Heinrich Theodor Müller

Heinrich Theodor Müller (born November 24, 1901 in Essen-Borbeck ; † March 28, 1985 there ) was a dentist , head of the Bonn branch of the Security Service (SD) and a member of the Waffen SS .

Live and act

Heinrich Theodor Müller was born as the eldest of five children of the Catholic couple Hermann Müller (Maschinensteiger) and Maria Lüke. After attending the Borbeck grammar school and the private rectorate school Ascheberg, he switched to the Gaesdonck boarding school , where he passed the Abitur in 1923. In 1924 he started at the Munich Technical University studying in the fields of mining, engineering and electrical engineering. Due to significant weaknesses in mathematics, he dropped out after seven years to study dentistry. In 1936 he passed the state examination at the University of Bonn and was licensed as a dentist . He stayed at the University Dental Clinic and worked there until 1943, initially as a research assistant and later as an assistant. The doctorate to Dr. med. dent. he succeeded only after two unsuccessful attempts in December 1942.

Political activity

Müller joined in 1931 into the NSDAP (membership number 450112) and in the SS (membership number 10269) was one, since the spring of 1935 as an undercover agent for the SD worked and produced reports especially on matters of the University of Bonn. He took over the management of the SD branch in Bonn in the autumn of 1935. It was housed in the same building as the Gestapo (Kreuzbergweg 5 in Bonn's west town). The spatial proximity enabled Müller not only to work closely with the Gestapo, but also to assert police powers. The head of the Bonn Gestapo, Walter Proll, evidently did not see himself in a position to defy his behavior.

Crimes against humanity

Müller's ideological reliability was expressed in the mistreatment of victims and opponents of the Nazi regime, in the dental clinic as well as in the SD agency. He even recommended to the Jewish mathematics professor Felix Hausdorff , who came to the clinic with his wife: If a Jew is sick, he should hang himself. In fact, Hausdorff committed suicide in 1942 when he was about to be sent to an internment camp.

He participated in house searches and looting of Jewish homes and robbed valuables there. Müller was involved in the execution of Polish foreign workers for alleged sexual intercourse with German women, as well as in the deportation of so-called Jewish families who had to go to the SD office in September 1944.

War participation

In October 1944, Müller reported to the Waffen SS . The background for this was evidently a pending case against him before the SS and police court for pushing groceries. Initially deployed in an SS Panzer Grenadier Battalion, he came to the medical department of the SS and Police Division "Langemarck" as a dentist at Easter 1945 . With this department he experienced the retreat of the Wehrmacht on the Eastern Front and was captured in the last days of the war , from which he escaped in May 1945 and was able to go into hiding for a few years - he lived with relatives in Essen and in the Sauerland.

post war period

In April 1948 he surrendered to the British occupation authorities and after several months of pre-trial detention, he was sentenced to one year in prison by the Bonn jury court for crimes against humanity and to four years in prison by the Hiddesen court for membership of the SD and SS. Both sentences were combined to a total imprisonment of four and a half years. In February 1950 he was transferred to the Esterwegen internment camp in Emsland. Around 900 members of National Socialist organizations had been serving their prison sentences here since July 1947. In 1950 around 100 convicts were still interned there, including some Nazi celebrities such as the former Gauleiter of Düsseldorf, Friedrich Karl Florian . Soon after Müller's internment, his uncle Johannes, who worked as a clerical head teacher at the Gaesdonck boarding school, tried to get his nephew released from prison. He was able to persuade the Münster vicar general and later Bishop of Aachen, Johannes Pohlschneider , to submit a pardon for Heinrich. This went through various British and German authorities before it was rejected by NRW Prime Minister Karl Arnold in autumn 1950 . Another petition for clemency on the Cologne Cardinal Josef Frings was also unsuccessful. Through the placement of his fellow inmate Friedrich Karl Florian, Müller received career prospects. On his 50th birthday, Müller was released after three and a half years in prison and moved to live with his sisters in Essen. He took over a dental practice in Gelsenkirchen Neustadt and thus earned a steady income. He ran the practice until he was 81 years old. In January 1983 he returned to Essen and lived near Stadtwaldplatz, where he also died.

literature

• Annette Mertens: Catholic worker's son, SD branch manager and trained dentist. The life path of the Bonn SD leader Heinrich Müller (1901−1985) , in: Ronald Lambrecht / Ulf Morgenstern (eds.): “Strongly advanced detailed research”. Essays for Ulrich von Hehl on his 65th birthday , Leipzig / Berlin 2012, pp. 57–76.

Web links

• Heinrich Theodor Müller, biography on the Internet portal "Rheinische Geschichte" , accessed on August 7, 2017

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Annette Mertens: Catholic worker's son, SD branch manager and trained dentist. The life path of the Bonn SD leader Heinrich Müller (1901−1985)