Eugen Müller

Eugen Müller

Müller in May 1939.
Born 19 July 1891
Plantières near Metz, Lothringen, German Empire (present–day part of Metz, France)
Died 24 April 1951 (aged 59)
Berlin, West Germany
Allegiance  German Empire (to 1918)
 Weimar Republic (to 1933)
 Nazi Germany
Service/branch Heer
Years of service 1910–45
Rank General der Artillerie
Commands held Chefadjutant im Heerespersonalamt
Battles/wars World War I
World War II
Awards Eisernes Kreuz

Eugen Müller (19 July 1891 – 24 April 1951) was a German general during World War II. He has achieved some notoriety for having drafted the infamous Commissar order promulgated by Adolf Hitler in 1941.

Biography

Eugen Müller was born in Plantières near Metz, Lothringen, on 19 July 1891. He joined the German Army straight from school, at nineteen years of age. He began his military career in the Bavarian Army, joining the First Bavarian Artillery Regiment, in 1912. From 1914 to 1918, during the First World War, Müller served as an officer in the Imperial German Army. By the war's end, he had reached the rank of Major. He stayed in the army, now part of the Reichswehr, after the war and was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel in October 1933, and Colonel in 1935. On 1 April 1939, Müller was promoted to the rank of Generalmajor and took command of the War Academy.

At the eve of World War II, on 1 September 1939, Eugen Müller was assigned to the Headquarters Chief of Staff of the Army, under the command of Generaloberst Franz Halder. Müller was in charge of legal and criminal action relating to the occupied areas in Europe. On 1 August 1940, he was promoted to Lieutenant General. Prior to the attack against the Soviet Union in 1941, Muller had played a leading role in training military staff officers responsible for enforcing military law in occupied territories. On 1 June 1942, Müller was promoted to the rank of General of the Artillery. He remained at the General Staff until the end of the war.

Commissar order

The first draft of the Commissar Order was issued by General Eugen Müller on May 6, 1941 and called for the shooting of all commissars in order to avoid letting any captured commissar reach a POW camp in Germany.[1] It was believed by the German leadership that the November Revolution of 1918 had been caused in part by captured Soviet commissars reaching POW camps in Germany in late 1917-early 1918, a "mistake" that the Reich's leaders were determined to avoid in 1941 by shooting all captured commissars. The German historian Hans-Adolf Jacobsen wrote:

"There was never any doubt in the minds of German Army commanders that the order deliberately flouted international law; that is borne out by the unusually small number of written copies of the Kommissarbefehl which were distributed".[1]

The paragraph in which General Müller called for Army commanders to prevent "excesses" was removed on the request of the OKW.[2] Brauchitsch amended the order on May 24, 1941 by attaching Müller's paragraph and calling on the Army to maintain discipline in the enforcement of the order.[2] The final draft of the order was issued by OKW on June 6, 1941 and was restricted only to the most senior commanders, who were instructed to inform their subordinates verbally.[2]

The enforcement of the Commissar Order led to thousands of executions.[3] The German historian Jürgen Förster wrote in 1989 that it was simply not true, as most German Army commanders claimed in their memoirs and some German historians like Ernst Nolte were still claiming, that the Commissar Order was not enforced.[3] However, some German generals refused to carry it out. Manstein, for instance, ultimately decided that the order was "against the honor of a soldier" and told the commander of his army group that he would not obey it. On September 23, 1941, after several Wehrmacht commanders had asked for the order to be softened as a way of encouraging the Red Army to surrender, Hitler declined "any modification of the existing orders regarding the treatment of political commissars".[4]

Promotions

Sources

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Jacobesn, Hans-Adolf "The Kommisssarbefehl and Mass Executions of Soviet Russian Prisoners of War" pages 505-536 from Anatomy of the SS State, Walter and Company: New York, 1968 pages 516-517
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Jacobesn, Hans-Adolf "The Kommisssarbefehl and Mass Executions of Soviet Russian Prisoners of War" pages 505-536 from Anatomy of the SS State, Walter and Company: New York, 1968 page 519.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 Förster, Jürgen "The Wehrmacht and the War of Extermination Against the Soviet Union" pages 494-520 from The Nazi Holocaust page 502
  4. ↑ Jacobesn, Hans-Adolf "The Kommisssarbefehl and Mass Executions of Soviet Russian Prisoners of War" pages 505-536 from Anatomy of the SS State, Walter and Company: New York, 1968 page 522.

External links