“The Laughing Man”
Meet the Nazi recruited by NATO who was paid to kill in the Congo
In 1966, two East German documentary filmmakers, posing as a TV crew from West Germany, paid a visit to a notorious Nazi-turned-mercenary named Siegfried Müller. Walter Heynowski and Gerhard Scheumann loosened the man’s tongue with imported French liquor and turned on the camera as “Congo Müller” talked about fighting against indigenous “rebels” in Congo’s civil war.
The more booze he quaffs down, the more loquacious Müller is, and the more chilling the interview becomes. Though he presents himself as a charming, good-natured guy who fights for democracy, freedom and brotherhood, Müller’s glib answers and the way he laughs at events others might find unspeakable, contradict the false image he projects. Finally, the filmmakers’ graphic photos of Müller’s victims, and intercepted recordings of him in the field, reveal a sadistic monster who enjoyed torture, killed without remorse, and kept “trophies” of his victims, including their skulls and bones.
Müller, of course, denies the Nazi ideology he once fought for and claims that’s all in the past. But the more he talks, the more obvious it is that he still believes in a “superior race” and views Africans as little more than animals who must be taught to fear, and serve, the White Man.
The film is called The Laughing Man, Confessions of a Murderer (German: Der lachende Mann — Bekenntnisse eines Mörders) and you can watch it on YouTube. It’s in German, but English subtitles are available if you click on the closed captioning. Or you can just keep reading. But I must warn you now, what follows are graphic images of atrocities, definitely not for the faint of heart.
Many of those commenting on YouTube are taken in by “Congo” Müller’s charm, how articulate he sounds, how polished he seems. I’m not a psychologist, so I can’t diagnose him as a psychopath. But as a reporter, I’ve covered enough murder to know what a serial killer looks like. Müller is no different than Ted Bundy. He just found a way to kill “legally” and get paid for it. That’s the conclusion I came to. But as always, I hope you will draw your own conclusions.
The interview begins pleasantly, with introductions. He says he prefers to be addressed as Major Müller, a rank he was given in the Congo in 1965. He first served with American forces in 1950, when he joined a US service group in West Germany. There, he earned the rank of first lieutenant.
“I am particularly interested in revolutionary war, modern war,” Müller smiles, “and I found a chance for this in the ranks of American forces.”
Though he was paid to fight in the Congo, he objects to being called a mercenary. “I wouldn’t say that,” he admonishes. “What is a mercenary? I find the term very bad.”
“I defended the West,” he protests, “Western freedom, or our Western ideology, in the Congo.” He is clearly proud of the attention the press has given him worldwide. “That’s right, from Peking to Washington,” he laughs, and takes a drag from a cigarette.
It’s unclear from the video which of the filmmakers actually spoke with the “Laughing Man.” The interviewer asks if all that worldwide interest has given Müller a special name.
“Yes, in Germany they call me Ko-Mü, Congo Müller,” he says, smiling toothily. He brags that he is well-known in Belgium, France, and America, and says that if anyone wants to reach him in the Congo, “just write ‘Major Müller, Congo.’ And it’ll arrive.”
Siegfried Müller was born in 1920, in Brandenburg, to a military family in Prussia. His father had fought for the Kaiser in World War I and would fight for Hitler in World War II. Müller spent his youth in a boarding school in Friedland, then served in the Reich Labour Service before joining the Wehrmacht in 1939. His father, a lieutenant colonel, was killed in 1942 and buried in Russia. Father and son served in the Wehrmacht together until that time. “Yes,” Müller smiles, “I went into action in 1939 on the Silesian-Polish frontier. There I had my baptism of fire, as they say.”
He describes his first combat experience as “harmless. A few shots from a cannon, that was all,” but adds that the fighting became much more intense later on, particularly at the Russian front.
Just prior to Operation Barbarossa, code name for the German invasion of the Soviet Union, launched on June 22, 1941, Müller says he wore a disguise and patrolled Poland’s border with the USSR. “I dressed as a Polish peasant and walked up and down the road on the river bank and observed the other side, just like my commander. We got acquainted with the area.”
The interviewer suggests that perhaps Müller was one of the first pioneers of undercover war.
“Perhaps this encouraged me for what I’ve done in the Congo,” the Major muses. “This revolutionary, this modern war, which includes everything, which is not confined to uniformed forces, but extends to the whole nation, or to the free world, or the communist world, as the case may be.” He smiles.
“Mm-hm. Major, let’s compare the events of June ’41 and the events in the Congo in ’64 and ’65. Do you think you remained true to your ideals in this period?” The interviewer asks.
“Hmm…” Müller crushes out a cig.
“Is there a connection between these two episodes?”
“I’d like to say the only connection I see is anti-bolshevism, that’s all,” Müller responds to the prodding. “More than 20 years ago, I fought for the National Socialist Greater German Reich, and today I’m a warrior for the free West. There’s a certain difference there.”
“Mm-hmm. What was your rank at the end of the Second World War?” the interviewer asks.
“On Hitler’s birthday, I became a first lieutenant. April 20th, 1945.”
“April the 20th, 1945.”
“Ja.”
“And did you have any rank in pre-military units like the Jungvolk or Hitler Youth?”
“Ja, I was a fähnleinführer [troop leader] in the Jungvolk. That was a harmless organization,” he smiles, perhaps wistfully, recalling younger days. “In 1945 the war was finished for me. I was on the Eastern Front until the end and had the luck to get away on a boat from East Prussia as one of the last wounded. I arrived just in time as the Americans reached the Frankfurt area. I was very lucky.”
Lucky, he probably means, not to have been captured by the Soviets.
After World War II, Müller was an American prisoner of war for a time. He’d had difficulty getting out of East Prussia, being wounded. “Actually I was unconscious for weeks,” he recalls. “I had a bullet in my backbone, I was partially lamed. But I was lucky that I just managed to get to the West, and later I got better so that I was fit for the Congo, right?”
For two years, Müller served with Americans in the “Industrial Police,” a service organization in West Germany which he describes as “more or less civilian.” He was promoted to chief watchman. “That was at the time of the air bridge,” he recalls. And when the Korea action started, the Americans rather reduced their forces here and established German units which were a sort of support for the American forces. These units were militarily organized and were included in the NATO planning. We were subject to the headquarters in Paris. I served in these units mainly as a training officer.”
It was in these units that he was given the rank of first lieutenant. “I was on a five-month officers’ course,” he recalls, grinning. “It was funny, I passed with a ‘superior’ mark, something I don’t generally do.” He laughs congenially.
“Do you remember any names from this period?”
“Yes, my commander then, my first chief, was a Captain Götz, I think he’s a colonel with the Bundeswehr now, was a long time in Sicily, and commanded a NATO air force base there.”
Müller is asked if he has any other memories from that time. He responds that this was a “fruitful” time for him because of the opportunity he had to meet NATO personnel, “and because in the staff of the [United States’] Twelfth Airforce, I had access to extraordinary material which taught me much about modern warfare, about defense against agents…”
During the West German rearmament in the 1950's, as Germany’s new military, the Bundeswehr, was being built up, Müller worked on his military theories and drafted a memorandum on anti-tank weapons. “I worked in the Society for Military Science,” he recalls. “We carried out tasks in connection with the planning of the forces.”
He had heard about that organization, which was in Munich, and gotten in touch with an old acquaintance in Frankfurt, a General Hildebrandt, who helped to connect him with other officers, and they founded a group called the Society for Military Science in Frankfurt.
“Major Müller,” the interviewer asks, “did you receive any honors for your theoretical work? Did you receive any praise, recognition, a letter of thanks?”
“Well, I got letters from here and there, from the Defense Ministry,” Müller expels a thick cloud of smoke and crushes out his cigarette.
He is then asked about the contacts who led him to the Congo. The first one was Moïse Tshombe, a Congolese businessman and politician who served as the president of the secessionist State of Katanga from 1960 to 1963 and as prime minister of the Democratic Republic of the Congo from 1964 to 1965.
“I approached Tshombe from Langen near Frankfurt,” Müller recalls, adding that it was Tshombe who suggested that he go to South Africa, where there had been uprisings of the indigenous population and clashes with white neo-colonialists. “But when I arrived,” he whistles piercingly, “l’a fini! It was over. Tshombe had lost and gone to Madrid in exile.”
With no wars to fight in, Müller tried to settle into civilian life in Johannesburg, working as assistant manager in a hotel and restaurant where they served German food and drink. “In particular I was responsible for the bar,” he recalls with a wide grin. “That’s something for me, I like good drink.” He laughs.
The interviewer asks what Müller’s father would have said if he had seen his son in such a servile position.
He laughs again. “I come from an old officers’ family,” he replies, “but I think that the modern soldier, or the modern man, nowadays has to change from these old ideas. I have no reservations. Think of Prince Louis Ferdinand of Prussia, he worked at Ford and didn’t mind. Those times are over.”
“Now you had to adapt yourself to new circumstances,” the interviewer observes. “Herr Müller, perhaps you could give us some local color from the country of your choice.”
“In South Africa, the sun always shines, blue heavens,” Müller recalls. “I would tell everybody, South Africa is a wonderful country for immigrants.”
And by immigrants, it’s soon clear that he means white immigrants. German immigrants like himself.
“What was the relationship between the white population and the black natives?” the interviewer wants to know.
“These groups are very strictly divided,” Müller says approvingly. “You could practically say like in the Third Reich in Germany, the Jews and Germans, almost. The blacks have all the inferior positions. In white society there aren’t any blacks. That’s to say in the administration, in factory management, there are never blacks in leading positions. For instance a Bantu, that’s a Negro, cannot have a position in a state-run concern, even if he has a doctor’s degree. He is not capable or not in the position, not entitled, he’s not given the chance.”
“We whites have an incredible standard of living in South Africa,” Müller continues. “A house that would cost 200,000 marks here in Germany, you get there for 30,000 or 40,000 marks.”
“South Africa was really the first step on your military path,” the interviewer observes.
Müller lights up another cigarette. “One day somebody appeared in the restaurant where I was working and said, ‘Are you Herr Müller?’ ‘Yes, that’s me.’ ‘I got a letter from you but I couldn’t reply because, well you know, the whole question is very delicate and so I’m here in person. The UN will at the end of June, end of July in 1964, stop working in the Congo.’”
He recalls how this “somebody” told him that Tshombe would soon return to Katanga, and asked him if he was ready to lend a hand. “Naturally, I was ready,” he grins broadly.
“Major, one thing seems very interesting,” the interviewer comments. “You’ve just told us, very impressively, about the strict separation of white and black in South Africa.” Müller takes a drink. “How did it come about that Tshombe, who has himself a black skin…”
“Black as a raven!” Müller laughs.
“Black as a raven, yes. That he should stretch out his hand to South Africa to recruit allies?”
“Ja, the reason is that during his Katanga period, he had volunteers from South Africa serving him,” Müller explains. “In addition his father had business connections with South Africa and he was not at all so negative towards South Africa. And I think from that, I can conclude that he was not in a state of hostility with South Africa.”
“So the color of the skin played a secondary role in this case.”
Müller puts up his hands. “With Tshombe certainly.”
“Business interests were the primary role.”
“Now we shall leave out some stages,” the interviewer says, “and go forward to the point where you are in the Congo, and chief of Commando 52.”
Müller explains that Commando 52 came together in Kamina, after he had just finished his first operation, when a group of around 500 young men arrived from South Africa. Most of them were German nationalists who reported to an adjutant named von Blottnitz. There was also an international group of paratroopers. The commandos had not yet been organized.
“The whole thing was too hasty,” Müller recalls. “And I must say” — he ashes his cigarette — “one day, I think it was the second or third day, when I returned from Operation Albertville, the young people came to me and said, ‘Müller, we’ll go with you on the next operation.’”
Rebel insurgents, known as the Simba, armed with bows and arrows and spears, had taken control of an important harbor town called Albertville. They had support from the Soviet Union, but little in the way of modern weapons as Soviet cargo planes could not get close enough to them. Western mercenaries, like Müller, had been brought in to augment the well-trained Katangese formations and take Albertville back from the rebels.
The poorly-armed Simba resistance fell, and Operation Albertville made Congo Müller famous practically overnight. As his fame spread, he volunteered for more operations.
“Ja, it had given me a good name,” he beams. “Everybody flocked to me to go on a new operation.”
Then, in September of 1964, an order came from General Mobutu, the head of the forces and also, for a time, head of the Congolese government.
“He said he urgently needed an effective group for the Equatorial Province,” Müller recalls. “And I went. I went out and asked which men I could have. ‘Whoever you like.’ So I chose the paratroopers because I particularly like paratroopers. And Mike Hoare told me to take the Germans too. Naturally I took the Germans.”
“I would like to know more about the Commando,” the interviewer says. “You suggested that about half were Germans.”
Müller takes another drink, side-eying the interviewer, and gulps it down noisily.
“Can you remember individual names?”
“Yes, but I wouldn’t like to name them for particular reasons.”
“You’ve given one name, von Blottnitz.”
“That’s interesting,” Müller says, “he emigrated to South Africa after the war. His father was a general, no, colonel of the German Wehrmacht. And he had some ambitions for the German Wehrmacht. And he came to Germany and started to train as a pilot.”
“As a conscript?” the interviewer asks.
“Conscript, yes.”
“In any case his training in the Bundeswehr was taken into account in South Africa,” the interviewer observes.
“Certainly, certainly,” Müller says.
“From these Germans in Commando 52, I should like to refer back to another German,” the interviewer continues. “Turning back a little, did you meet Major General von Mellenthin in South Africa?”
“Yes, he is a relative of,” Müller retrieves his cigarette from an ashtray, “this German adjutant.” Müller points out that General von Mellenthin, another former Wehrmacht officer, had a good name in South Africa.
“Why?” the interviewer asks.
“He fought against the Eighth Army. Against the British Eighth Army in…”
“North Africa,” the interviewer volunteers.
“North Africa,” Müller agrees. “And in South Africa in the bars and restaurants this war is still…”
“Celebrated?”
Müller smiles. “Celebrated, you could say that.”
“Mm-hmm. What was von Mellenthin doing in South Africa?”
“Congo” tilts his head. “Von Mellenthin was first the general director of Trek-Airways. He married the owner of this firm. Later he got divorced and worked as director of the German Lufthansa for South Africa.”
“Do you know the military regional planning of General von Mellenthin?” the interviewer wants to know.
“Yes, I wouldn’t like to talk about it. Those are things which at present are not ripe for publication,” Müller grins.
Major General von Mellenthin was a key figure in West German neo-colonialism in Africa. He once wrote, “The new native states present a factor of uncertainty. In a crisis, the South African states and territories would be the only trust-worthy allies of the West.”
It was von Mellenthin who suggested that the Portuguese colonies of Mozambique and Angola, together with Rhodesia (now part of Zimbabwe and Zambia) should form the SATO bloc, an African extension of NATO. There, von Mellenthin proposed, troop units known as “Operation Action Commandos” would stand by, ready to go into action against “rebellious” native states.
According to Müller, a British mercenary known as Major Mike Hoare, or “Mad” Mike Hoare, was responsible for the operation of the Commandos, “the ‘white mercenaries’ as people say here, or the ‘volunteers’ as they are usually called in Belgium and France.” He smiles fondly. “I can also say ‘hirelings.’”
Müller, who by now was a captain, brags that nobody gave him orders. “I was my own field marshal, that’s right. Naturally you can smile about it and say today, ‘Oh, that Müller is exaggerating.’”
He contacted General Mobutu at his headquarters in Leopoldville (now Kinshasa), and asked for permission to advance on the town of Buende, which was granted in September of 1964.
“This was necessary to show the blacks that white men were there, since the whites still have a fantastic name in Africa,” Müller explains.
According to a New York Times article from 1964, many of the mercenaries mutinied against “Mad” Mike Hoare because of the “incompetent” leadership of Captain Müller. Twenty-four men walked off, leaving Müller with only a few noncommissioned officers and one Belgian lieutenant.
But Müller doesn’t talk about that. He insists that Commando 52 was successful in Buende. That his men showed the native people who was stronger.
“Then I decided to go on to the next plantation, to the next mission station,” he says. “This was about 50 kilometers away, Flandria [now Boteka] was the name. And there I found out that rebels were all around, so-called Jeunesse. A revolutionary youth movement which had roughly the idea of liberating their fatherland, but socialist, very socialist.”
“Major, the energy with which you tell us your theory,” the interviewer begins, and Müller smiles and ducks his head as if the praise makes him uncomfortable, “leads me to believe that you will use every method to publish these ideas.”
What “methods” the interviewer may have had in mind go unsaid, as Müller is quick to announce that he has written a book and is working with contacts at Columbia Film Corporation in Hollywood to make a movie. But Congo-Mü is impatient with the filmmaking process. “Everything goes too slowly, I want life in it,” he pumps his fists. “And in this area everything goes too slowly.”
“Will it be a feature film?”
Müller makes a chopping motion with his hand. “I want to show what I did, just that. I don’t care whether I appear as a war hero or what. But I want to show,” he shakes his fist, “this is the Congo, that is the Congo 1964–65, that’s what I want to show!” He beams broadly.
The interviewer doesn’t seem as enthusiastic about this film project. “I have the impression it will be a tough film.”
Müller again makes chopping motions with his hand to emphasize each word, “I’m sure it will be a tough film!” He slaps his thigh as if to punctuate that.
The interviewer abruptly deteurs away from Müller’s film fantasies. “A certain Lieutenant Mazy served with you. He’s well-known as a specialist for preparing skulls.”
“Oh, ja, ja, ja,” Müller nods with a big smile. “I know the story. I should tell you that Lieutenant Mazy is an excellent officer.”
A picture of Mazy is shown holding a skull in his hands and smiling. A cigarette is jammed between the skull’s remaining teeth. “These pictures which have become known, that’s ironic,” Müller continues. “I can recall that hundreds of Congolese rebels were shot down in front of our position.”
“It wasn’t very peaceful,” the interviewer interjects.
“I don’t think anyone doubts that,” Müller says dismissively. “Anyway, at that time, this happened. And… Mazy had skulls which were eaten clean by insects, worms and so on, and he washed them, not boiled.”
Here, it seems as if the former Wehrmacht officer is trying to justify his old comrade’s “hobby.” He continues to offer more rationalizations. “It’s a nice story, good for the press, and he was photographed doing it. These photos were made, not because he was interested in skulls, he already had one, but because the press men wanted some as souvenirs. He didn’t boil them, he just put them in water with soap and cleaned them, that’s all. When they came back, they came with skulls on spears, laughing and making jokes. ‘Captain Müller, here’s one for you, you can keep it.’”
Müller continues, almost wistfully. “And then he gave me a skull and I put it on a flower stand. It stood there. He said, ‘No, no, no, old boy, that’s not for the flower stand,’ and then he packed it up nicely in my bright red blanket and put it in my box.” His smile fades, “I didn’t take it with me, that’s clear…”
“Why?”
“I think the German customs would have been surprised if I arrived with a skull,” he smiles and takes a long draw on his cigarette.
“Major,” the interviewer continues, “we are sitting here and it’s a cold European winter, and it’s difficult to imagine that somebody who lay in front of your lines would cease to exist in a few hours, or days. How was that?”
Müller is quick to explain. “In three or four days a human was no longer a human, only a few bones in a uniform or some rags. Every night, we heard jackals, but I’d say it was less their work than the worms. I have various photos which clearly show the traces of the animals,” he smiles as if pleased with this memory, “which marched up and down and ate up a body.” Then he quickly adds, “I’m afraid so, after all, we are human beings and it’s a misfortune that something like that should happen, even to a rebel. I judge people, whether they are for me or against me, just the same, they are people. They just have another ideology.”
The interviewer is unswayed by Müller’s characterization of himself. “Back to the word ‘misfortune,’” he says, “under you served Lieutenant Louw, from South Africa.
“Right,” the Major takes a few more gulps from his glass.
“And Lieutenant Louw had contact with film people from Italy,” the interviewer continues. “Jacopetti appeared and made a documentary film.”
“Yes, that was also a misfortune,” Müller remarks.
“Also a misfortune?”
“Yes.”
The narrator provides some background. Gualtiero Jacopetti, it turns out, was detained twice in the Congo for underage sex charges. He also had a “unique” way of filming in combat. He synchronized his Arriflex camera with the machine pistol salvos and filmed the rebels’ deaths as if it was a studio performance. Three young African men ran afoul of a mercenary unit, their singing cut short as they were mowed down by automatic weapons. Jacopetti’s camera captured, from less than a foot away, the death agony of a rebel fighter who was shot in the face and body.
Müller holds an unlit cigarette between his thumb and forefinger as he recalls that day: “We heard that in a plantation or near it, the name [of the place] was Bantaka, rebels were active. I told Lieutenant Louw, ‘Find out what’s happening, and take the necessary steps.’ Louw pushed off with his men. And… when he returned he said, ‘We killed one or two and burned a couple of houses.’”
“What happened to Jacopetti?” the interviewer asks.
“Jacopetti arrived just as…”
“Louw set out?”
“Louw set out,” Müller swallows his liquor noisily. “I received information from the Defense Ministry — from General Mobutu — that he was authorized to take pictures, and that he was authorized to operate when we took Buende. I know that Jacopetti works, that he’s a good director.”
Once again, Müller tries to rationalize behavior which others might find, to say the least, sadistic. “Perhaps he said, ‘Listen, here’s a man being shot, put him a bit more to the left, so the sun shines better,’ but I can’t say what happened then.” He fingers a box of matches with his other hand. “Neither Louw nor anybody else told me, I only know that pictures were made at that time of people being shot.” He puts the unlit cigarette into his mouth and presses his lips together, still not lighting it.
“There have been long reports in the press,” the interviewer observes.
“Unfortunately,” Müller mumbles around his cigarette, then lights it while the interviewer asks his next question.
“Major, in the course of our talk, we’ve mentioned several German names. They were mostly young men, not born in 1920 like you, but later.”
Müller interrupts, smiling widely. “I’m a veteran!”
“You’re a veteran, yes.”
The “Laughing Man” laughs.
The interviewer remains focused on the angle he’s pursuing. “You also have, I would say, if I recall your description of June, 1941, something like an anti-bolshevik tradition.”
Müller nods his head enthusiastically.
“But these young men haven’t,” the interviewer continues. “What took them to the Congo?”
Müller’s eyes brighten at the memory (or from the booze) and he smiles. “When we were in Johannesburg, it was said, ‘we shall make a Negro hunt, a hunt for Negroes or something, we’ll have a fine time, no danger, everything okay, it’s only against, against the rebels.’”
“Major, was everything OK?” the interviewer asks. “Let’s think about one of the young Germans in your Commando. That was Fritz Kötteritzsch.”
“Fritz Kötteritzsch fell when I tried to take Buende,” Müller recalls. “He was, he had some military experience…”
“May I just say that Fritz Kötteritzsch had 3 years training in the Bundeswehr?”
Müller touches his head with his hand and makes a deferring gesture. “Merci,” he says in French, “thank you.”
“How did he end?” the interviewer wants to know.
“Shot right through the heart.”
“He cannot have survived more than a second.”
Müller shakes his head. “No, he was finished immediately, there’s no doubt of that.”
“That was the end of Fritz Kötteritzsch. Then there are other names… Köhlert, Nestler… who was nearest to you?”
Müller has just lit a new cigarette. “I would say, frankly, Köhlert was what you would call a real pal.”
“Shot through the head.”
“Immediately,” Müller says in English and repeats it in German. He seems intent on impressing the TV crew with his linguistic skills.
“Major, what did you feel when you had to take a German to his last resting place?”
Müller’s smile widens a little. “Yes, I…” He pauses, as if groping for words. “To be frank, I mourned for every soldier, whether a German or someone else. I accepted everybody as a man, as I knew him earlier, and I must say frankly, that I was just as sad about the former Bundeswehr Sergeant Köhlert as any other soldier.”
The video cuts out abruptly and now Müller is talking about another operation. “So, I didn’t take the priests away from the mission but said, ‘All right, stay here, if you think you are safe.’ On the next day after General Mobutu arrived, I took my leave and said,” he salutes briskly, “‘Mon General, adieu, I march on!’ So I marched on 200 kilometers to Ingende. Ingende was my starting point. Ingende was the starting point for Operation Chuapa, the operation for the liberation of the Equatorial Province. It’s a province nearly as large as the Federal Republic [of Germany]. I finished it off with my 40 men and perhaps another 150 blacks. I managed it in 10 weeks.”
He smiles again, pleased with himself.
“All right, we shall soon speak about these 10 weeks, about this finishing off,” the interviewer promises.
“Right.”
“But before we come to that, I should like to ask a rather indiscreet question. You know reporters like to ask such questions.”
Müller raises up an index finger, grinning. “I know.”
“What is your attitude to alcohol?”
Müller takes a large gulp from his glass.
“How did that develop during your life?” the interviewer presses him with the question.
“To be honest, I didn’t drink at all for years,” Müller says, setting down his glass. “I didn’t smoke for years. I began to drink again in the Congo because there was nothing else there. It was simply that I don’t like drinking stagnant water. That’s normal.”
“I understand,” the interviewer says.
Müller wants to get back to his story. “On our journey we met a column of 30 or 40 young people, maybe 15 or 17 years old. When they saw us on the road with three jeeps,” he gives a shrill whistle, “they ran and left into the bush. They had bows and arrows.”
“Did you go after them?”
“No, I didn’t. Why?”
“If I follow your account, then I could imagine that no blood was shed on such actions,” the interviewer observes incredulously.
“No,” Müller clears his throat and swallows loudly. “To be honest, it isn’t necessary. It is just the same as if a group gathered in Bavaria and said we don’t want to obey Bonn any more. And Bonn said, ‘we can’t have that, we must bring Bavaria back to the Reich — I’m sorry — to the Federal Republic,” he laughs, his eyes bright with drink, “eh… coordinated with the Federal Republic.”
“Federal law is above regional law,” the interviewer interjects. “The constitution says.”
“Right, right,” Müller continues. “I wouldn’t go to Bavaria to wipe out the Bavarians because the idea was to unite Bavaria again with the Federal Republic, as a friend. I would attempt to enter a village and say, ‘Friends, I’m here to represent the Federation, perhaps you have other ideas, but the Federal Republic is the main thing, you are Germans, and we want to bring all Germans together, and so we will cooperate.’”
He downs more Pernod. “I’m against shedding blood,” he insists. “I proved it in the Congo, and I believe that this is right, this is the right direction. I would never kill people because for the moment, they have different political ideas, and perhaps for some reason were against Bonn.”
But the film introduces evidence which contradicts the image Müller is attempting to paint of himself. There is a recording, it turns out, of Müller in the field, talking freely about his operations in the Congo.
The Nazi’s detached voice accompanies B-roll of black men dead or dying, some still writhing in pain, as white men with rifles watch on. Most of the victims appear to be male, but there are women also lying in the mud. They are wearing civilian clothing and do not appear to be armed.
“I think 17 that we killed in this attack,” Müller says in the recording. “We immediately opened fire and within a few minutes there were, I don’t know exactly, 28 dead, I think.”
The recording continues. “Lieutenant Louw took the jeep and his three riflemen and let the enemy approach. Very soon there were about 40 bodies lying there. Then somebody suddenly saw an African in the distance. And he was shot too.”
The recording becomes a little distorted, but it’s still clearly Müller’s voice. “‘Aha, plantation workers!’ I thought. ‘And they’re coming here to work, everything’s okay.’ But as the lorry came around the corner a sentry saw them. He thought the blacks are escaping — partisans, rebels. He shouted! And just like blacks, they got frightened and ran away. And the sentry shot at them. Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!”
“We then told the sentry that it was nonsense to shoot in a case like this,” the recording goes on. There are other male voices in the background, presumably the people Müller is talking to. “But who can know exactly in a country like this, when you can shoot and when you can’t. And really, you can’t be angry with the sentry. In this case, it didn’t quite work out.”
After justifying the slaughter, Müller explains his policy toward prisoners of war. “If we sometimes take wounded prisoners, in my outfit we only shot them.”
Returning to the interview, Müller tries to convince the camera that he only killed people as a last resort. “I always said we don’t understand the conditions in the Congo exactly. Only when we know exactly, that this man or another has broken the law, by murdering somebody or threatening somebody. Then I intervene.”
But the damning tape continues. “We simply finished him off at about 300 meters.” The video shows a black man lying on the sidewalk, writhing in agony. “You never know exactly if it’s an enemy or only a refugee…” Müller is saying as the film shows a man face down in the street, his personal belongings scattered in the mud. A string of beads, a satchel with a knotted rope for a strap. Papers. A key hanging from a leather cord. There are no weapons. “…or just someone who left his pack there, who’s looking for his toothbrush or something. In any case, we simply knocked him off.”
Speaking to the interviewer, Müller contradicts what he said on tape. “Look, I’m against shooting down Negroes,” he smiles, “because I believe that we’re not only responsible for the white men in Europe, but we are also responsible for the blacks in Africa.”
He makes chopping motions with his hand for emphasis. “We are fighting in Africa for Europe!”
But again, the tape refutes Müller’s platitudes. “Yes, torture, that’s normal here. You question somebody. When you question, you must hit or else he doesn’t talk properly. And when he has talked, well, he’s a rebel, a rebel outside the law, then he’s killed.”
Returning to the interview, Müller keeps trying to whitewash history. “When I was in the Congo, I said to the Belgian officers, ‘Listen, our operation in the Congo is a NATO operation.’” He stabs the air with his forefinger to emphasize the word NATO.
Are we then to assume that NATO approved of Müller’s methods…?
Again, the recording plays. “Normally we don’t take prisoners, and if it does happen, then we cut him into bits. First the right leg and then the left leg,” Müller laughs. “I naturally saw it as fun, I assume it was fun, when they sharpened their long knives nearby so as to frighten him.”
And again, Müller gaslights the interviewer. “We fought for the Congo, not because we were fighting for the Congo or for Tshombe, personalities played no part. We fought for Europe in the Congo. For the Western ideal, to put it precisely,” he massages his hand distractedly. “For liberté, fraternité, and so on,” he counts off the words on his fingers. “You know this slogan.”
“Egalité,” the interviewer adds. “It’s widely known since 1789.”
Müller puts up his hands. “Right, and that’s what I fought for, nothing else. Since Africa is for me nothing else than the defense of the West in Africa.”
The video is edited abruptly and now Müller’s drink is refilled. Sweat glistens on his forehead. “And Köhlert was for me a soldier of the West, and Nestler was a soldier of the West.” His drink looks like it’s about to spill out of the glass as he recalls his German comrades.
“But in this profession there is a risk of dying,” the interviewer observes.
“Naturally.”
“And how did you…”
Müller interrupts: “It could have happened to me!” He puts his hand to his chest. “It could have happened to anyone, it was more or less luck…”
“That you survived?”
“Ja.”
“There are photos showing you officiating at burials,” the interviewer says. “What did you say when you had to bury a soldier of your Commando?”
Müller holds up a hand, smiling widely. “I held a sermon given to me by a Belgian missionary when I was in Kamina.”
“What did it say?”
“He gave me a certain text, and I always used it. I’m not a preacher, you understand.” Müller laughs.
As if anyone would have confused him for a man of the cloth.
Müller ashes his cigarette. “But I had…” he struggles again to find words, “a feeling of comradeship for this man who has been unlucky. It could have happened to me, the next day they could have carried my head through Buende.”
“Like your Commando jeep,” the interviewer interjects, “decorated with a skull and crossbones.”
Müller laughs. “If you like, yes.”
“Major Müller, I’m trying to put myself into your position. I know what it’s like in the tropics, in the jungle at night.”
Müller exhales a thick cloud of smoke. “My respects.”
“Thank you,” the interviewer continues. “What happened after a battle, perhaps after you had been surrounded, after many shots had been fired, bodies in front of your lines, the reek in the air, when you returned to quarters? A large part of your group, or a fair part, were Germans. Was there anything like, let’s say, times of heart-searching?”
“I had many hours of memories,” Müller smiles and puts his hand over his heart.
“And you would have enjoyed these hours in the rear?” the interviewer asks. “The intervals when you went to Leopoldville?”
The camera pans to Müller’s boots, which are freshly polished. “Leopoldville is a city like in peacetime,” he replies. “You don’t notice anything warlike, everything is peaceful. The Young Ladies Finishing School runs just like ten years ago. The bars provide the same entertainment. There is no sign.”
They talk for awhile about the Goethe Institute in Leopoldville, one of many such institutes around the world, run by the German Foreign Ministry. It’s a kind of social club where Germans can attend concerts, study foreign languages and make contacts. Congo Müller freely enjoyed the institute’s various activities.
“I’d like to say, certainly it’s an institute of the Federal Republic,” he’s slurring his words a little now. “Things run on two lines, not just in the Congo, but everywhere in the world, the official and the unofficial. You can’t change it, it’s like that. And I don’t want to change it, I can’t change it, it’s a fact.”
During his spare time in Africa, Müller also liked to work on his albums full of “souvenirs.” In one album, there is a page with the ID card of a Congolese bricklayer named Emmanuel Usonga. The paper is smeared with blood, and there is a snapshot of Emmanuel Usonga lying dead in the middle of a dirt road. The margins are full of doodles Müller made of African stick-figures posing with spears and shields.
“Major,” the interviewer continues, “you wear on your left breast the Iron Cross First Class.
“Still,” Müller nods.
“Still. When did you receive it?”
“1945.”
“May I ask if you know when this medal you wear on your left breast was instituted?”
“Ja, in 1813 in Breslau, my Silesian capital,” Müller slurs the words.
“In what connection?”
“The War of Liberation,” he says, then emphasises again what a moral pillar he is. “I’m for liberation of all men, whether Prussians or Congolese.”
“Your Iron Cross bears in the middle a swastika,” the interviewer remarks.
Müller puts up both hands in a “stop” gesture. “Please pay no attention. This Iron Cross is a cross from the Second World War, and it has nothing to do with my political opinion. I am a German, but please don’t see this as a political decoration or something, this is simply an expression of the time when I was serving as a soldier in Germany.”
“I understand,” the interviewer replies. “And there is a picture in your personal photo album which shows you on the airfield in Leopoldville. And beside you stands a lieutenant colonel of the US forces. Wasn’t this American lieutenant colonel upset?”
Müller smiles. “Nobody was upset.”
“Because he was, Major Müller, your war opponent,” the interviewer reminds him.
Müller puts up his hands again. “That’s 20 years ago, that’s history. I don’t want anything to do with that,” he says. “I’m fighting in Africa not for Hitler,” another noisy swallow, “he’s dead a long time, the only thing that interests me is that I work for the West, for our free democracy.”
The interviewer continues. “And you think that this regrouping of forces which has taken place since the Second World War allows an American lieutenant colonel to overlook this.”
“Of course,” Müller replies. “I’m convinced of it. I’ve had a lot to do with many American officers, generals and so on, and I can tell you an American doesn’t take it seriously,” he waves his hand dismissively, “for him it’s just a trick of time, it’s just not interesting. I am a defender of the West, the Christian or Western hemisphere, and that ends everything else, all ideologies or anything.”
“In our conversation we’ve mentioned Albertville, Stanleyville and so on,” the interviewer continues as Müller pours himself another drink. There are already several empty bottles under his chair. “Can you foresee a situation when you might obey a call to use in Germany the experience you’ve gathered in the Congo?”
“For any country attached to the West, not only South Africa, not only the Congo, any country,” Müller affirms. “Look, I think a lot about this problem in South Vietnam.”
“Yeah.”
“And I have the impression that the German press, which calls it a ‘dirty war,’ is on the wrong path,” Müller explains. “We don’t have a dirty war in South Vietnam, we have the same war that we may see in Europe one day. If we don’t, if the Americans don’t, defend South Vietnam today, then why should they defend the Iron Curtain?” The ash on the end of his cigarette grows long as he talks about this. “I regard a clash as unfortunately unavoidable.”
“We’ve heard the same from Chancellor Erhard.”
“Yes, in South Vietnam Western culture is being defended,” Müller says. “But if we aren’t strong, nobody will defend us on the Iron Curtain.”
“Just as the pictures are similar from South Vietnam and from the Congo,” the interviewer remarks.
“When you had home leave in Germany, there was a meeting of comrades in Frankfurt,” the interviewer continues. “Who did you meet there? Were your…”
Müller waves a dismissive hand, “Ah, the chief of staff of the 5th Brigade of the US forces…”
“Did he know you?”
“Yes, I visited him,” Müller smiles. “When I visited his staff there was the problem of Section 2, that is, intelligence on the enemy, and I think on this basis we understood each other.”
“What did he say to you when he saw you?”
“He was very friendly to me,” Müller recalls, “and when we left, he made a point of coming over and saying adieu.” He waves his hand goodbye. “I understand this, because the Americans have exactly the same problem we have. The problem, and it is not so well known in Germany, the problem is that we are standing on one front, in Vietnam, the Congo, and so on.”
“Major, the West German government supports American action in Vietnam. Would you join a Vietnam legion?”
“With great pleasure!” Müller’s eyes light up, partly from the booze, and partly from his irrepressible zeal for war.
“That’s just the thing for me,” he says.
Major Siegfried Müller died of stomach cancer in 1983, in a suburb of Johannesburg, South Africa. There is no indication that he was sent to Vietnam.
With special thanks to Hoàng Phan at Quora, who drew my attention to this unforgettable film.
About the author:
Deborah Armstrong currently writes about geopolitics with an emphasis on Russia. She previously worked in local TV news in the United States where she won two regional Emmy Awards. In the early 1990’s, Deborah lived in the Soviet Union during its final days and worked as a television consultant at Leningrad Television. You can support Deborah’s writing at Paypal or Patreon, or donate via Substack.
