Heinrich Müller

Schutzstaffel (SS) Fascists and Nazis Counter-revolutionary forces 1900–1945? Disappeared

Gestapo chief who crushed resistance to the Nazi regime and helped organise the Holocaust after the Wannsee Conference

He attended the Wannsee Conference of January 1942, which formalised the deportation and genocide of the Jews of occupied Europe, and with Eichmann under his command organised the deportations that followed.

Born to Catholic parents in Munich, he flew as a pilot in the First World War. Joining the Bavarian police in 1919, he took part in suppressing the communist risings and in the Weimar years supported the Bavarian People’s Party. Recruited by Heydrich in 1933, he was the Gestapo’s operations chief by 1936 and joined the Nazi Party in 1939 to advance his career. That year he became head of Amt IV (Gestapo) of the Reich Security Main Office, crushing resistance, and in January 1942 he attended the Wannsee Conference and organised deportations of Jews with Eichmann. Last seen at the Reich Chancellery on 1 May 1945, he was never captured or confirmed dead.

Also known as: Gestapo Müller