International: Homecoming

It was Christmas Eve, 1942, in Berlin. Carpenter Franz Mueller argued the news from Stalingrad with his neighbor, Sign Painter Hubert Knopf.

Challenged Knopf: “Ten marks the Russians give up the city.”

By March 1943 the betters learned about the German debacle. Dunned, Knopf said: “I’ll take care of it right away.”

He took care of it by hurrying to the Gestapo, reporting his neighbor for Wehrmachtzersetzung—corruption of the Wehrmacht. Mueller’s widow paid the execution bill: 474½ marks, including 175 for the gallows, twelve for the rope, eight pfennigs for notification of the verdict.

Last week the dead man’s sons, Paul and Erich Mueller, returned to Berlin from a Russian war prisoners’ camp. They had learned of their sister’s death and their mother’s suicide, had pieced together the story of their father’s fate.

Paul and Erich found Informer Knopf in a Pankow beer garden. Later an eyewitness said, “They merely asked him to step outside, were quite pleasant about it too.” Next day Knopf’s battered body was found in a parking lot.