Background and Upbringing
The family belonged to the lower middle class in Munich; the father was a simple police officer, the family very Catholic. The boy, born in 1900, received an education in keeping with his social environment: no grammar school, but public school and workshop training for a very modern profession: aircraft mechanic. Like many German boys at the time, Heinrich volunteered for service at the age of 17. He joined the Royal Bavarian Armed Forces.
World War I
The step from airplane fitter to pilot was probably not so big during the childhood of aviation and during the burning war, and as a teenage aviator he must have been very successful. After the war ended, he was promoted, but without higher education he became no more than a non-commissioned officer. By then he had also been decorated several times.
Post-War Bavaria
The post-World War I period in Bavaria was very turbulent, and for a short time it was even a Socialist Council Republic. Müller probably sympathized with the reactionary Free Corps. He was later said to have been a supporter of the BVP, a Catholic party that advocated the special status of Bavaria in Germany. Himmler also supported this party but abandoned it in 1923.
Police Career in Munich
During the 1920s, Munich, the capital of Bavaria, became a center for all kinds of reactionary and radical right-wing groups. During these years, Müller worked for the Munich police. His career was successful; he made a name for himself as an energetic monitor of communist groups.
Opponent of the Nazis
However, he was not a Nazi: he stood for Bavaria and used tough measures against all kinds of extremists. Müller thus intervened forcefully not only against Bolsheviks but also against Nazi troublemakers and coup-makers. He is also said to have spoken disparagingly of Hitler, like an immigrant unemployed house painter. He was outspoken against the Nazis both during the Beer Hall Putsch of 1923 and the seizure of power in 1933. All this, of course, led to him gaining opponents within the NSDAP.
Path to Gestapo
But paradoxically, the Nazi takeover led to his career taking off in a remarkable way. Because when the Nazis took control of Germany, they began a process of Gleichschaltung, or ’equalization’, including the many local police forces in the Reich.
Heydrich's Protégé
And when Reinhard Heydrich (1904-1942) became the head of the Gestapo in the whole Reich in 1934, he made the energetic Müller his second-in-command. In less than two years, Müller had risen from a mid-level post in the Bavarian police to a top position in the German Reich! His patron Heydrich thus overlooked Müller's political past and had an eye for his great capacity and adaptability.
SS Rank and Party Membership
Müller was also given a high rank in the SS, perhaps because the SS was formally superior to the Gestapo. But the hyper-Nazi ideology of the SS was probably quite alien to the Catholic Bavarian. His rapid career shows that the NSDAP party book was not always so important; Müller did not join the party until 1939. When Heydrich was assassinated outside Prague in 1942, Müller became head of the Gestapo in Germany and more.
Responsibility for War Crimes
During his time in the Gestapo, Müller became one of those ultimately responsible for a series of crimes of unprecedented scale, such as the Kristallnacht in 1938, the Wannsee decisions in 1942 and the implementation of the extermination of the Jews.
