Robert Mulka
Encyclopedia
Robert Karl Ludwig Mulka (April 12, 1895, Hamburg
– April 26, 1969, Hamburg) was an SS
-Obersturmführer
. At Auschwitz concentration camp
, he was adjutant
to the camp commandant, SS-Obersturmbannführer
Rudolf Höss.
and Realschule
, he obtained his secondary school diploma in 1911 and subsequently became a business apprentice at an export agency. In August 1914, he signed up to serve in the First World War
; he served in France
, Russia
and Turkey
, eventually being promoted to second lieutenant
of the reserve Imperial Army
. From 1918 to 1920 he joined the Freikorps and fought against Bolshevism in the Baltics
. In 1920, he returned to his hometown, where shortly after taking up work at an agency firm, he was found guilty of receiving stolen property and sentenced to eight months in prison.
Mulka remained with this firm (with whom he had completed his training) until 1931. He became independent, but his own import/export companies were by no means swamped with trade. From 1928 to 1934, Mulka joined the Stahlhelm
, which inspired him to be part of the newly strengthened Reichswehr
. He was also a member of the National Federation of German Officers and the Deutscher Fichte-Bund. There, he did training in the reserves and was eventually promoted to first lieutenant
in 1935, but was released when the army learned of his criminal record, which in turn thwarted all the efforts he made after the start of the Second World War
to become an army officer again.
and successfully joined the Waffen-SS
as an SS-Obersturmführer. He worked briefly as company leader of a sapper
unit, but was declared only employable at garrisons in the homeland due to illness. As a result, he was deployed to Auschwitz at the beginning of 1942. After he had led a watch company for a few weeks, the camp commandant's adjutant
became ill, and thus Mulka became Rudolf Höss' right hand man as chief of staff of the commandant's office.
Mulka's tenure as Höss' adjutant began on July 1, 1942, and came to an end on March 30, 1943, when Hildegard Bischoff, the wife of the chief of the central construction agency, SS-Sturmbannführer
Karl Bischoff
(architect of the crematoria and gas chambers), claimed that he made a derogatory mark about Joseph Goebbels
. He was briefly arrested, but the proceedings against him were dropped; however, he lost his position as SS-Hauptsturmführer
and was demoted to SS-Obersturmführer.
Mulka subsequently returned to Hamburg in mid-1943 during the bombing of the city. Later he worked under the Nordsee High SS and Police
command. Early in 1944 he was deployed to an SS sapper school near Prague
, but after about a year illness forced his return to Hamburg, where he remained as the war came to an end.
proceedings, but was exonerated from his original one and a half year prison sentence.
In 1960, an attorney from the Frankfurt Public Prosecutor's office was reading the newspaper, which reported the success of a certain Rolf Mulka, a silver-medal-winning yachtsman, at the Rome Olympics
. The prosecutor, who had been investigating Auschwitz since 1959, recognized the relatively uncommon name and investigated Rolf's father. His suspicion was correct, and Robert Mulka was arrested in November 1960. He was remanded in custody from then until March 1961, from May until December 1961, from February until October 1964, and then from December 1964.
Mulka was found guilty of aiding and abetting the murder of 750 people on at least four separate occasions, and was sentenced to 14 years in prison. In the conviction, the court noted that:
He unsuccessfully attempted to commit suicide while in Kassel
prison, and was released in 1968 on compassionate grounds because he was severely ill, dying the following year in Hamburg.
Hamburg
-History:The first historic name for the city was, according to Claudius Ptolemy's reports, Treva.But the city takes its modern name, Hamburg, from the first permanent building on the site, a castle whose construction was ordered by the Emperor Charlemagne in AD 808...
– April 26, 1969, Hamburg) was an SS
Schutzstaffel
The Schutzstaffel |Sig runes]]) was a major paramilitary organization under Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party. Built upon the Nazi ideology, the SS under Heinrich Himmler's command was responsible for many of the crimes against humanity during World War II...
-Obersturmführer
Obersturmführer
Obersturmführer was a paramilitary rank of the Nazi party that was used by the SS and also as a rank of the SA. Translated as “Senior Assault Leader”, the rank of Obersturmführer was first created in 1932 as the result of an expansion of the Sturmabteilung and the need for an additional rank in...
. At Auschwitz concentration camp
Auschwitz concentration camp
Concentration camp Auschwitz was a network of Nazi concentration and extermination camps built and operated by the Third Reich in Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany during World War II...
, he was adjutant
Adjutant
Adjutant is a military rank or appointment. In some armies, including most English-speaking ones, it is an officer who assists a more senior officer, while in other armies, especially Francophone ones, it is an NCO , normally corresponding roughly to a Staff Sergeant or Warrant Officer.An Adjutant...
to the camp commandant, SS-Obersturmbannführer
Obersturmbannführer
Obersturmbannführer was a paramilitary Nazi Party rank used by both the SA and the SS. It was created in May 1933 to fill the need for an additional field grade officer rank above Sturmbannführer as the SA expanded. It became an SS rank at the same time...
Rudolf Höss.
Life
Mulka was the son of a postal assistant. After attending the VolksschuleVolksschule
A Volksschule was an 18th century system of state-supported primary schools established in the Habsburg Austrian Empire and Prussia . Attendance was supposedly compulsory, but a 1781 census reveals that only one fourth of school-age children attended. At the time, this was one of the few examples...
and Realschule
Realschule
The Realschule is a type of secondary school in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and Liechtenstein. It has also existed in Croatia , Denmark , Sweden , Hungary and in the Russian Empire .-History:The Realschule was an outgrowth of the rationalism and empiricism of the seventeenth and...
, he obtained his secondary school diploma in 1911 and subsequently became a business apprentice at an export agency. In August 1914, he signed up to serve in the First World War
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
; he served in France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
, Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
and Turkey
Turkey
Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...
, eventually being promoted to second lieutenant
Second Lieutenant
Second lieutenant is a junior commissioned officer military rank in many armed forces.- United Kingdom and Commonwealth :The rank second lieutenant was introduced throughout the British Army in 1871 to replace the rank of ensign , although it had long been used in the Royal Artillery, Royal...
of the reserve Imperial Army
German Army (German Empire)
The German Army was the name given the combined land forces of the German Empire, also known as the National Army , Imperial Army or Imperial German Army. The term "Deutsches Heer" is also used for the modern German Army, the land component of the German Bundeswehr...
. From 1918 to 1920 he joined the Freikorps and fought against Bolshevism in the Baltics
Baltic states
The term Baltic states refers to the Baltic territories which gained independence from the Russian Empire in the wake of World War I: primarily the contiguous trio of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania ; Finland also fell within the scope of the term after initially gaining independence in the 1920s.The...
. In 1920, he returned to his hometown, where shortly after taking up work at an agency firm, he was found guilty of receiving stolen property and sentenced to eight months in prison.
Mulka remained with this firm (with whom he had completed his training) until 1931. He became independent, but his own import/export companies were by no means swamped with trade. From 1928 to 1934, Mulka joined the Stahlhelm
Stahlhelm, Bund der Frontsoldaten
The Stahlhelm, Bund der Frontsoldaten also known in short form as Der Stahlhelm was one of the many paramilitary organizations that arose after the defeat of World War I in the Weimar Republic...
, which inspired him to be part of the newly strengthened Reichswehr
Reichswehr
The Reichswehr formed the military organisation of Germany from 1919 until 1935, when it was renamed the Wehrmacht ....
. He was also a member of the National Federation of German Officers and the Deutscher Fichte-Bund. There, he did training in the reserves and was eventually promoted to first lieutenant
First Lieutenant
First lieutenant is a military rank and, in some forces, an appointment.The rank of lieutenant has different meanings in different military formations , but the majority of cases it is common for it to be sub-divided into a senior and junior rank...
in 1935, but was released when the army learned of his criminal record, which in turn thwarted all the efforts he made after the start of the Second World War
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
to become an army officer again.
SS career
Following his application in September 1939, Mulka joined the Nazi Party in 1940 as member number 7848085. Unwilling to begin as a common soldier and work his way up through the ranks, he applied to be a commissioned officerOfficer (armed forces)
An officer is a member of an armed force or uniformed service who holds a position of authority. Commissioned officers derive authority directly from a sovereign power and, as such, hold a commission charging them with the duties and responsibilities of a specific office or position...
and successfully joined the Waffen-SS
Waffen-SS
The Waffen-SS was a multi-ethnic and multi-national military force of the Third Reich. It constituted the armed wing of the Schutzstaffel or SS, an organ of the Nazi Party. The Waffen-SS saw action throughout World War II and grew from three regiments to over 38 divisions, and served alongside...
as an SS-Obersturmführer. He worked briefly as company leader of a sapper
Sapper
A sapper, pioneer or combat engineer is a combatant soldier who performs a wide variety of combat engineering duties, typically including, but not limited to, bridge-building, laying or clearing minefields, demolitions, field defences, general construction and building, as well as road and airfield...
unit, but was declared only employable at garrisons in the homeland due to illness. As a result, he was deployed to Auschwitz at the beginning of 1942. After he had led a watch company for a few weeks, the camp commandant's adjutant
Adjutant
Adjutant is a military rank or appointment. In some armies, including most English-speaking ones, it is an officer who assists a more senior officer, while in other armies, especially Francophone ones, it is an NCO , normally corresponding roughly to a Staff Sergeant or Warrant Officer.An Adjutant...
became ill, and thus Mulka became Rudolf Höss' right hand man as chief of staff of the commandant's office.
Mulka's tenure as Höss' adjutant began on July 1, 1942, and came to an end on March 30, 1943, when Hildegard Bischoff, the wife of the chief of the central construction agency, SS-Sturmbannführer
Sturmbannführer
Sturmbannführer was a paramilitary rank of the Nazi Party equivalent to major, used both in the Sturmabteilung and the Schutzstaffel...
Karl Bischoff
Karl Bischoff
Karl Bischoff was a German architect, engineer and SS-Sturmbannführer. Born near Kaiserslautern, Germany. At the age of twenty he joined the German Air Force. In 1935 he obtained a job at the Luftwaffe Construction Bureau. During the early years of the Second World War he was involved in the...
(architect of the crematoria and gas chambers), claimed that he made a derogatory mark about Joseph Goebbels
Joseph Goebbels
Paul Joseph Goebbels was a German politician and Reich Minister of Propaganda in Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945. As one of Adolf Hitler's closest associates and most devout followers, he was known for his zealous oratory and anti-Semitism...
. He was briefly arrested, but the proceedings against him were dropped; however, he lost his position as SS-Hauptsturmführer
Hauptsturmführer
Hauptsturmführer was a Nazi rank of the SS which was used between the years of 1934 and 1945. The rank of Hauptsturmführer was a mid-grade company level officer and was the equivalent of a Captain in the German Army and also the equivalent of captain in foreign armies...
and was demoted to SS-Obersturmführer.
Mulka subsequently returned to Hamburg in mid-1943 during the bombing of the city. Later he worked under the Nordsee High SS and Police
SS and Police Leader
SS and Police Leader was a title for senior Nazi officials that commanded large units of the SS, of Gestapo and of the regular German police during and prior to World War II.Three levels of subordination were established for bearers of this title:...
command. Early in 1944 he was deployed to an SS sapper school near Prague
Prague
Prague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. Situated in the north-west of the country on the Vltava river, the city is home to about 1.3 million people, while its metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of over 2.3 million...
, but after about a year illness forced his return to Hamburg, where he remained as the war came to an end.
Post-war
In 1945, Mulka set up his own company: Import/Export Agency Robert Mulka. In the spring of 1948, he was arrested and kept in custody because of his SS membership. He was prosecuted and convicted under denazificationDenazification
Denazification was an Allied initiative to rid German and Austrian society, culture, press, economy, judiciary, and politics of any remnants of the National Socialist ideology. It was carried out specifically by removing those involved from positions of influence and by disbanding or rendering...
proceedings, but was exonerated from his original one and a half year prison sentence.
In 1960, an attorney from the Frankfurt Public Prosecutor's office was reading the newspaper, which reported the success of a certain Rolf Mulka, a silver-medal-winning yachtsman, at the Rome Olympics
1960 Summer Olympics
The 1960 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the XVII Olympiad, was an international multi-sport event held from August 25 to September 11, 1960 in Rome, Italy...
. The prosecutor, who had been investigating Auschwitz since 1959, recognized the relatively uncommon name and investigated Rolf's father. His suspicion was correct, and Robert Mulka was arrested in November 1960. He was remanded in custody from then until March 1961, from May until December 1961, from February until October 1964, and then from December 1964.
Trial
At the time of his trial, Mulka was 68 years old and married with a daughter and two sons. The court noted that he had played a major role in the transformation of Auschwitz from a concentration camp into an extermination complex from mid-1942, in that the planning and construction of the four Birkenau crematoria and gas chamber complexes, and the selection of arriving transports of Jews on the Alte Rampe (Old ramp) for extermination, respectively occurred and began during his tenure. In the trial, Mulka said the Auschwitz atmosphere disgusted him, stating that "the things that transpired there shocked me from the beginning". When asked to elaborate, he pointed to the striped prisoner uniforms, commenting that his SS colleagues had "no style".Mulka was found guilty of aiding and abetting the murder of 750 people on at least four separate occasions, and was sentenced to 14 years in prison. In the conviction, the court noted that:
He unsuccessfully attempted to commit suicide while in Kassel
Kassel
Kassel is a town located on the Fulda River in northern Hesse, Germany. It is the administrative seat of the Kassel Regierungsbezirk and the Kreis of the same name and has approximately 195,000 inhabitants.- History :...
prison, and was released in 1968 on compassionate grounds because he was severely ill, dying the following year in Hamburg.