Siegfried Müller

Siegfried Müller was a soldier with Nazi Germany's Wermacht during World War II who made a name for himself as a mercenary in Africa during the 1960s. Born in 1920, the teenager joined the Wehrmacht (Defense Forces) in 1939 and fought during the entire war, participating in campaigns in Poland, the Eastern Front and France. A wounded Müller was captured by American forces and served as a conscript laborer in the Army's Civilian Labor Group (CLG) until 1947, eventually joining the outfit's security services, where he became a lieutenant. Blocked from joining the West German Army, he traveled to north Africa in the 1950s, where he worked for the British oil company B.P. clearing German mines in the Sahara Desert from World War II. After emigrating to South Africa in 1962, he became a mercenary in the Congo, fighting with "Mad" Mike Hoare's mercenary outfit as an officer. He became famous in the Congo, as he wore the Iron Cross he had won in 1945 as part of his uniform. Being of Nazi era vintage, his Iron Cross featured a swastika in the center. This brought him international attention, and an East German documentary film crew made a film about him in the Congo, "The Laughing Man" (1966). Known as "Kongo" Müller, he became a symbol of Western neo-colonialsm, and also was featured in the 1965 documentary Kommando 52 (1965). In the documentary "The Laughing Man", Müller claims that he and his fellow mercenaries are in Africa to fight for "the Western ideology of freedom." He claims that the Iron Cross with swastika "has nothing to do with my political position," then compares South Africa's apartheid system as to "the Jews and the Germans in the Third Reich." He later refers to West Germany as "the Reich" before apologizing and correctly identifying it as "the Federal Republic" of Germany. Müller was the inspiration for the character Heinlein in "Dark of the Sun" (1968). Whereas Heinlein in the movie was a humorless sadist who was on the make, the real Müller was known for his jocular personality (thus the moniker "The Laughing Man"). Though he came across as something of a buffoon in the documentary, he was in reality a highly effective (and murderous) mercenary. Siegfried Müller died in South Africa of stomach cancer in 1983.