ideologically attracted to Soviet Union and communism.

He led the mass arrests after July 20, 1944, and personally arrested the chief of the V Directorate of the RSHA, Arthur Nebe. As is known, Nebe was involved in a number of conspiracies, including the July 20, 1944 plot against Adolf Hitler (for example, he was supposed to lead a detachment of 12 police officers tasked with eliminating Himmler). After the plot failed, he tried to hide on the island of Wannsee, but was handed over to the police by his rejected lover.

Nebe was sentenced to death and on March 21, 1945, hung by the jaw from a butcher's hook passing through a piano wire stretched along the room - according to the order of Hitler, who wanted to see the conspirators "hanged like cattle." After the liquidation of the conspiracy participants, he was awarded the Knight's Cross.

IN last days During the Third Reich, Müller was in the Fuhrer's bunker. It was to him that Hitler entrusted the interrogation of Hermann Fegelein, an SS adjutant and the husband of Eva Braun's sister, who, while intoxicated, refused to come to the bunker when called by the Fuhrer.

Müller's fate after April 1945 is unknown. Last time he was seen in Hitler's bunker on April 27, 1945. There are several versions of his death. According to one of them, Müller died in Berlin. In August, the corpse of an SS Gruppenführer was discovered in the building of the Ministry of Aviation with documents in the name of Heinrich Müller. His body was buried in the Kreuzberg War Cemetery in Berlin. However, in 1963, by order of the prosecutor's office, the grave was opened.

Arthur Nebe

The examination revealed that the found bones belonged to 3 different people, but not Mueller. In 1964, the West German magazine Stern reported that the former Gestapo chief was hiding in Albania and heading a department in Albanian intelligence. He seemed to be identified by an engineer from the GDR. And three years later, a man similar to Mueller was discovered in Panama. He was arrested.

West Berlin prosecutors were confident that they had found Mueller and asked the Justice Ministry to secure the extradition of the arrested man. The problem was that Mueller's fingerprints were missing from the archive. Muller's mistress, seeing a photograph of the arrested man, said: it looks like it's him. But Muller's wife expressed doubts: the Panamanian had thicker hair than her husband had twenty years ago. The wife knew her husband better than his mistress. A more thorough examination showed that the man had been arrested in vain. Not only did he not have the mandatory tattoo for SS men indicating his blood type, but he also did not have the scar that the real Müller had after his appendix was removed.

According to other versions, Muller fled to Latin America. Various possible places of his stay were named: Argentina, Chile, Bolivia, Brazil, Paraguay.

Walter Schellenberg expressed the version that Müller was recruited by the NKVD and subsequently lived in the USSR. According to this information, Müller died in Moscow in 1948.

In the 1990s, Mueller’s “Recruitment Conversations” and “Diaries” were published, which, however, many experts consider to be fake. According to the “American” version, Mueller was recruited by the CIA, subsequently lived in the United States and died in California in 1983.

Mueller is the only person in the world whose arrest warrant was issued after his death was registered.

The former chief of SD foreign policy intelligence, SS Brigadeführer Walter Schellenberg, a former rival and ardent ill-wisher of the Gestapo chief, once tried to answer these questions. In his memoirs written shortly before his death in 1952, Hitler’s intelligence officer claimed (based on what data is not clear) that Müller allegedly “established contact with the Russian secret service” from the end of 1943, in 1945 he “joined the communists” and allegedly They were even seen in 1948 in Moscow.

In the Western press, at the suggestion of Schellenberg, they picked up the topic miraculous salvation Müller with the help of “unprincipled Soviet KGB officers”, in the 50s and 60s the answer was simple: Lubyanka allegedly needed the Gruppenführer as a consultant on West German intelligence and counterintelligence, called the BND in 1956. As is known, since its inception in 1946, it was headed by former Wehrmacht Major General Reinhardt Gehlen from the OKW headquarters; it is no coincidence that this special service, nurtured by the Americans, was originally called the “Gelen Organization.”

“Doctor Schneider” (the secret name of the BND chief) was the first person to recruit for his staff former employees Abwehr (army intelligence and counterintelligence of the Reich). In turn, Muller, this “ walking encyclopedia"Himmler, who had a phenomenal memory and great diligence in studying documents, especially personal files, was able to instantly give the Reichsfuehrer detailed information about almost any intelligence officer. He dealt with his colleagues from the Abwehr, of course, not only out of a pathological “love of art,” but also considering them for some time as suspects.

It is no coincidence that after the suppression of the plot on July 20, 1944, which almost ended in the death of Hitler, the Gestapo chief, on the personal instructions of the Fuhrer, himself conducted an investigation. Many researchers believe that it was he who revealed the connections of the conspirators with the head of the Abwehr, Admiral Canaris, and his chief of staff, Colonel Hans Oster.

The Abwehr, as you know, was disbanded by Hitler's decision back in February 1944, and Müller organized work to check the loyalty of its employees transferred to the authority of the SD. Thus, the Gruppenführer knew everything or almost everything about Gehlen’s new associates (who settled in the town of Pullach near Munich and immediately began operations against the USSR). Therefore, from the point of view of operational expediency, if not to take into account moral considerations, the recruitment of this person by Soviet intelligence seems to be an absolutely logical step.

The very possibility cannot be dismissed from the threshold also because there are precedents of this kind. For example, it is known that SS Standartenführer Friedrich Panzinger, who was in Soviet captivity, was recruited, Müller’s deputy for counterintelligence work and the head of the Gestapo Sonderkommando Rote Kapelle (Red Kapelle), created in 1941 specifically to hunt for Soviet agents.

The recruitment of the Standartenführer, alas, cannot be attributed to the successes of the security officers: as soon as he was in his homeland, Panzinger confessed to Gehlen’s department. Of course, they took care to make this story public and paint it in appropriate tones, so that the world community would have no doubts: the Soviets also warmed up “Papa Müller”, the knowledge and experience of the Gruppenführer were also in demand by the Lubyanka...

In 1945, with the help of the Soviet intelligence officer “Kent” (Anatoly Gurevich), SS Hauptsturmführer Heinz Panwitz was recruited, famous for the destruction of the Czechoslovakian village of Lidice in 1942, razed to the ground on his orders in retaliation for the assassination attempt on RSHA chief Heydrich.

Finally, we should remember about SS Obersturmführer Heinz Felff, who worked in Schellenberg’s department during the war and dealt with Switzerland, and in 1961 was revealed by the BND as a Soviet agent with 10 years of experience, who managed to transfer a large amount of valuable intelligence information to Moscow.

Apparently, not all spy stories related to the recruitment of former SS members, employees of the RSHA and other Nazi departments outlawed by the Nuremberg Tribunal by the USSR intelligence services have yet become public.

Speculation about the post-war fate of Heinrich Müller would not be complete if not for a number of sensational statements made overseas in recent years. As is clear from the documents allegedly found and published by Gregory Douglas, Jetta Sereny and some other American journalists (let’s make a reservation right away: representatives of the CIA, military intelligence, other US intelligence agencies and others question their authenticity), Mueller actually managed to escape from besieged Berlin. Literally at the last moment, on April 29, 1945, at about 11 p.m., he took off from one of the streets of Tiergarten, where the fighting had already begun, on a light courier plane “Storch,” which belonged to the Reichsführer SS flying squad, and landed 5 kilometers from the border with Switzerland. In the Alpine republic, Müller acquired a false name, slightly modified his appearance and settled in one of the quiet corners of the villa he bought (he withdrew the money for the purchase from a secret account of the Nazi party in one of the Swiss banks).

Edgar Hoover

In the summer of 1948, he was visited by a certain representative of the newly created Central Intelligence Agency with special powers - an American scientist who was fluent in German and studied political history Germany. According to G. Douglas, for three weeks this man conducted many hours of face-to-face dialogues with the Gruppenführer, which, according to the journalist, were recorded (then the recordings allegedly fell into the hands of Douglas, and he published three volumes of these materials, called “recruitment conversations” by the publisher).

The Americans found Müller (according to the same Douglas) through his former deputy SS Oberführer Willy Kriechbaum, who after the war worked in the Gehlen Organization as the main recruiter and from time to time secretly visited his old patron. Kriechbaum allegedly brought to the attention of the Americans that the Gestapo chief (and his whereabouts were known only to the Oberführer) was burdened by a secure and quiet life on a “well-deserved rest” surrounded by Alpine peaks and he was ready to re-engage in the fight against the communist threat. Having verified this, American intelligence recruited Mueller as a secret Soviet consultant.

Having moved to the USA, the Gruppenführer (as can be concluded from his diaries, the authenticity of which Douglas insists) quickly became close on the basis of common views with FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, Senator Joseph McCarthy and even President Harry Truman.

Muller surprisingly organically fit into the political elite of the “most democratic” country in the world, married an American from high circles Washington society and lived happily with her for many years on a large estate in Virginia. His house was full of first-class works of art, and lavish receptions were held here for distinguished guests. Heinrich died in 1983 at the age of 83...

However, the true circumstances of Heinrich Müller’s death, it must be understood, will never be established...

Heinrich Muller. The last moments of spring,