Possible leads on Heinrich Mueller's fate

[Denis]

This could be interesting if it's pursued. Apparently Jewish law forbids exhumation but if Mueller is buried in a Jewish cemetery I wonder if exceptions will be made to get him out of there.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/31/heinrich-muller-death_n_4182038.html

[uwe]

I appreciate the irony of it. The exterminator seeking refuge even in death among those he wanted to, but eventually failed to exterminate.

I don't care where he rots, but I don't see the Jewesh cemetery desecrated because of him either. Isn't it gratifying to know that the worms are eating your worst enemy close by?

[Denis]

He might be rolling over in his grave, suffering eternally knowing he's lying in a Jewish Cemetery. The main thing is to try and make sure he's dead and didn't get away.

[nofi]

my dad was in ww2. he was 18 when he enlisted. now he is 89. the passing of time almost insures this guy is dead. at this point it does not matter where his body is. he's gone.

[uwe]

Müller was one of those Nazis where rumors about his alleged survival would always (re)crop up again over the years, much like Martin Bormann (who died in 45 as well). Had a (most likely Russian, though given the GESTAPO's popularity in disinegrating Berlin it might very well have been a German one!) bullet not stopped him then and there, there is however a good chance that the GESTAPO's old boys network would have indeed help him hide well for years and decades to come. BTW, this is the guy that staged the mock attack of alleged Polish forces on a German border station in 1939 as a thinly veiled reason for the Third Reich striking "back". Not so much an early Nazi (he only joined in 1938 - that was late by GESTAPO standards and would have generally hindered his career there, but his fervent hate of anything left obiously made up for it in the eyes of his superiors), he stayed faithful until the end (longer than Himmler and his SS). He also made sure that Georg Elser

#

was executed as late as April 1945 to prevent him from being liberated by the American forces approaching Dachau. Elser, a carpenter, early communist and fundamental Christian  had planted a bomb in a Munich cellar in November 1939 where Hitler spoke annually to his old Nazi party founder cronies. The bomb was powerful and would have killed Hitler had he not - against all tradition - left the event very much earlier than usual (he alway gave a lengthy speech, but not this time), he left a quarter of an hour before the bomb went off. As a German resistance member, Elser fell through all the cracks initially post-war, too communist for the Christians, too Christian for the communists, not a member of a movement or group, but a somewhat naive loner, there were rumors that his assassination attempt was staged by the Nazis or that he was a Russian or British agent (the Nazis went mad when they realized that even under torture Elser could not point to people who had helped him, he was utterly alone in his plan). He has been deservedly reappreciated in the last few decades as a man who "just did what felt right".

[Dave W]

This won't be accepted as fact without DNA. Seems possible; however a lot of scenarios seem possible.

[Pilgrim]

Doesn't seem like a real practical idea to start sorting through a communal grave to find particular bones from one person and have to identify them via DNA.

[Denis]

Assuming he was reburied while still wearing his uniform it would at least narrow it down? I'm sure not many SS Gruppenfuhrers are buried there.

[uwe]

You can bet that when he was fleeing in Berlin streets that he wore no uniform or even the standard GESTAPO leather trench coat and hat look to give him away.



To this day, leather trench coats like these are referred to as "GESTAPO Mäntel" in Germany.

[Denis]

True, but the guy who claimed to have reburied him said he was in uniform. If that's true it probably means he wasn't trying to go into hiding but was killed during a bombing or by gunfire or by suicide.

I knew a guy in college who collected Nazi stuff and had an original leather Gestapo coat. I imagine these days it would be worth a lot of money.

[uwe]

Not really - like German barbed wire - there were a lot of them! In the seventies and eighties flea markets in Germany were swarmed with that stuff. They are heavy and get smelly with age.