Josef Müller (CSU politician)
| Josef Müller | |
|---|---|
| Chairman of the Christian Social Union of Bavaria | |
|
In office 1946–1949 |
|
| Succeeded by | Hans Ehard |
| Personal details | |
| Born |
20 March 1898 Steinwiesen, Upper Franconia |
| Died | 8 February 1979 (aged 80) Munich |
| Nationality | German |
| Political party |
Bavarian People’s Party (Before 1933) Christian Social Union (1945–1952) |
Josef Müller (27 March 1898 – 12 September 1979), also known as "Ochsensepp", was a German politician. He was a member of the resistance during World War II and afterwards one of the founders of the Christian Social Union (CSU). He was a devout Catholic and a leading figure in the Catholic resistance to Hitler.
Born in Steinwiesen, Upper Franconia, he entered the legal profession after service as a mortar-man on the western front from 1916 to 1919. He was discharged as a senior sergeant.
He was a Catholic and during the Weimar Republic he became politically active as a member of the Bavarian People’s Party.
During the Nazi period he worked as an attorney defending many Nazi opponents. He also was part of the Catholic resistance and was in contact to resistance figures in the Abwehr (German military intelligence) such as Admiral Canaris, Hans von Dohnanyi and Hans Oster.
Early in the war (1939–1940), Müller made a number of trips to the Vatican under the identity "X". He carried correspondence between the German resistance and British intelligence that sought co-operation in a coup to replace Hitler's regime with an anti-Nazi civilian government supported by the German military. The correspondence and related intelligence passed through an intermediary to the hands of Pope Pius XII, who would review it and in turn forward it to Lord Halifax in Britain. Dohnanyi summarized the material into a report, containing list of individuals slated to assume roles in a post-coup civilian government. Despite Müller's urgings, Dohnanyi failed to destroy this document and during the purges following the failed assassination attempt on Hitler in July 1944, it fell into the hands of the Gestapo, which led to the arrests, trials and executions of many resistance members.
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