Heinrich Mueller Signed Document - SS Gestapo

Heinrich Mueller Signed Document - SS Gestapo
Incredible A4 double page document from the Gestapo Headquartersin Berlin and has been hand signed in ink by SS- Gruppenfuhrer andGeneralleutnant of Police Heinrich Muller.Signed Gestapo documents signed by Heinrich Muller are very rare and wellsought after he was regarded as one of the most powerful office perpetratorsof the Nazi regime. This particular document is the holy grail of Gestapodocuments because it refers to the rounding up and the evacuation of Jews.The document reads :Secret State PoliceBerlin SW 11 the 21st August 1942 Secret State Police OfficePrinz-Albrecht-Strasse 8Enroll 181To theSecret State PoliceState Police StationFrankfurt a. M.Lindenstrasse 27Subject: Evacuation of Jews to Theresienstadt (Protect.)Process: Without.Annexes: Transfers (state police decree, negotiation form, leaflet)On Tuesday, September 1st, 1942, at the state police station in Frankfurt /M. a deportation of Jews is planned.During this evacuation, except from the cities of Frankfurt / M. andWiesbaden-also deported the Jews from the administrative districts ofWiesbaden. According to the guidelines of the Reich Security Main Office inBerlin, the following Jews (5 of the I. V.O. to the Reichsburg Law ofNovember 14, 35, RGBI.I p. 1333)Capture :1.) Frail Jews over 65 years of age or over 55 years old, as long as they donot live in a mixed German-Jewish marriage, with spouses and children under14 years of age.2.) Holders of high war awards from the World War (EK I, wounded badge, goldmedal of bravery)3.) Jewish single mixed race, who are considered Jews according to the legalregulations (i.e. valid Jews who currently have neither spouses, parents norchildren).Exceptions: The following may not be evacuated:1.) Jewish spouses of a no longer existing German-Jewish mixed marriage, whoare exempted from the compulsory identification according to 3 Para.2.) Jews from abroad, including Jews who were stateless after May 15, 1942,who were formerly Slovak nationals (however, other stateless Jews and Jewswho were formerly Polish and Luxembourg nationals may be evacuated).Heil HitlerHeinrich MullerSS-Gruppenfuhrer u. Generalleutnant der PolizeiHeinrich Müller (28 April 1900; date of death unknown, but evidence pointsto May 1945) was a high-ranking German Schutzstaffel (SS) and policeofficial during the Nazi era. For the majority of World War II in Europe, hewas the chief of the Gestapo, the secret state police of Nazi Germany.Müller was central in the planning and execution of the Holocaust andattended the January 1942 Wannsee Conference, which formalised plans fordeportation and genocide of all Jews in German-occupied Europe—The "FinalSolution to the Jewish Question". He was known as "Gestapo Müller" todistinguish him from another SS general named Heinrich Müller.He was last seen in the Führerbunker in Berlin on 1 May 1945 and remains themost senior figure of the Nazi regime who was never captured or confirmed tohave died.Müller was born in Munich on 28 April 1900 to Catholic parents. His fatherhad been a rural police official. Müller attended a Volksschule andcompleted an apprenticeship as an aircraft mechanic before the outbreak ofthe First World War. During the last year of the war, he served in theLuftstreitkräfte as a pilot for an artillery spotting unit. He was decoratedseveral times for bravery (including the Iron Cross 1st and 2nd class, Bavarian Military Merit Cross 2nd Class with Swords and Bavarian PilotsBadge). After the war ended, he joined the Bavarian Police in 1919 as anauxiliary worker. Although not a member of the Freikorps, he was involved inthe suppression of the communist risings in the early post-war years. Afterwitnessing the shooting of hostages by the revolutionary "Red Army" inMunich during the Bavarian Soviet Republic, he acquired a lifelong hatred ofcommunism. During the years of the Weimar Republic he was head of the MunichPolitical Police Department, having risen quickly through the ranks due tohis spirited effortsIt was under these auspices that he became acquainted with many members ofthe Nazi Party (NSDAP) including Heinrich Himmler and Reinhard Heydrich, although Müller in the Weimar period was generally seen as a supporter ofthe Bavarian People's Party (which at that time ruled Bavaria). On 9 March1933, during the Nazi putsch that deposed the Bavarian government ofMinister-President Heinrich Held, Müller advocated to his superiors usingforce against the Nazis. Ironically, these views aided Müller's rise as itguaranteed the hostility of the Nazis, thereby making Müller very dependentupon the patronage of Reinhard Heydrich, who in turn appreciated Müller'sprofessionalism and skill as a policeman, and was aware of Müller's past.Once the Nazis seized power, Müller's knowledge of communist activitiesplaced him in high demand; as a result he was promoted toPolizeiobersekretär in May 1933 and again to Criminal Inspector in November1933.Historian Richard J. Evans wrote: "Müller was a stickler for duty anddiscipline, and approached the tasks he was set as if they were militarycommands. A true workaholic who never took a vacation, Müller was determinedto serve the German state, irrespective of what political form it took, andbelieved it was everyone's duty, including his own, to obey its dictateswithout question." Evans also records Müller was a regime functionary outof ambition, not out of a belief in National Socialism: An internal [Nazi]Party memorandum ... could not understand how "so odious an opponent of themovement" could become head of the Gestapo, especially since he had oncereferred to Hitler as "an immigrant unemployed house painter" and "anAustrian draft-dodger". Nazi jurist and former police chief, SS-Obergruppenführer Werner Best opined Müller represented one of the"finest examples" of the limited connection between members of the NSDAP andthe police before 1933.After the Nazis came to power in 1933, Heydrich, as head of the SecurityService (SD), recruited Müller, Franz Josef Huber and Josef AlbertMeisinger, who were collectively referred to as the "Bajuwaren-Brigade"(Bavarian Brigade). Müller joined the SS in 1934. By 1936, with Heydrichhead of the Gestapo, Müller was its operations chief.On 4 January 1937, an evaluation by the Nazi Party's Deputy Gauleiter ofMunich-Upper Bavaria stated:Criminal Police Chief Inspector Heinrich Müller is not a Party member. Hehas also never actively worked within the Party or in one of its ancillaryorganisations ...Before the seizure of power Müller was employed in the political departmentof the Police Headquarters. He did his duty both under the direction of thenotorious Police President Koch [Julius Koch, the Munich Police President1929–33], and under Nortz and Mantel. His sphere of activity was tosupervise and deal with the left-wing movement ... He fought against it veryhard, sometimes in fact ignoring legal provisions and regulations ... But itis equally clear that, ... Müller would have acted against the Right in justthe same way. With his enormous ambition and his marked 'pushiness' he wouldwin the approval of his superiors ... In terms of his political opinions ...his standpoint varied between the German National People's Party and theBavarian People's Party. But he was by no means a National Socialist.As far as his qualities of character are concerned, these are regarded in aneven poorer light than his political ones. He is ruthless, ... andcontinually tries to demonstrate his efficiency, but claims all the gloryfor himself.In his choice of officials for the Bavarian Political Police he was veryconcerned to propose either officials who were more junior than himself oronly those who were inferior in ability ... In this way he could keep rivalsat bay. In his choice of officials he did not take account of politicalconsiderations, he only had his own egoistical aims in mind ...The Gau leadership of Munich-Upper Bavaria cannot, therefore, recommendaccelerated promotion for Müller because he has rendered no services to theNational Uprising.This assessment did not deter Heydrich from moving Müller along the ranks, particularly since Heydrich believed it was an advantage not to be bound tothe influence of the Nazi Party. Functionaries like Müller were the sort ofmen Heydrich preferred since they were inherently committed to their "areaof responsibility" and correspondingly justified any steps they deemednecessary against perceived enemies of the Nazi "racial community." Müllerwas promoted to the rank of Standartenführer (colonel) in 1937. Engrossinghimself often in red-tape and statistics, Müller was a natural administratorwho took solace in a "world of notes, memos, and regulations" and thenreceived and transformed Gestapo reports of denouncements, torture, andsecret executions into "administrative fodder." Despite the expense of somuch mental energy in carrying out his duties, Müller disliked the scholarlytypes and once told Walter Schellenberg that "intellectuals should be sentdown a coal mine and blown up."British author and translator Edward Crankshaw described Müller as "thearch-type non-political functionary" who was "in love with personal powerand dedicated to the service of authority, the State." General WalterDornberger, the chief over the rocket research at Peenemünde, (under allegedGestapo suspicion) was one of the few to ever interview with Müller andcharacterized him as, "the unobtrusive type of police official who leaves nopersonal impression on the memory" but added, "... all I could remember wasa pair of piercing grey-blue eyes, fixed on me with an unwavering scrutiny.My first impression was one of cold curiosity and extreme reserve." Americanjournalist and war correspondent, William L. Shirer, called Müller a "adapper-looking fellow" but shortly thereafter described him as "a cold, dispassionate killer".Himmler biographer Peter Padfield wrote: "he [Müller] was an archetypalmiddle rank official: of limited imagination, non-political, non-ideological, his only fanaticism lay in an inner drive to perfection inhis profession and in his duty to the state—which in his mind were one ... Asmallish man with piercing eyes and thin lips, he was an able organiser, utterly ruthless, a man who lived for his work." Such was his dedication tothe job that Auschwitz Commandant Rudolf Höss claimed one could reach Müller"any time of the day or night, even Sundays and public holidays."He was made Inspector of the Security Police for all of Austria followingthe 1938 Anschluss, while his close friend Franz Josef Huber took charge ofthe Gestapo office in Vienna. One of Müller's first major acts occurredduring the unprecedented Kristallnacht pogrom of 9–10 November 1938, when heordered the arrest of between 20,000–30,000 Jews. Heydrich also taskedMüller during the summer of 1939 to create a centrally organized agency todeal with the eventual emigration of the Jews. Müller became a member of theNazi Party in 1939 for the purely opportunist reason of improving hischances of promotion and only after Himmler insisted he do it. HistorianRobert Gellately does not give much credence to this apolitical image ofMüller and cites the musings of Walter Schellenberg, who claimed during aconversation with Müller sometime in 1943, Müller lauded the Stalinistsystem as superior to Nazism, which he believed compromised on too much.Schellenberg even alleged when Müller compared Stalin against Hitler, his(Müller's) opinion was Stalin did things better. As Gellately relates, sucha politically-oriented asseveration certainly indicates Müller did indeedhave preferences. He was notorious, for instance, for admiring the Sovietpolice.While the chief of the subsequent Reich Central Office for Jewish Emigrationwas indeed Heydrich, it was Müller who took care of the office'sadministrative details. Shortly thereafter, Müller took charge of thisoffice but then handed control over to Adolf Eichmann. Once the war began, this ended the possibility of Jewish emigration and caused the office'sdissolution.On September 1939, when the Gestapo and other police organizations wereconsolidated under Heydrich into the Reich Main Security Office (RSHA), Müller was made chief of the RSHA "Amt IV" (Office or Dept. 4): Gestapo. Todistinguish him from another SS general named Heinrich Müller, he becameknown as "Gestapo Müller".As Gestapo chief of operations and later (September 1939 forward) head ofthe organization, Müller played a leading role in the detection andsuppression of all forms of resistance to the Nazi regime. Trusted by bothHeydrich and Himmler, Müller was pivotal in making the Gestapo the "centralexecutive organ of National Socialist terror" according to historiansCarsten Dams and Michael Stolle. Under his leadership, the Gestapo succeededin infiltrating and to a large extent, destroying groups opposed to theNazis, such as the underground networks of the left-wing Social DemocraticParty and Communist Party. Along these lines, historian George C. Browderasserts that Müller's "expertise and his ardent hate for Communismguaranteed his future".When Hitler and his army chiefs asked for a pretext for the invasion ofPoland in 1939, Himmler, Heydrich, and Müller masterminded and carried out afalse flag project code-named Operation Himmler. During one of theoperations, the clandestine mission to a German radio station on the Polishborder, Müller helped collect a dozen or so condemned men from camps, whowere then dressed in Polish uniforms. In exchange for their participation, the men were told by Müller that "they would be pardoned and released."Instead, the men were given a lethal injection and gunshot wounds to makethem appear to have been killed in action during a fake attack. Theseincidents (particularly the staged attack on the Gleiwitz radio station)were then used in Nazi propaganda to justify the invasion of Poland, theopening event of World War II.Thereafter, Müller continued to rise quickly through the ranks of the SS: inOctober 1939 he became an SS-Oberführer, in November 1941 – Gruppenführerand Lieutenant General of the police. During the Second World War, Müllerwas heavily involved in espionage and counter-espionage, particularly sincethe Nazi regime increasingly distrusted the military intelligenceservice—the Abwehr—which under Admiral Wilhelm Canaris was a hotbed ofactivity for the German Resistance. In 1942 he successfully infiltrated the"Red Orchestra" network of Soviet spies and used it to feed falseinformation to the Soviet intelligence services.Heydrich was Müller's direct superior until his assassination in 1942. Forthe remainder of the war, Ernst Kaltenbrunner took over as Müller'ssuperior. Müller occupied a position in the Nazi hierarchy close to Himmler, the overall head of the Nazi police apparatus and the chief architect of theplan to exterminate the Jews of Europe, and Eichmann, the man entrusted witharranging the deportations of Jews to the Eastern ghettoes and death camps.Eichmann headed the Gestapo's "Office of Resettlement", and then its "Officeof Jewish Affairs" (the RSHA Amt IV sub-section known as Referat IV B4). Hewas Müller's subordinate. Müller was also involved in the regime's policytowards the Jews, although Himmler and Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbelsdrove this area of policy. On 6 October 1939 for instance, Müller instructedEichmann to prepare for the deportation of some 70,000 to 80,000 Jews fromthe annexed Polish city of Kattowitz; an order which included thedeportation of the Jews from Ostrava—both "expulsion campaigns" had alreadybeen planned as early as September by the Gestapo or the army. Twelve dayslater on 18 October 1939, he told Eichmann it would soon "be necessary toorganize the resettlement and removal of Poles and Jews into the area of thefuture Polish rump state centrally" via the RSHA.Although his chief responsibility was always police work within Germany, hewas fully in charge and thus responsible to execute the extermination of theJews of Europe. When Eichmann reported to Müller sometime in the middle of1941 that he had been informed by Himmler the Führer had ordered thephysical destruction of the Jews for instance, Müller silently nodded at hisdesk, indicating to Eichmann that he already knew. Correspondingly, Müllerreceived detailed reports from Eichmann about the Einsatzgruppen death-squadunits, which according to historian Raul Hilberg killed more than twomillion people, including 1.3 million Jews between 1941 and 1945. At the endof June 1941, Müller dispatched Eichmann to Minsk, so he could collectdetailed information on the execution activities. In August 1941, Müllerordered these killing reports be forwarded to Hitler. Attempting to keep thebrutality of the wholesale slaughter occurring in the East as quiet aspossible, Müller sent a telegram to the Einsatzgruppen towards the end ofAugust 1941, which explicitly instructed them "to prevent the crowding ofspectators during the mass executions." On 23 October 1941, Müller briefed acircular to SiPo stations which exclusively prohibited any future Jewishemigration out of German controlled territory, a directive which presagedtheir imminent extermination.In January 1942, he attended the Wannsee Conference at which Heydrichbriefed senior officials from a number of government departments of theextermination plan, and at which Eichmann took the minutes. Once theconference concluded, Müller, Heydrich, and Eichmann remained afterwards foradditional "informal chats". Just a couple months later in March 1942, Jewswere already being systematically killed in gas vans at Chelmno and Belzecwhile construction was underway at Birkenau and Sobibor. Again, Müller sentEichmann to relate his findings about the killing operations taking place atChelmno; when Eichmann returned this time, he reported to Müller that thescene was "horrible" and added it was "an indescribable inferno." When thefirst denunciations of the mass murder being carried-out by the Germans hitthe Allied press during the autumn and winter of 1942, Himmler instructedMüller to ensure "all the bodies were either buried or burned."Enforcement and administration of Nazi "racial-hygiene" policies were alsowithin the purview of Müller's responsibilities, as a special letter he sentfrom Berlin to all Gestapo offices on 10 March 1942 reveals; the lettercontained instructions concerning the relationship between German women andPolish civilians or prisoners-of-war who were conscripted as labor duringthe war, particularly in cases related to pregnancy. If both parties proved"racially acceptable" and the Polish man wanted to marry the woman, thepregnancy and relationship was allowed without punitive consequences, provided the RSHA approved after photographic evaluation of both parties andsubsequent "Germanization" of the Pole occurred. For cases where one or moreparties was deemed racially unfit, the Polish male would receive "specialhandling", an obvious Nazi euphemism for a death-sentence.In May 1942, Heydrich was assassinated in Prague by Czech soldiers sent fromLondon. Müller was sent to Prague to head the investigation into Operation"Anthropoid". He succeeded through a combination of bribery and torture inlocating the assassins, who killed themselves to avoid capture. Despite thissuccess, his influence within the regime declined somewhat with the loss ofhis original patron, Heydrich. Nonetheless, between the time Heydrich diedin 1942 and Kaltenbrunner took office in January 1943, "Müller played acentral role in the organization of the Holocaust." Evidence of Müller'sintimate involvement in the Holocaust are abundant in some of the survivingdocuments and in the later testimony of Eichmann, who divulged that heremained in constant contact with Müller. Eichmann recalled how Müllerreserved power unto himself and while he (Eichmann), arranged plenty ofdeportations, it was only Müller who could write the total number of Jews(in his orange-colored pencil) who were transported at the top of thecorresponding reports.As the Red Army counteroffensive against the Germans arrayed at the Battleof Stalingrad in mid-November 1942 started to take its toll, the exigenciesof war demanded an increase in arms production; Müller played his part byresponding to and facilitating Himmler's request for an additional35,000–40,000 forced laborers. The Gestapo Chief rounded them up from acrossdetention centers and prisons which were not yet part of the concentrationcamp system and sent them to Majdanek and Auschwitz.Sometime in 1943, Müllerwas sent to Rome to pressure Fascist Italy to cooperate in relinquishingtheir Jews for deportation. Despite having the apparent support of BenitoMussolini, Müller's efforts were not very successful as influential Jewishfigures within Italy were in contact with the police and the military; theysuccessfully appealed to their (Italians and Jews) shared religiousconvictions and convinced them to resist Nazi pressure. In 1943 Müller haddifferences with Himmler over what to do with the growing evidence of aresistance network within the German state apparatus, particularly theAbwehr and the Foreign Office. He presented Himmler with firm evidenceduring February 1943, that Wilhelm Canaris was involved with the resistance;however, Himmler told him to drop the case. Offended by this, Müller becamean ally of Martin Bormann, the head of the Nazi Party Chancellery, who wasHimmler's main rival.According to the SiPo and SD official in Denmark, Rudolf Mildner, GestapoChief Müller instructed him "to arrest the Nobel Prize–winning atomicphysicist Niels Bohr" sometime during the fall of 1943; this was likely theconsequence of Bohr being half-Jewish, but his scientific significance alsointerested officials in Berlin. Fortunately for Bohr, he was tipped off by asympathetic German woman working for the Gestapo and was able to escapeacross the Kattegat Strait into Sweden with the evacuation of Jews fromDenmark. Later, Mildner conveniently asserted during Allied questioning thathe had disobeyed Müller's order and allowed Bohr to get to safety.Early in 1944, Müller issued the Nazi injunction known as the "cartridgedirective"; this command ordered that Soviet prisoners-of-war who hadassisted in the identification of detained political commissars for thepurpose of their liquidation be executed on the grounds they wereGeheimnisträger (bearers of secrets). Instructions like these amid thenumerous other crimes committed at his command made Müller "one of the mostfeared officials in Europe" during the Nazi reign.After the assassination attempt against Adolf Hitler on 20 July 1944, Müllerwas placed in charge of the arrest and interrogation of all those suspectedof involvement in the resistance. Over 5,000 people were arrested and about200 executed, including Canaris. Not long after the anti-Nazi resisters weresadistically killed, Müller allegedly exclaimed, "We won't make the samemistake as in 1918. We won't leave our internal German enemies alive." Inthe last months of the war, Müller remained at his post, apparently stillconfident of a German victory — he told one of his officers in December 1944the Ardennes offensive would result in the recapture of Paris.In April 1945, he was among the last group of Nazi loyalists assembled inthe Führerbunker in central Berlin as the Red Army fought its way into thecity in the Battle of Berlin. One of his last tasks was the sharpinterrogation of Hermann Fegelein in the cellar of the Church of the Trinityas to what he knew of Himmler's attempted peace negotiations with theWestern allies behind Hitler's back. Fegelein was Himmler's SS liaisonofficer and was shot after Hitler had Himmler expelled from all his postsfor the betrayal. Hitler's secretary, Traudl Junge, recounted seeing Mülleron 22 April 1945 and claimed she saw him on occasion chatting with Hitler inthe bunker; she also added that he (Müller) had assumed Kaltenbrunner'sformer duties as head of the RSHA. Both Junge and Oberscharführer RochusMisch, the telephone operator for the Führerbunker, recalled seeing Mülleron 30 April 1945. Misch placed him in the Reich Chancellery still in fulluniform. That afternoon, Hitler committed suicide. On 2 May 1945, thecommander of the Berlin Defence Area, General Helmuth Weidling, surrenderedto the Red Army.Müller was last seen in the bunker on the evening of 1 May 1945, the dayafter Hitler's suicide. Hans Baur, Hitler's pilot, later quoted Müller assaying; "we know the Russian methods exactly. I haven't the faintestintention of being taken prisoner by the Russians". From that day onwards, no trace of him has ever been found. He is the most senior member of theNazi regime whose fate remains a mystery. However, the best evidence pointsto him either having been killed or committing suicide during the chaos ofthe fall of Berlin, and his body, if recovered, was not identified.The Central Intelligence Agency's (CIA) file on Müller was released underthe Freedom of Information Act in 2001, and documents several unsuccessfulattempts by U.S. agencies to find Müller. The U.S. National Archivescommentary on the file concludes: "Though inconclusive on Müller's ultimatefate, the file is very clear on one point. The Central Intelligence Agencyand its predecessors did not know Müller's whereabouts at any point afterthe war. In other words, the CIA was never in contact with Müller." The CIAfile shows an extensive search was made for Müller in the months after theGerman surrender. The search was led by the counterespionage branch of theU.S. Office of Strategic Services (forerunner of the CIA). The search wascomplicated by the fact that "Heinrich Müller" is a very common German name.A further problem arose because "some of these Müllers, including GestapoMüller, did not appear to have middle names. An additional source ofconfusion was that there were two different SS generals named HeinrichMüller".In 1947, American and British agents searched the home of his wartimemistress Anna Schmid, but found nothing suggesting that he was still alive.With the onset of the Cold War and the shift of priorities to meeting thechallenge of the Soviet Union, interest in pursuing missing Nazis declined.By this time, the conclusion seems to have been reached that Müller was mostlikely dead. The Royal Air Force Special Investigation Branch also had aninterest in Müller with regard to the Stalag Luft III murders, for which hewas presumed to have responsibility given his position in the Gestapo.[84]Walter Schellenberg alleged in his memoir that Müller had defected to theSoviets in 1945. Schellenberg also wrote that a German officer—who had beena prisoner of war in Russia—claimed to have seen Müller in Moscow in 1948,and that he had died shortly afterward. There is no reference in the memoiras to who the German officer was or any other details that might help verifythis claim.The seizure in 1960 and subsequent trial in Israel of Adolf Eichmann sparkednew interest in Müller's whereabouts. Although Eichmann revealed no specificinformation, he told his Israeli interrogators that he believed that Müllerwas still alive. The West German office in charge of the prosecution of warcriminals charged the police to investigate. The possibility that Müller wasworking for the Soviet Union was considered, but no definite information wasgained. Müller's family and his former secretary were placed undersurveillance by the Allies in case he was corresponding with them.The West Germans investigated several reports of Müller's body being foundand buried in the days after the fall of Berlin. The reports werecontradictory, not wholly reliable and it was not possible to confirm any ofthem. One such report came from Walter Lüders, a former member of theVolkssturm, who said he had been part of a burial unit which had found thebody of an SS general in the garden of the Reich Chancellery, with theidentity papers of Heinrich Müller. The body had been buried in a mass graveat the old Jewish Cemetery on Grosse Hamburger Strasse in the Soviet Sector.Since this location was in East Berlin in 1961, this gravesite could not atthe time be investigated by West Germany, nor has there been any attempt toexcavate this gravesite since the reunification of Germany.In 1961, Lieutenant-Colonel Michael Goleniewski, the Deputy Chief of PolishMilitary Counter Intelligence, defected to the United States. Goleniewskihad worked as an interrogator of captured German officials from 1948 to1952. He never met Müller, but said he had heard from his Soviet supervisorsthat sometime between 1950 and 1952, the Soviets had "picked up Müller andtaken him to Moscow". The CIA tried to track down the men Goleniewski namedas having worked with Müller in Moscow, but were unable to confirm hisstory. Israel also continued to pursue Müller: in 1967, two Israelioperatives were caught by West German police attempting to break into theMunich apartment of Müller's wife.In 1967, in Panama City, a man named Francis Willard Keith was accused ofbeing Müller. West German diplomats pressed Panama to extradite him fortrial. West German prosecutors said Sophie Müller, 64, had seen photos ofKeith and identified him as her long-missing husband. However, Keith wasreleased once fingerprints proved he was not Müller.The CIA investigation concluded: "There is little room for doubt that theSoviet and Czechoslovak [intelligence] services circulated rumors to theeffect that Müller had escaped to the West ... to offset the charges thatthe Soviets had sheltered the criminal ... There are strong indications butno proof that Müller collaborated with [the Soviets]. There are also strongindications but no proof that Müller died [in Berlin]." The CIA apparentlyremained convinced at that time that if Müller had survived the war, he wasbeing harboured within the Soviet Union. But when the Soviet Union collapsedin 1991 and the Soviet archives were opened, no evidence to support thisbelief emerged. The U.S. National Archives commentary concludes: "Moreinformation about Müller's fate might still emerge from still secret filesof the former Soviet Union. The CIA file, by itself, does not permitdefinitive conclusions. Taking into account the currently available records, the authors of this report conclude that Müller most likely died in Berlinin early May 1945." By the 1990s, it was in any case increasingly unlikelyMüller, who was born in 1900, would be alive even if he had survived thewar.In 2008, historian Peter Longerich published a biography of HeinrichHimmler—translated into English in 2012—that contained an alleged first-handaccount of Müller's last known whereabouts. According to reports fromHimmler's adjutant Werner Grothmann, Müller was with Himmler at Flensburg on11 May and accompanied Himmler and other SS officers as they attempted toescape the Allies on foot. Himmler and Müller parted company at Meinstedt, after which Müller was not seen again.In 2013 Johannes Tuchel, the head of the Memorial to the German Resistance, claimed Müller's body was found in August 1945 by a work crew cleaning upcorpses and was one of 3,000 buried in a mass grave on the site of a formerJewish cemetery in Berlin-Mitte. While Tuchel was confident he had solvedthe mystery, whether Müller is actually there has not been confirmed.Nonetheless, the uncertainty of Müller's ultimate end and/or whereabouts hasonly served to nourish the "mysterious power" that the Gestapo elicits evento the present.In July 1988 author Ian Sayer received, from an anonymous individual, a427-page (photocopied) US Army Counter Intelligence Corps (CIC) file claimedit had been inadvertently released by the US National Archives. The dossierpurported to confirm Heinrich Müller had survived the war and been retainedby the CIC as an intelligence adviser.Sayer and co-author Douglas Botting were known to be working on acomprehensive history of the US Army's Counter Intelligence Corps (CIC) atthat time. The alleged dossier had also come to the attention of the USDepartment of Justice's Nazi hunting unit, the Office of SpecialInvestigations, who subsequently sought Sayer's opinion on the veracity ofthe documents. By this time the anonymous individual (later identified asGregory Douglas) had managed to interest Time magazine and the London Timesnewspaper in his story.[97] However, the dossier claims and associatedmaterials were found to be "fictitious"This is an incredible two page A4 size document on official Gestapo HeadedStationary , although it does have to file holes on the left hand side andhas been folded along the middle but it is still in great condition