by Joe Corso
In time, the boy accompanied Himmler in his chauffeur-driven limousine to meetings held at his office in the Wehrmacht. One morning, the Fuhrer himself walked through the door and stopped when his keen eye, which always took in everything, saw the nine-year-old boy sitting among important men who were waiting for an audience with Himmler. Hitler laughed at the ludicrousness of a little boy sitting amongst these grown men. Hitler stopped in front of Adolph. “Are you waiting to see Herr Himmler?” Hitler asked.
“Yes, sir. I am, but I don’t mind waiting because I know that he is a very busy man.” Hitler laughed and tousled little Adolph’s hair.
“What’s your name, boy?”
“Adolph, sir.” Hitler’s smile grew wider.
“Adolph; just like my name. Eh?”
“Yes, sir. My father was a loyal German and he loved you.”
“Hmm. Is that so? Well, I’m going in to see Herr Himmler, Why don’t you come in with me?”
Little Mueller beamed. “I would like that very much, my Fuhrer,” the boy said in his high-pitched little boy’s voice.
When the door opened and Hitler walked into his office, Himmler was surprised to see the Fuhrer holding little Mueller’s hand. When Hitler approached his desk, Himmler leaned over and whispered something to the Fuhrer, and Hitler nodded. Then Hitler motioned to the frightened young man, who thought that he might have done something wrong, to stand.
“So,” he said as he made a complete circle around the boy with his hands clasped behind his back. “Herr Himmler tells me that you are his bodyguard. Do you protect him all of the time?”
“No, sir,” the frightened lad said, relieved that he apparently had done nothing wrong. “Only when I’m with him.”
They both laughed, and Hitler tousled the boy’s hair again and patted him on the back.
“Good boy. You will make a fine German soldier someday.”
The two men spoke briefly for a few minutes longer, and then Hitler turned and walked out the door, and out of the building, with his bodyguards following closely in his wake.
Himmler pointed to the boy, who was now seated. “Come with me.” The boy stood and followed Himmler into his large, austere office. “You made a good impression on the Fuhrer. I’m proud of you.”
Himmler picked up the phone and ordered his secretary to bring the boy a cup of hot chocolate, which because of the war, was a luxury in Germany at that time. After that, the boy routinely accompanied Himmler to his office, and he occasionally went with Himmler on some of his appointed rounds, but he was not permitted to accompany Himmler on his more gruesome rounds.
One morning, while the boy was sitting alone in Himmler’s office playing with a toy airplane that Himmler had given him, Herman Goering, the fat field marshal, walked in the office unannounced.
“Is Heinrich here?” he asked, looking around for him.
The boy shook his head. “No, sir. He had to go somewhere, but he said he’d be back by two this afternoon.” Goering looked at his watch. It was 10:30 a.m.
“Come with me. No sense you waiting here till then. I have a chore to do and you can help me with it.”
The boy’s grin spread across his young face. He was happy, more than happy to go with the air marshal. He was thrilled to be able to help the air ace of the First World War. At least he wouldn’t have to sit here in Himmler’s office, waiting for another three and a half hours for him to return. He’d be bored out of his mind by the time he came back.
“Yes, sir. It would please me to help you.”
Goering patted him on the shoulder. “Good boy.”
They drove to Goering's estate in the country and, when the car pulled up in front of the large white house, Goering asked the boy to come with him, but he ordered his driver to remain by the car in the large empty parking area in front of his palatial estate. The large fat man and the skinny little boy walked through the front door, through the house and out the back door, and then they walked across the yard to a locked steel shed. Goering took a key from his pocket and opened the shed door. He pointed to a wheelbarrow.
“Can you handle that wheelbarrow, Adolph?”
“Yes, sir. I think so.”
“Good boy.” Goering was pleased that he wouldn’t have to make an extra trip for the wheelbarrow. Instead, he picked up some heavy boxes and placed them in the wheelbarrow. Then he took a shovel off the wall, which he would carry.
“We may have to make a few trips, but we’ll get the job done, won’t we, young man?” Adolph didn’t know what to say, so he acknowledged Goering’s question with “Yes sir. We’ll get the job done.”
The boy struggled to lift the wheelbarrow and he managed to move it about five feet before coming within an inch of knocking the wheelbarrow on its side, almost spilling the boxes to the ground, but thankfully, the boxes remained in the wheelbarrow. Goering was annoyed. Now he’d have to push the wheelbarrow himself. Work at this stage of his life was difficult, to say the least, and his weight didn’t help matters much. Besides, this type of work was beneath him. But he knew that this job had to get done, so he handed the boy the shovel, and told him to stand aside and to follow him, as he magnanimously informed the boy that he would push the wheelbarrow himself.
Adolph wondered what could be in the boxes that made them so heavy. Oh well, he thought. Probably nothing important, just an old man’s eccentricity.
Goering looked over his left shoulder to make sure that his driver couldn’t see what he was doing, or in which direction he was pushing the wheelbarrow. Good, he thought to himself. He couldn’t see the driver, which meant that the driver couldn’t see him, which was exactly what he wanted. He pushed the wheelbarrow down the dirt path leading from the property by the side of his house, down into the deep dense woods. To his delight, he discovered that pushing the wheelbarrow wasn’t all that difficult because the trail was mostly downhill. As soon as they entered the heavy brush encapsulating the narrow path that led deeper into the forest, Goering and the boy became all but invisible until they left the dense foliage covering the path, and stepped out into a clearing.
Goering and the boy had arrived at the memorial that Herman had specially built for his wife. At his first opportunity after coming to power, he had exhumed his wife's body in Sweden and had it transported it here, and had her re-buried in this pre-chosen spot so he could visit her privately whenever he was home.
From the memorial, Hermann turned left ninety degrees, and then he walked twenty-five paces into the woods, and when Goering stopped, Adolph noticed that someone had dug a square hole about six feet wide by four feet deep. The boy figured that the field marshal himself must have dug the hole, because he wouldn’t want anyone to know that he was burying something here.
“Come; grab the rope handle on your side of the box and help me carry it there.” He pointed to the hole. Adolph groaned as he lifted the heavy box, but he didn’t complain, and Goering liked the little guy’s spunk. When all six boxes were placed in the hole, Goering said, “Now we must go back for the others. Maybe this time, if we’re lucky, we could take all of the boxes.” But it didn’t happen that way. It took two more trips to the shed, before all of the boxes were in the ground. Goering was overweight and he wasn’t used to hard work, and after the boxes were buried, he was exhausted and sweating profusely. He took a hanky from his pocket and wiped his brow and, with a wave of his arm, he called the boy over to him as he leaned against his wife’s headstone.
“Adolph, I’m tired. Please do me a favor and shovel the dirt into the hole like a good boy for Uncle Goering.”
Adolph did as he was told. He shoveled all of the dirt into the hole and then he packed it down.
“Good boy. Now pick up some leaves and spread them over the fresh dirt so it looks exactly the same as the rest of the ground.”
The boy did as he was told, never questioning why Herman Goering buried so many heavy boxes, and Goering appreciated that.
Goering ordered his driver to close the
glass partition that separated the front and back seats. He wanted to talk to young Mueller in private.
“You are probably wondering what I buried in that hole. And that is perfectly natural, so I’m going to tell you. But you must promise never to tell anyone about this. The war is not going well for us, and I’m worried that the Russians may take Germany, so I’ve buried the family’s expensive dishes and eating utensils. They each have the Goering crest on them, making them very valuable, and I don’t want the Russians to get them. When the war is over, I’ll come back and dig them up. You can understand why I’ve done this now, can’t you?”
The boy nodded.
“Now, I want you to promise me that you won’t tell anyone.”
Goring looked expectantly at the boy.
“Well, do I have your promise?”
The boy straightened himself. “Yes, Field Marshal. I, Adolph Mueller Jr., promise never to tell anyone about this.”
“Good. Now you shall be rewarded. What do you want most in the world?”
Young Adolph thought about it for a minute, and then he looked up at Goering.
“I know that since I can’t have my father back, I’d like to be a hero just like you, Field Marshal, and maybe someday, I’ll win The Iron Cross.”
Goering smiled broadly. He had commanded the “Flying Circus” in the First World War and he was credited with shooting down twenty-two enemy aircraft. If Germany won this war, he would be the only German ever to receive the Order of The Star of The Grand Cross of The Iron Cross. And although he was a brave, daring combat pilot and a great fundraiser, he was a terrible administrator, who handled his part of the war horribly.
He removed the Iron Cross from his neck and placed it around young Adolph’s neck. Goering would replace the Iron Cross with another one tomorrow.
“Here! Because of the work you have performed for me today, you have earned The Iron Cross.”
Adolph suddenly burst into tears, and it touched Goring to see tears flowing copiously down the boy’s cheeks. The boy looked up at him through tear-filled sobs and said, “I don’t know what to say, Field Marshal. I will always treasure this Iron Cross, especially since it is yours. This is the best gift anyone could ever have given me and it’s the best gift I could ever hope to receive. Thank you.”
A few months later, the Russians destroyed Germany, and all of the men young Adolph admired were dead, killed either by the allies or by the Russians. But Adolph held Russia alone responsible for destroying Germany, at least the Germany he knew. In the days and weeks that followed, he heard rumors that Goering had stolen treasures from museums in occupied cities all throughout Europe - unlike Hitler who became a millionaire from the book Mien Kampf, which he wrote while he was in prison. When Hitler became chancellor, everyone in Germany was required to own Mien Kampf (which in English means My Fight), including every schoolboy and schoolgirl. Hitler, it appears, had no interest in stolen art and treasures because his book made him a millionaire many time over, but if the stories were to be believed, Hermann Goering looted the treasures from the museums of every country the Germans occupied.
Now that the allies had defeated Germany, and all of young Mueller’s high profile German protectors were dead, Adolph had to scrounge and beg in order to survive and, at times, he even stole to get money for food, but young Adolph Mueller had survived the war. His mother died in 1945, when the building they were living in was bombed by the allies, and the upper floors came crashing down on her. Adolph was ten at the time and at the baker’s, trying to buy a loaf of bread when she was killed and he was left to survive on his own from then on.
Adolph was nineteen years old now, and he often thought of the day he helped Field Marshal Goering bury his family’s dishware and silver eating utensils. If only he could get to them, he’d dig them up and sell them. He was sure that the money he received in selling the items would bring him enough cash to live comfortably for quite a while.
Adolph began to hear rumors from reliable sources that the Russians intended to build a wall separating the East from the West. It was confirmed one day when he applied for a job as a government courier and he overheard a conversation between two high-ranking Russian Communist Party members near the open office door. The discussion concerned a specific date the wall would be built. Adolph knew that if the wall was built, then he’d be walled in, separated from freedom. If that were to happen, he’d never have the opportunity to get to West Berlin. He blamed the Russians for all the hardships the German people were currently experiencing. He blamed them for killing his mother and his high-ranking German friends. His hatred for the Russians grew, until it became an obsession with him. He swore that if he ever came into power, the first chance he had, he would destroy the Russians for what they did to Germany and his family. He never for one moment believed the lies Germany’s enemies said about Himmler and the death camps, or the atrocities that Goering, Himmler, and especially Hitler were supposed to have committed. They were men of vision who made Germany great, and he loved and respected them.
He had to escape from East Berlin now while he still had the opportunity, and if he managed to make it to West Berlin, he had to somehow get to Goering’s old estate and dig up the dishes and utensils that he and Goering had buried when he was a little boy. He knew that if he could find the boxes and dig them out, he would get a good price in any market for them, especially since they had the Goering crest on them. He was exhausted with the effort of having to live each day by his wits, wondering if this new day would be his last. One night, he turned and tossed while losing the battle for sleep, but in that twilight level between sleep and being awake, he knew with a certainty that sleep wouldn’t come, so he got out of bed and went to the kitchen and made a pot of coffee. It was when he was on his second cup that he made up his mind to attempt an escape to West Berlin. If possible, he’d do it today while he still could.
When he arrived in West Berlin, Adolph was lucky because he happened to be in a store looking for a job, when he heard the proprietor on the telephone asking for a driver to deliver his packages. The man explained to the person he was talking to that his regular driver had called in sick and he needed a replacement driver. Adolph reached into his back pocket for his wallet and quickly pulled out his East Berlin commercial driver’s license, showing that he was qualified to drive a truck, and handed it to the man. The owner looked at the license, and then at Mueller. He said into the phone, “Never mind,” and hung up. He hired Mueller on the spot.
The storeowner handed Mueller an address where he was to pick up the truck, and he told him to return to the store for packages to be loaded onto the truck, and then delivered. The packages, he explained, were mailed from America, and sent to relatives living in West Berlin. With his first paycheck, Adolph rented a one-room flat with a common bathroom in a rundown West Berlin neighborhood. It was a small, sparse room with no redeeming features and little or no comforts. It was just a place to sleep while he figured a way to save some money.
He was smart enough to know that some of the packages he delivered were being smuggled into East Berlin by some relatives who were worried about their family members still living there, but he personally wasn’t concerned about any of that. His only concern was finding a way to get to Goering’s old house, and then he’d locate the boxes they had buried and dig them up.
Every day, Adolph took a shovel with him, which he hid on his truck, waiting for an opportunity to get to those buried boxes. One day, he got that opportunity. He was to deliver a package to an estate near Goering’s massive hunting lodge outside of Berlin, which Goering had named “Carinhall” in honor of his wife.
Adolph stood stock still on the old driveway leading to Goering’s old estate. He shook his head, looking at the ruins of the estate, which had been reduced to rubble by both Goering and the Russians. Goering had the house destroyed because he didn’t want the Russians to have it . . . and the Russians were pissed off because he deprived them of having it.
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As Mueller began walking through the property, his eyes darted everywhere, searching for the telltale path that he and Goering used to transport the boxes from the shed to the burial spot. But the shed was gone, and the land had been reclaimed by the elements, and shrubs and foliage had buried the path, which was no longer visible. Adolph knew his prize was still here after all these years, still buried in the ground. He was sure he could find the spot where he had buried the boxes those many years ago, so he scoured the woods for hours, but he was disappointed because he had no success in finding the spot. He was about to give up and return another day, when he took one last look and noticed an unnatural formation of shrubs off by itself about one hundred feet in front of him. He walked over to the formation and began removing the thick growth that covered it like a fresh coat of green paint, and he was rewarded. The shrubs covered a tombstone. He scraped the dirt away and read the dates. “Died aged 42 in 1931.” Mueller remembered that when Goering came into power, he had his wife’s body exhumed and transported to his hunting lodge outside of Berlin, and this was where the valuables were buried.
Excitement welled up inside of young Mueller and he turned ninety degrees to his left and walked the twenty-five paces, and found what he hoped was the spot, and he started to dig. After digging down about two feet, his shovel hit something hard. It was a box. When he and the field marshal had buried the boxes, they were placed four by four, in three layers, one on top of the other. He struggled with more than a little effort to pull out the first box. He scraped the dirt off the top of the box, then he took his shovel and used it to pry the cover off and, to his utter amazement, instead of dishes and silverware, the box was full of bags. Curiosity got the better of him and he opened a bag. When he looked inside of it, he was surprised to find that it was filled with gold coins.