Dietrich Müller

Panzerfaust (Anti-Tank Gun)

Dietrich Müller was a a German teacher and writer who served in the Volkssturm in late 1945. He was brother to Hans Müller.

## Early Life

### Growing up in Bavaria

Dietrich Müller was born in 1890, in Bavaria. He was a sickly child, who struggled to engage in physical activities, and found himself smaller than the other children his age, even his own siblings. This led to him becoming an outcast in his community with very few friends. By the time he was in his late teens, he had recovered from his ailments, but he was still resentful of his family and community.

### Moving to the city

In 1909, Dietrich moved to Munich to study History and Philosophy at University. Here he would would meet a Jewish female student (who had only recently been allowed to study in the university) called Alice, who he would marry in 1913, and have his first child with in 1914. He would also learn English and Russian here as extracurricular activities. He would finish his studies in 1915.

## WW1 and afterwards

### Being Conscripted

In 1916, Müller was called to arms to fight in the Great War. He fought on the Eastern Front, and later the Western. He was deeply affected by what he had experienced in the war, and even tried his hand at writing anti-war poetry, but this wasn't his strong suit and his poems never became popular. These anti-war sentiments would stick with him for the rest of his life though.

### The Interwar Period

When Müller came back from the war, he became a teacher at a local school and had 4 more children with his wife. His wife's family didn't approve of the marriage as they wanted their daughter to marry a Jewish man and had stopped all communications with her, but in 1930 they suddenly reached out to her to invite her to visit, so that they could make amends as they had had a change of heart. Unfortunately they had picked the worst possible time to do this, as on one of the days Alice was staying at their home, they were victim to an anti-Semitic attack. She was with her eldest daughter and they were both killed. Müller never liked the Nazis, but this only soured his opinion of them. Müller was broken and decided to move back to the countryside with his children to escape, and he ended up kind of fixing his relationship with his family, though it never became that good. Müller never married again.

## WW2 and afterwards

### WW2

When the war started, Müller's second child, a son, had told his father that he was considering joining the Army, but after being discouraged by his father, he had changed his mind. Unfortunately for him, he was conscripted at the same time as his younger brother in 1941, and they both died at the Battle of Stalingrad. In 1945, Dietrich was conscripted into the Volkssturm with his youngest son. Dietrich had accepted that this was going to happen, but he protested at his son being conscripted as well because he was only 16 years old, but he was threatened and they had no choice. They would find themselves at Berlin, and end up meeting Hans Müller. Hans would take them and some other soldiers to surrender to the Western Allies and was successful, but unfortunately Dietrich's son would be killed by the Soviets along the way.

### After the war

After the war Dietrich would move to Georgia in the USA to escape all that had troubled him in Germany. He had even convinced Hans to come with him, where they set up a brewery together. Although they had never got along as children, their experiences together created a friendship that would last the rest of their lives. The brewery was mainly a hobby, it never became that successful, they both had part-time jobs at the same time. Dietrich became a writer of non-fiction, focusing on anti-authoritarianism and liberalism. He would be invited to give lectures at numerous universities. He died in 1988.