Heinrich Muller: The Head of the Gestapo

this video is made possible by backblaze the unlimited backup solution you can get a 15 day free trial at backblaze.com forward slash biographics heinrich miller was the man who ran the most feared of all institutions in nazi germany the gestapo never a devout nazi he brought an unquestioning adherence to orders and a cold calculating efficiency to create an atmosphere of terror suspicion and darkness and then with the nazi regime crumbling around him he simply disappeared or did he in this week's biographics we take a look at the life and the disappearance of heinrich muller [Music] heinrich miller was born to catholic parents in munich germany on april 28 1900. he had a middle class upbringing with his father serving as a rural police officer heinrich experienced a primary school-level education before going on to train as an apprentice mechanic in the exciting new field of aircraft engineering seventeen-year-old muller joined the german army in june 1917 and in the 17 months that were to remain of the first world war won both promotion and acclaim in april 1918 he was assigned to the flag aus bildung ab taelung 287 where he flew planes in an artillery spotting unit in august 1918 muller was promoted to nco he was awarded the iron cross first and second class while serving on the western front after sustaining a leg injury in a plane accident he was awarded the retired bavarians badge his mental hall during his short period of service also included the bavarian military cross second class with swords it was quite an accomplishment for an 18 year old [Music] after leaving the german army muller found employment as a junior assistant for the munich police force after a period of time he passed his entrance exam to become a police officer by now he had reached his full height of five foot seven inches tall and he had a strong athletic build muller kept his dark brown hair cropped very short on the sides he had a small mouth and was rarely seen to smile while his extremely intense stare would often unnerve those in his company the first world war injury that had ended his war career caused him to walk with a constant limp muller married a girl named sophie dishner in 1924. sophie's father was the publisher of a right-wing newspaper and was opposed to the new national socialist party and its leader adolf hitler mueller was to stick to his faith throughout his career despite the nazi party's antipathy towards the church three years into the marriage a son reinhard was born the marriage was to last for some 13 years with a second child a girl named elizabeth born on september 9 1936 the child was said to be not quite right which led to a strain in the marriage muller subsequently engaged in an affair with his private secretary barbara hellmuth and the marriage it was essentially over over a 10-year period mueller rose in the ranks to become police secretary in 1929. by now he was serving in the section 6 of the bavarian state police this unit was mainly concerned with seeking out and keeping a lid on communist activity in and around munich by the time he had reached the age of 30 muller had become a rabid anti-communist thanks in part to his having been a witness to communist hostage murders during the bavarian state republic during the german revolution of 1918-1919 his energetic performance of his duties and willingness to follow orders without question earmarked him as a man with a future in the new germany during his service with the bavarian state police muller ran in circles that included nazi leaders reinhard heydrich and heinrich himmler however at this time muller no doubt under the influence of his father-in-law was decidedly anti-nazi when the nazis overthrew the bavarian government on march 9 1933 muller was in favor of picking up arms to actively resist hitler's forces [Music] with bavaria and its police force under the control of the nazis muller proved to be a valuable asset for the new regime his knowledge of communist activities put him in high demand and he advanced in rank to become a criminal investigator in november of 1933. he was a bit of a workaholic who exhibited a high degree of self-discipline and ruthlessness his early experiences in the army had instilled in him a military compliance to orders that was highly appreciated by his nazi leaders his natural antipathy towards the nazi party kept mueller from becoming a member until he was compelled to do so in 1939. he had earlier referred to hitler as an immigrant unemployed house painter as a result of his anti-nazi sentiments he was kept under constant surveillance by the party a 1937 report referred to him as ruthless and continually tries to demonstrate his efficiency but claims all the glory for himself however the chief of the reich main security office reinhard heydrich saw a lack of blind devotion to the nazi party as an asset he was increasingly impressed by muller having kept a close eye on his police career in muller he saw a man who was completely focused on the minute detail of his job description without a concern for the bigger picture from 1933 onward muller began doing work for the nazi party under the direction of heydrich he would be given accounts and reports detailing nazi atrocities and turned them into dry administrative reports in 1934 he joined the secret service or the ss in 1933 when adolf hitler became chancellor of germany hermann goering hitler's second in command became interior minister of prussia this put him in command of the largest police force in germany goering created the gestapo by amalgamating the various branches of the prussian police forces the name was an abbreviation of guilheimer statspaletsia or secret police on april 20 1934 ss leader heinrich himmler became the head of the gestapo on that same day hitler appointed himmler chief of police for all states apart from prussia two days later himmler handed the leadership of the gestapo to reinhard heydrich who still retained his position as head of the ss on june 17 1936 hitler appointed himmler as chief of all german police including those in prussia this move gave himmler operational control over all of germany's detective forces the gestapo had now become a national agency as opposed to simply a prussian state agency himmler soon created the criminal polizia or criminal police merging it with the gestapo to form the sipo or secret police heydrich retains control making heinrich muller his operational chief in the wake of hitler's 1938 arms laws of austria mueller was also made inspector of security police for austria [Music] it was muller who gave the orders that resulted in the arrest of up to 30 000 jews on the night of november the 9th to the 10th 1938 a date that history remembers as the crystal nacht or the knight of broken glass as a subordinate of heydrich he also did most of the administrative work in preparing for the emigration of all jews from europe under the auspices of the central office for jewish emigration three years later on september 27 1939 the security and police agencies of the country were brought together to form the reich maine security office or rmsa which was under the control of heydrich the gestapo was now officially department four of the rmsa heinrich muller he was named the gestapo chief mueller finally joined the nazi party in november of 1939 after being pressured to do so by heydrich from this time onward he became known as gestapo muller to differentiate him from another nazi official who bore the same name [Music] on august 11 1939 adolf hitler stated the following to the league of nations high commissioner if there is the slightest provocation i will shatter poland without warning into so many pieces that there will be nothing left to pick up what he needed next was that provocation which would allow him to unleash his war machine and set the world on the road to war to create it he turned to the gestapo as a result heydrich and muller worked together to bring about the polish provocation that hitler had warned about the plot to create the ruse of a polish propagation was called operation tannenberg they decided to create a series of fake border attacks in which germans living on the polish border would be the victims of attacks by polish insurgents mueller and hydrik settled on the border area near the town of gleevitz here were situated isolated german outposts that would make logical targets for attack it was decided that fake attacks would be made on a forestry station a customs house and a radio station ss soldiers were recruited into the scheme and dressed as polish insurgents and as polish army personnel more ss troops were then clad in german army uniforms a last-minute touch to the plan was that some of the poles would be killed in the attack so that their bodies could be presented to the world's media concentration camp inmates were brought in to play the part of these poles who were about to be put to death operation tannenberg was stationed to go into action at 4 30 a.m on august 26th there were to be three successive code words and the various units were to cross the border once the last code word was issued but after the release of the second code word some units became confused and headed for the border prematurely but then hitler changed his mind the attack would be delayed men on motorbikes were sent out to bring back the attacking fake poles hitler had held back because of british guarantees to poland after consultation with heidrick and muller it was decided that the plan would be revised it was also felt that a real polish insurgent would be needed so that he could be put to death and paraded to the world's newspapers mueller searched through his files and came up with the name of franz honiak who was a prominent polish sympathizer on august 30th mueller sent his men to pick up honiak the attacks were carried out on the evening of august 31st starting at 8 pm a drugged france honeak was dragged out and propped up against the radio station entrance he was then shot in the head photos were taken and delivered back to muller and heydrich but they were deemed as not being good enough to be used for media propaganda purposes still the fake attacks served their purpose the following day september 1 1939 adolf hitler referred to them as justification for his attack on poland two days later britain and france declared war on germany and the second world war was underway heinrich muller was now in charge of the most ruthless arm of the nazi party his brief was to stamp out all manner of oppression to the regime he immediately set about in his methodically efficient manner to create an instrument of state-sponsored terror the gestapo were given the job of investigating every act of treason espionage and sabotage perpetrated against the state a law that had been passed in 1936 gave them free reign to operate without any restraint this law gave the organization exemption from any responsibility to the administrative courts so long as the gestapo were acting in harmony with the will of the nazi leadership then they were acting lawfully the aspect of the gestapo's activities that was most open to abuse was called the shutsaft which translates to protective custody it gave them the authority to imprison anyone without having gone through any court proceedings as a result thousands of people were beaten mercilessly with many of them simply disappearing this gave the gestapo a fearsome reputation throughout the land fear in fact became the gestapo's greatest weapon muller was a highly skilled interrogator himself he would draw interrogations out for hours on end making full use of his incredible memory to trip up his subjects we only have one surviving account of an interrogation conducted by muller his opening words to his subject a british officer were you are in the hands of the gestapo don't imagine that we shall show you the slightest consideration with the onset of war the gestapo numbers were bolstered substantially by 1942 mueller was in charge of around 46 000 officers as german conquests mounted the operations of the gestapo were extended to occupied territories its duties were extended to putting down resistance movements to do this effectively with only 46 000 men muller cultivated the perception among the population that the state was constantly watching and that nobody was safe the mere sight of a gestapo unit would instill terror in people the general feeling was that if you did anything against the nazi state the gestapo would eventually track you down and then your life simply wouldn't be worth living in order to cultivate the fear that was needed to control the people muller was happy to leak the details of the sorts of torture that his underlings were inflicting upon those taken into custody the more gruesome the story the better he also organized for occasional show trials to be held in public where the people's court would vehemently denounce convict and then condemn a prisoner to the firing squad mueller's favorite people's court judge was the notorious roland freisler the gestapo had officers at every concentration camp personnel from the gestapo were also used to make up the einsatzgruppen or death squads who carried out mass killings the gestapo were largely responsible for putting into action hitler's plan for the elimination of the jewish people from europe to accomplish this the office of resettlement later to become the office of jewish affairs was created it was headed by adolf eichmann who was mueller's immediate subordinate together the two men implemented mass deportation and exterminations at nazi concentration camps throughout occupied europe on march 2nd 1944 mueller signed the infamous bullet decree which ordered that escaped allied prisoners were to be transported to the math house and gusen concentration camp and summarily executed this was in direct contravention of the geneva convention in the wake of the july the 20th 1944 plot to kill hitler it was muller who authorized the use of torture to interrogate those involved in fact his zeal in the aftermath of the attack earned him the knight's cross to the war service with swords under his oversight more than 7 000 people were arrested with 4980 either committing suicide or being executed mueller's duties included overseeing counter-espionage operations between 1942 and 1945 these were focused on the soviet union much success was achieved in feeding false information to the russians and even in turning a number of soviet agents [Music] muller may have never been a died in the world nazi but he believed that german victory was inevitable even in the last days he thought that a final german victory in the ardennes could turn the tide of the war as the russians and the americans closed in on berlin in april of 1945 mueller was among those secreted in the underground bunker that was now home to the fuhrer in the final days hitler discovered that hermann goering had secretly undertaken peace negotiation with the allies enraged the fuhrer ordered mueller to interrogate waffen ss general hermann fegelin about what he knew of goring's underhanded dealings this interrogation his last official duty resulted in the execution of fegelin on april 30 adolf hitler and his wife eva braun committed suicide the next day may the first mueller was quoted by hitler's personal pilot as saying we know the russian methods exactly i haven't the faintest intention of being taken prisoner by the russians that evening muller disappeared from the bunker what happened to him remains one of the great mysteries of the nazi era for almost 70 years he remained the most senior nazi official to remain unaccounted for on june 18 1945 the allied counterintelligence war room released a statement that concluded that it seems clear from most reports that muller remained in berlin after the collapse over the next few weeks several high-ranking gestapo officers were arrested but the man at the head of the terror organization was nowhere to be found with heinrich muller being a common german name the allies found many mullers but never the right one this led to many false alerts and frustrating dead ends still the united states counterintelligence services were determined to track him down there were reports that he had taken on the name of schwartz or schwarzer and traveled south in the company of a fellow gestapo officer but this ended up as yet another dead end by the mid-1940s the general consensus was that heinrich muller had died [Music] the dramatic may 1960 capture of adolf eichmann by the israelis reawakened interest in the search for escaped nazis in general and heinrich muller in particular eichmann himself added to the interest by stating at his trial that he was of the opinion that muller was still alive in july 1960 the west german police were ordered to open an investigation into muller's whereabouts it was suspected that wherever he was muller was corresponding with his family former secretary or mistress all of these people were therefore put under surveillance the west germans developed three major leads in the case each one confirming their belief that he had met his end in berlin in 1945. this eventually led to the examination of a grave in a cemetery in west berlin despite the fact that the gravestone read our loving father heinrich muller born april 28 1900 died in berlin may 1945 the grave did not contain mueller's body the american cia began to search for mueller at around the same time as this west german investigation it was prompted by the defection of a polish intelligence officer who revealed information about a handful of escaped nazis including mueller the defector informed the cia that muller had been taken into custody by the soviets and was working in moscow in counterintelligence the cia attempted to corroborate the polish defector's information with limited success throughout the remainder of the 1960s there were various reports of mueller living in south american countries such as argentina or chile still no concrete leads emerged though finally in 2013 it appeared that conclusive evidence had emerged proving that heinrich muller did in fact die in berlin in 1945. research on the part of the memorial for german resistance concluded that he was buried in a mass grave with around 2400 other people in berlin the conclusion is based on a report of a burial commando which detailed the discovery of the body complete with mueller's military identification papers in his pocket so it would appear that the most elusive of the nazi hierarchy was not so elusive after all just before we finish the video today i do want to say a particularly big thank you to today's sponsor backblaze now videos like this i personally feel they're important but because of the way youtube works it's hard for them to be made because of 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Channel: Biographics

Views: 1,492,132

Rating: 4.8578258 out of 5

Keywords: biographics, biography, biographies, people, famous people, simon whistler, gestapo chief, The Head of the Gestapo, Heinrich Muller, Heinrich Muller bio, Heinrich Muller life, Gestapo Muller

Id: wd0MqIcY54g

Length: 21min 32sec (1292 seconds)

Published: Sat Sep 29 2018