COMMENT: Not even the War­ren Com­mis­sion would buy this one! A dis­in­for­ma­tion piece is in cir­cu­la­tion claim­ing that Gestapo chief Hein­rich Mueller (spelling varies with “Muller” also used) was alleged­ly iden­ti­fied as hav­ing been killed in Berlin dur­ing the last week of the war.

The “iden­ti­fi­ca­tion” comes from a grave-dig­ging recruit who claims he reburied Mueller in August of 1945, and was able to pos­i­tive­ly iden­ti­fy the corpse from a pho­to­graph!

The sup­posed iden­ti­fi­ca­tion was alleged­ly of the corpse of a bat­tle casu­al­ty dat­ing to the begin­ning of May of 1945, buried for four months, and then ID’d from a pho­to­graph!

The state of decom­po­si­tion would have pre­clud­ed such a super­fi­cial exam­i­na­tion. 

Note that the sup­posed grave dig­ger came for­ward in 1963. No men­tion of why.

In FTR #283, we dealt at length with Mueller’s post­war activ­i­ties, includ­ing his work as secu­ri­ty direc­tor for the pow­er­ful, dead­ly Bor­mann cap­i­tal net­work.

A Los Ange­les Times piece from 2001 notes archival infor­ma­tion that Mueller was cap­tured by Amer­i­can troops at the end of the war. No men­tion is made of his ulti­mate fate, with cred­i­ble reports in exis­tence that he worked with ele­ments of U.S. intel­li­gence.

No reports are in Mueller’s file after 1963. That is the year that the gravedig­ger came for­ward to ID Mueller’s decay­ing corpse from a pho­to­graph.

1963 is also the year in which Mueller leaked infor­ma­tion to a Ger­man mag­a­zine that led to the open­ing of his sup­posed “grave.”

We won­der about the pos­si­ble links between the Mueller dis­in­for­ma­tion and the assas­si­na­tion of Pres­i­dent Kennedy, per­formed in con­junc­tion with numer­ous Third Reich alum­ni.

In addi­tion to the above-cit­ed arti­cles, we include excerpts from Mar­tin Bor­mann: Nazi in Exile which chron­i­cle Mueller’s post­war activ­i­ties.

“Muller, an Archi­tect of the Holo­caust, Is Said to Be Buried in a Jew­ish Ceme­tery in Berlin” by Ali­son Smale; The New York Times; 10/31/2013.

EXCERPT: . . . . Now, the ques­tion of Müller’s fate has tak­en a dis­turb­ing twist, as Prof. Johannes Tuchel, head of an asso­ci­a­tion that watch­es over memo­ri­als to Ger­man resis­tance fight­ers, claims to have uncov­ered a doc­u­ment indi­cat­ing that he was killed, prob­a­bly on May 1, 1945, hasti­ly buried in a pro­vi­sion­al grave near the Nazi Air Force min­istry, and lat­er reburied in a mass grave in the Jew­ish ceme­tery in Mitte, in the heart of Berlin. . . . .

. . . . His inter­est piqued, Pro­fes­sor Tuchel said, he scoured archives and found out that Müller was killed in the dying days of the war in May 1945, and buried and reburied, he said. An esti­mat­ed 70,000 civil­ians and sol­diers are said to have been killed in the last three weeks of the war in Berlin. In the months after fight­ing end­ed, each city dis­trict orga­nized non­pro­fes­sion­al teams of gravedig­gers to col­lect corpses and bury them in mass graves, Pro­fes­sor Tuchel said, adding that there were 16 such graves con­tain­ing an esti­mat­ed 2,700 bod­ies in the Mitte Jew­ish ceme­tery. . . . .

. . . . The pro­fes­sor said he had found a doc­u­ment stat­ing that a gravedig­ger, Wal­ter Lüders, had approached the local police in West Ger­many in 1963, say­ing he had buried Müller, and was then inter­ro­gat­ed — just once — by more senior inves­ti­ga­tors after Bild report­ed Mr. Lüders’ appear­ance.

Upon being shown a pic­ture of Müller by the senior inves­ti­ga­tors, Mr. Lüders, accord­ing to a doc­u­ment found by Pro­fes­sor Tuchel, stat­ed, “I have com­pared this pho­to with the face of the corpse” that he had reburied in August 1945.

He added, “I can say that the per­son pic­tured on the pho­to was in appear­ance iden­ti­cal with the corpse.” . . . .

“New Ques­tions Arise on Fate of Gestapo Chief” by Hen­ry Wein­stein; Los Ange­les Times; 2/26/2001; pp. A1-A6.

EXCERPT: . . . . Was Muller briefly in U.S. cus­tody after the war? If so, did he escape, or was he freed to become a CIA spy?

Muller is offi­cial­ly reg­is­tered as dead in Berlin. But his grave turned out to con­tain two unknown sol­diers when it was opened more than 30 years ago. His chil­dren sub­se­quent­ly removed the head­stone from the bur­ial plot.

U.S. Army Intel­li­gence records indi­cate that Muller–who was nick­named “Gestapo Muller” to dis­tin­guish him from the hun­dreds of oth­er Mullers in the Nazi hierarchy–was cap­tured by Amer­i­cans in 1945, says his­to­ri­an George Chalou, who worked at the Nation­al Archives for 28 years. But what hap­pened after that “is the $64 ques­tion,” he said. . . .

. . . . . In about a month, the Nation­al Archives plans to release a 500-page Cen­tral Intel­li­gence Agency file on Muller, which may shed fur­ther light on his post­war activ­i­ties, accord­ing to Greg Brad­sh­er, a his­to­ri­an at the archives. So far, the bulk of pub­licly avail­able mate­r­i­al on Muller comes from U.S. Army Intel­li­gence files and mate­r­i­al gath­ered by his­to­ri­ans. . . .

. . . . In Decem­ber 1999, the Nation­al Archives issued a one-para­graph news release stat­ing that it was open­ing 135 pages of files on Muller, pri­mar­i­ly cov­er­ing the peri­od from 1945 to 1963, but also includ­ing some ear­li­er Nazi gov­ern­ment doc­u­ments.

The files con­tain tan­ta­liz­ing mate­r­i­al, includ­ing many items that con­tra­dict one anoth­er. Despite the fact that the files were opened more than 50 years after the end of World War II, numer­ous por­tions have been redact­ed. In Feb­ru­ary 1999, eight months before the Army records were made pub­lic by the Nation­al Archives, Army offi­cials sent Rab­bi Hier a let­ter say­ing some of his requests for infor­ma­tion on Muller were being denied on grounds of “nation­al secu­ri­ty,” includ­ing the pos­si­bil­i­ty that more com­plete dis­clo­sure could com­pro­mise intel­li­gence-gath­er­ing meth­ods.

Among the mate­ri­als the Nation­al Archives made pub­lic are the fol­low­ing:

* A Decem­ber 1945 inter­view with a for­mer Nazi stat­ing that Muller escaped from Berlin through a secret under­ground pas­sage that only he and Eich­mann knew about.

* A July 1946 Army Counter-Intel­li­gence Corps doc­u­ment say­ing “reports from the Russ­ian zone of Berlin seem to indi­cate” that Muller shot and killed his wife and three chil­dren and then him­self, two days before Hitler died.

* Index cards stat­ing that Muller was in cus­tody first in the town of Ilme­nau and then in Decem­ber 1945 in a “civil­ian intern­ment” camp in Altenstadt in Upper Bavaria. The card does not state what hap­pened to Muller at Altenstadt. It ends with the cryp­tic and provoca­tive sen­tence, “case closed 29 Jan 46.” It is unclear who placed the infor­ma­tion on the card, which states that a Muller dossier was to be sent to Frank­furt.

* Anoth­er U.S. Army doc­u­ment dat­ed July 11, 1946, states that British offi­cials request­ed an inves­ti­ga­tion of Muller in the Wurzburg area, say­ing that it was believed he was dead. But the doc­u­ment ends with: “results neg­a­tive.”

* A 1951 doc­u­ment, say­ing an infor­mant had said Muller was in Czecho­slo­va­kia where he “is sup­pos­ed­ly direct­ing intel­li­gence activ­i­ties for the Sovi­ets against the U.S. zone of Ger­many.”

* An August 1960 doc­u­ment say­ing Muller was believed to be cor­re­spond­ing with rel­a­tives.

* Numer­ous oth­er doc­u­ments from the 1950s and ear­ly 1960s indi­cat­ing the belief that Muller was alive and that U.S. offi­cials were inter­est­ed in find­ing him. There are no new reports after 1963. . . .

Mar­tin Bor­mann: Nazi in Exile; Paul Man­ning; Copy­right 1981 [HC]; Lyle Stu­art Inc.; ISBN 0–8184-0309–8.

. . . Mueller had already ini­ti­at­ed a strat­e­gy of decep­tion to explain his own dis­ap­pear­ance from promi­nent cir­cles in Berlin. The week he slipped out of the Ger­man cap­i­tal, his griev­ing fam­i­ly gath­ered for his ‘funer­al.’ A cof­fin was borne to a ceme­tery where it was buried with appro­pri­ate cer­e­mo­ny. The grave was marked with a head­stone bear­ing the words ‘Our Dear Dad­dy,’ Mueller’s name, his birth­date, and the date of his alleged death in Berlin in 1945. Sev­er­al years fol­low­ing this inci­dent, an edi­tor of a Ger­man news mag­a­zine, act­ing on an informer’s tip gen­er­at­ed by the mas­ter decep­tion­ist Mueller him­self, from South Amer­i­ca, obtained a court order in 1963, and the grave was opened. When the cof­fin in ques­tion was unearthed and opened, the edi­tor and the attend­ing offi­cials found three skele­tons, none remote­ly match­ing Hein­rich Mueller’s short and thick-set mea­sure­ments, or his marked­ly promi­nent fore­head. . . (Ibid.; p. 179)

. . . Dur­ing years of research for this book, I have become aware of Hein­rich Mueller and his secu­ri­ty force, which pro­vides pro­tec­tion for the lead­er­ship in Latin Amer­i­ca and wher­ev­er else they may trav­el to Europe and to the Unit­ed States to check on invest­ments and prof­its. Through inter­me­di­aries, I have attempt­ed unceas­ing­ly to pen­e­trate to the cen­tral core of the orga­ni­za­tion in South Amer­i­ca, but have been denied access. At the last meet­ing that I know about, it was vot­ed: ‘Herr Man­ning’s writ­ing would focus undue atten­tion on our activ­i­ties and his request must once again be denied.’ The elder­ly lead­ers, includ­ing Reich­min­is­ter Bor­mann, who is now eighty, want­ed me on the scene to write of their side of the sto­ry, above all his sto­ry, of one of the most amaz­ing and suc­cess­ful finan­cial and indus­tri­al cloak­ing actions in his­to­ry, of which he is jus­ti­fi­ably proud. I had sent word to Bor­mann that the true sto­ry, his first­hand account, should become a mat­ter of his­tor­i­cal record, and stat­ed that I would be agree­able to writ­ing it if I could tell his true sto­ry, warts and all.” (Ibid.; p. 272.)

Back came the word: “You are a free world jour­nal­ist, and can write as you think best. We, too, are inter­est­ed only in truth.’ ”They agreed to my request to bring along a three-man cam­era crew from CBS News to film my con­ver­sa­tions with Mar­tin Bor­mann, and even approved my wish for at least a per­son­al thumbprint of the for­mer Reich­sleit­er and par­ty min­is­ter, which would be pos­i­tive proof of his iden­ti­ty. At the orga­ni­za­tion’s request, I sent the back­ground, names, pho­tos and cre­den­tials of the par­tic­u­lar CBS cam­era­men: Lawrence Wal­ter Pierce, Richard Hen­ry Perez, and Oden Lester Kitzmiller, an award-win­ning cam­era crew (which got the exclu­sive film cov­er­age of the attempt­ed assas­si­na­tion of Gov­er­nor George Wal­lace when he was run­ning for pres­i­dent). (Ibid.; pp. 272–3.)

I am sor­ry to say that the younger lead­ers, the ones now in vir­tu­al com­mand, vot­ed ‘No.’ They did agree, how­ev­er that 232 his­tor­i­cal doc­u­ments from World War II, which Bor­mann had had shipped out of Berlin in the wan­ing days of the war, and which are stored in his archives in South Amer­i­ca, could be sent to me anony­mous­ly, to be pub­lished. They said their lengthy inves­ti­ga­tion of me had pro­duced con­fi­dence that I was an objec­tive jour­nal­ist, as well as a brave one, for their prob­ing stretched back to World War II days, and up to the present. (Ibid.; p. 273.)

Hein­rich Mueller, now sev­en­ty-nine years old, who also serves as keep­er of these archives as well as chief of all secu­ri­ty for the NSDAP, reject­ed this deci­sion: when the couri­er reached the Buenos Aires inter­na­tion­al air­port bear­ing these doc­u­ments for me he was relieved of them by the Argen­tine secret police act­ing under an ini­tia­tive from Mueller. (Idem.)

As Mueller had explained pre­vi­ous­ly, he had noth­ing against me per­son­al­ly; I had been cleared of any ‘strange con­nec­tions’ by his agents in New York City, whose sur­veil­lance efforts were sup­ple­ment­ed by the old pros of the Gestapo, up from South Amer­i­ca to assist in watch­ing me. This con­tin­ued inter­mit­tent­ly for years, and efforts were stepped up in response to the inten­si­ty of my inves­ti­ga­tions. The state­ment I had orig­i­nal­ly made to their rep­re­sen­ta­tives in West Ger­many, that I was only a dili­gent jour­nal­ist try­ing to dig out an impor­tant sto­ry, final­ly proved sat­is­fac­to­ry to them. I observed that Mueller had­n’t lost his touch in the field of sur­veil­lance, judg­ing by the qual­i­ty, skill, and num­ber of men and women who tracked me, at what must have been enor­mous cost, wher­ev­er I went in New York City, Wash­ing­ton, and over­seas. (Idem.)

Mueller did­n’t restrict his secu­ri­ty activ­i­ties on behalf of the Bor­mann group to sur­veil­lance. ‘Israeli agents who move too close­ly to these cen­ters of pow­er are elim­i­nat­ed. One such ter­mi­na­tion was Fritz Bauer, for­mer­ly attor­ney gen­er­al for the State of Hesse in Frank­furt, a sur­vivor of Auschwitz and the man who tipped off the Israeli Mossad about the pres­ence of Adolf Eich­mann in Buenos Aires, who was killed on orders of Gen­er­al Mueller. . . .Mueller’s ruth­less­ness even today is what deters Artur Axmann from alter­ing his tes­ti­mo­ny that he saw Bor­mann lying dead on the road­way the night of their escape from the Fuehrerbunker, May 1–2, 1945. . . .To this day, Axmann, the only so-called liv­ing wit­ness to the ‘death’ of Bor­mann in Berlin, knows his life is in jeo­prady if he revers­es him­self. Gen­er­al Mueller is thor­ough and has a long mem­o­ry, and for a Nazi such as Axmann to go against Mueller’s orig­i­nal direc­tive would make him a trai­tor; ret­ri­bu­tion would sure­ly fol­low.’ (Ibid.; pp. 289–90.)