Karl Alexander von Müller
Quick Facts
Biography
Karl Alexander von Müller (20 December 1882 - 13 December 1964) was a German historian. His immediate disciples were National Socialist politicians and academics such as Baldur von Schirach, Rudolf Heß, Hermann Göring, Walter Frank, Wilhelm Grau, Wilfried Euler, Clemens August Hoberg, Hermann Kellenbenz, Karl Richard Ganzer, Ernst Hanfstaengl and Klaus Schickert. However, due to his political openness, other non-Nazi historians such as Karl Bosl, Alois Hundhammer, Heinz Gollwitzer and even Wolfgang Hallgarten also studied under Müller.
Life
Müller was born in Munich, the son of the Bavarian culture minister Ludwig August von Müller. He studied law and history at the Wilhelmsgymnasium München in 1901 and from 1903 to 1904 studied at the University of Oxford on a Rhodes Scholarship. In 1908 he gained his PhD under Sigmund von Riezler, with a thesis entitled Bavaria in the year 1866 and the appointment of Prince Hohenlohe. In the summer of 1919 Müller together with Gottfried Feder gave lectures on political education at Munich University that were funded by the army with a view to countering socialist revolutionary fervor. During one course, he identified Adolf Hitler's "rhetorical talent". As a result of this recommendation, Hitler was selected as a political officer in the team of instructors that were sent to lecture at a German Army camp near Augsburg. Müller died, aged 81, in Rottach-Egern.