Kajetan "Kai" Mühlmann (26 June 1898 – 2 August 1958) was an Austrian art historian who was an officer in the SS and played a major role in the expropriation of art by the Nazis, particularly in Poland and the Netherlands. He worked with Arthur Seyss-Inquart in the initial Nazi government in Vienna following the Anschluss, in the General Government (occupied Poland) and in The Hague where he headed an organisation known as the Dienststelle Mühlmann (Mühlmann Agency) which functioned as a clearing house for art expropriated in the occupied Netherlands. He has been characterised as one of the greatest art thieves among the Nazis, and possibly ever.
Life
Early life and World War I
Mühlmann was born on 26 June 1898 in Uttendorf, near Zell am See in Austria. His father died and his mother remarried to his father's cousin; the family included eight children, six of whom survived. Mühlmann's elder brother Josef was later to join the Gestapo. Mühlmann grew up on a farm and attended school in Salzburg. On reaching the required age of 17 in 1915, he volunteered for service in the First World War; he was decorated several times but in 1918 was seriously wounded and suffered a lung infection which affected his health for the rest of his life. At this time he joined the Socialist Party, and remained a member for several years.
Salzburg
In 1922 he entered university, studying art history in Innsbruck and Vienna, and in 1926 he completed his doctorate at the University of Vienna with a thesis on Baroque Fountains and Water Art in Salzburg. He then returned to Salzburg, where he acquired a reputation as a civic activist, advocating for the improvement of the city's landmarks and publishing a book on one preservationist's work, wrote generally positive art reviews, and worked as chief publicity agent for the Salzburg Festival. He spoke Austrian dialect and became known as a networker. People whom he met at this time and before and who later helped him in his career included Hermann Göring (Mühlmann was friends with his sisters, who lived in the Salzburg area, and there is a story, which he denied, that he helped Göring to escape from Germany after the failure of the Beerhall Putsch in Munich in 1923) and Arthur Seyss-Inquart.
The Austrian Nazi Party was banned in July 1934 after the murder of Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss, and Mühlmann always denied having been a member then or earlier; however, both American Intelligence and Nazi sources state that he was an early member, and in 1935 he and five others were arrested in Salzburg and charged with being Nazis; the charge against Mühlmann was reduced from high treason to 'membership in a secret society' and his sentence reduced to time served, but according to a report by Ernst Kaltenbrunner, the original sentence was 20 years. After his trial and conviction he continued to work as a liaison between those Nazis who remained in Austria and the party organisation and paramilitary forces in exile in Bavaria. While doing his best to avoid overt political affiliations, he became a prominent member of the moderate wing of the Austrian party, which ultimately triumphed over the radical faction; early in 1938 he met with Hitler on behalf of Seyss-Inquart and gave him confidential information which strengthened his bargaining position in his meeting with Chancellor Kurt Schuschnigg, in addition to urging the removal of Josef Leopold.
Vienna
Following the Anschluss in March 1938, Seyss-Inquart appointed him Secretary of State in the Federal Chancellery and then in the Ministry for Interior and Cultural Affairs, and also Representative for State Art Policy. He became a captain in the SS; he later rose to the rank of Oberführer. As head of Department III in the office of the Reichsstatthalter, which was responsible for the "administration and detachment of 'volksfeindliche' property" (i.e., that of "enemies of the Volk"), he played a major role in the confiscation of the property of Viennese Jews, which preceded the actions in the Altreich (pre-Anschluss Germany).
In June 1939 he was fired by Josef Bürckel, the new Gauleiter of Vienna, ostensibly for sanctioning cabaret performances critical of Altreich Germans, but actually for "Austrian tendencies": funding Austrian cultural institutions outside Vienna and seeking to keep artworks expropriated from Viennese Jews in Vienna. This was part of a wave of dismissals of Austrians on Bürckel's part which led to considerable resentment.