Siegfried 'Kongo' Müller, the Wehrmacht man who became a mercenary in the Congo...

Siegfried 'Kongo' Müller, the Wehrmacht man who became a mercenary in the Congo...

36 years ago today in 1983, the former soldier of the Third Reich and officer of Mad Mike Hoare’s mercenary commando in the Congo, Siegfried “Kongo” Müller, died of stomach cancer in Boksburg, Johannesburg. 

Though not as successful a mercenary as the likes of Hoare or Denard, Müller became a popular figure of some renown back home in both the Federal Republic of Germany and the GDR, the latter using him as the object of propaganda to depict West Germany as a neo-colonial state. (Müller pictured with traditional weaponry and wearing his Iron Cross). 

Müller was born in 1920 in Crossen an der Oder, a city on the eastern frontier of Brandenburg and the Weimar Republic.

 Though little is known of his childhood days growing up in the Weimar Republic except that at the age of eleven in 1931 he joined the youth branch of the Stahlhelm League, a militarist, monarchist and nationalist organization run by right-wing veterans of the Great War. 

With the rise of the Nazis two years later however the Stahlhelm League was swiftly marginalised and Müller switched over to the Hitler Youth, serving as a special league leader until the completion of his education.

 Müller thus belonged to the generation who not only grew up under Hitler but were indoctrinated to uphold the Reich and defend it to the last. 

In 1938 he joined the Reich Labour Service and when war broke out the following year he readily joined the Wehrmacht, fighting from the start of the war to the end of the war.

 He fought with the artillery first and then with the infantry as a tank destroyer in Poland, France, the Soviet Union and later the Reich itself at the war’s ending.

 He acquitted himself well on the Eastern Front fighting against Stalin’s seemingly endless hordes, becoming an NCO in 1943 and being awarded the Iron Cross 2nd class. Near the war’s ending he was awarded the Iron Cross 1st class which he was to wear with pride forever after.

 As the Reich was falling he was injured in combat and subsequently was fortunate enough to be taken prisoner by the Americans instead of the Soviets.

 Though he claimed that he had been promoted to the rank of first-lieutenant in 1945, in truth he ended the war with the rank of Oberfähnrich. 

For a time thereafter he served as an officer in a Labour Service Group for the American occupiers and as an industrial policeman.

 In 1956 he tried to join the Bundeswehr of the new Federal Republic but was rejected, leaving him to find employment with British Petroleum in North Africa where he spent his time defusing land mines left by Rommel’s Afrika Korps.

 Müller however still yearned to serve as a military man and in 1961 he offered to fight as a mercenary for Tshombe in Katanga and join the array of other white mercenaries there.

 His offer came too late however for the Wehrmacht man and he missed his chance.

 His fate however was now tied to Africa as the following year he chose to emigrate to Apartheid South Africa with his wife and daughter, finding work as a hotel manager. 

His original offer had not been forgotten howver and within two years he was called to arms in the Congo, joining the Irish mercenary Mad Mike Hoare and his rag-tag force of veterans warriors, sadists, adventurers, madmen, drug addicts and homosexuals that were set to reconquer the Congo from the Simba Rebels.

 At the age of 44 Müller was one of the older men there and his polite and gentlemanly manner made a great impression upon the more inexperienced members of the commando. 

Hoare, a veteran of the British army, commented that Müller was “as Prussian as a Pickelhaube”, and made him one of his leading officers, giving him permission to wear his Iron Cross which he wore at all times thereafter with a rumour even circulating that he wore it whilst in his pyjamas at night time.

 Within days of arriving Hoare led the Commando on a mission to capture Albertville and free the European hostages there by crossing Lake Tanganyika with three assault boats. 

Two of the boats’ engines failed and they were forced to paddle much of the way before they came under attack from the Simba, the rebels according to Müller firing carbines and spears and arrows at them. 

In the confusion which ensued Müller seized the initiative to try and take the airport but was pushed back into a fighting retreat to Kamina in which two other German mercenaries, Walther Nestler and Bernd Köhlert were killed. 

Thereafter Hoare had the force regroup and promoted Müller to the rank of Captain and gave him authority over Commando 52. 

Thereat Müller set out on Operation Tshuapa, their task to reconquer a chunk of land that Müller commented was “almost as big as the Federal Republic.”

 In the course of ten weeks he and his small band of mercenaries and ANC soldiers were to conquer this area. 

The Simba rebels they faced believed that through Shamanic rituals they had been made immune to bullets and so threw they themselves with suicidal bravery at the mercenaries who came roaring through the jungle on their jeeps with mounted machine guns and recoilless 75 mm cannons blasting at everything that moved.

 For the likes of Müller it must have been somewhat reminiscent of the fast paced mobility and madness of the Eastern Front.

 Müller noted how there was no mercy at all for the rebels, once captured they were subject to torture and when they were done talking they were killed since as a rebel they “stand outside the law.”

 The mercenaries came to be known amongst the people as "White Giants" for the terror they inflicted. 

The Wehrmacht man’s own jeep had its hood decorated with a human skull and bones and was photographed by German journalists, winning the World Press Photo Award. 

It was through this association with journalists that he gained his fame as Kongo Müller back home, his jovial laughing smile adorning the covers of German magazines. 

Whatever his fame was however he initially failed to achieve his objective of taking Boende from the rebels and lost half his men.

When Mad Mike came to see what the matter was he had the journalists disbanded and had Kongo Müller demoted, realising that despite his years of service with the Americans the Wehrmacht veteran’s English was still rather poor, making communication especially difficult during operations when there were soldiers of a variety of nationalities under his command.

 Müller however still played a pivotal role and planned the successful capture of Boende thereafter, thereby redeeming himself and paving the way for Mad Mike to promote him to the rank of Major in 1965.

That year he led an attack from Stanleyville on Paulis in which dozens of his men and half of his vehicles were killed.

With the end of the Simba Revolt that year Hoare and his mercenaries were disbanded from the Congo and Müller spent the rest of his days in South Africa. 

Back in Germany his fame lived on. In 1966 two GDR authors released a documentary called “The Laughing Man -Confessions of a Murderer” in which they interviewed Müller about his time in the Congo.

In the interview he wears his iron cross, smokes his cigarette, smiles, and answers questions in a gentlemanly fashion whilst slightly tipsy, speaking of how the fighting in Africa was a fight for “the West” against Communism and spoke of intentions to form a “Vietnam Legion” to carry on the cause.

The film was used by the GDR regime as propaganda to depict West Germany as a supporter of colonialism and Neo-Nazis and was unsurprisingly banned by the Bonn government.

Whatever Kongo Müller’s sentiments were however he was not to fight as a mercenary anymore and spent the rest of his days in relative peace writing his memoirs and advising a security company.