Josef Müller

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Josef Müller should not be confused with the Swiss graphic designer Josef Müller-Brockmann.

Josef Müller, nicknamed Ochsensepp (Oxen-Joe) (27 March, 1898 - 12 September 1979) was a German politician.

Born in Steinwiesen, Oberfranken (Bavaria), he entered the legal profession. During the Weimar Republic he became politically active as a member of the Bavarian People's Party.

During the Third Reich he served as an attorney for many Nazi opponents. He also was part of the Catholic resistance and was in contact to resistance figures in the military, namely Admiral Canaris, Hans von Dohnanyi and Hans Oster.

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In 1944 he was arrested and transferred into the concentration camp Flossenbürg. Unlike his fellow inmates Canaris, Oster and Bonhoeffer, who were executed in April, 1945, he survived until U.S. forces arrived and liberated the camp.

After the war, he advocated forming a new Christian party comprising both Catholics and Protestants. Together with Adam Stegerwald he was one of the co-founders of the Christian Social Union in Bavaria (CSU). Müller belonged to the more liberal Franconian wing of the party and was the main opponent of the conservative Old-Bavarian wing unter Alois Hundhammer.

After the CSU had won the first post-war elections in 1946, Hundhammer opposed Müller's nomination as Minister-president of Bavaria and proposed to elect Hans Ehard as a compromise candidate instead. Once elected, Ehard appointed Hundhammer as Minister for Culture, but in 1947 Müller entered the cabinet as well as Minister for Justice and from 1950 onwards, he also was deputy prime minister. He resigned from the government in 1952.

From 1946 to 1949 Müller also was the party's first chairman. He was one of the patrons of the young Franz Josef Strauß.

He died on September 12, 1979 in Munich.

v • d • e Chairmen of the Christian Social Union of Bavaria
Josef Müller (1946-1949)  | Hans Ehard (1949-1955)  | Hanns Seidel (1955-1961)  | Franz Josef Strauß (1961-1988)  | Theodor Waigel (1988-1999) | Edmund Stoiber (since 1999)