Tintin Forums

I was just thinking about Dr. Müller as a villain and I got to thinking... a German villain in 1937-8?
Could this indicate that he was actually a Nazi?
It would make sense, Hitler could have employed him to flood the British economy with fake money (this is suggested on the Wikipedia page).
Then maybe as punishment he was sent to Khemed by Hitler for failing his mission, and, in the 1950's, after the war he was still loyal to Fascism and was trying to create a Fascist state under the name of Mull Pasha in Red Sea Sharks?

Michael Farr, author of "Tintin the Complete Companion", has suggested that Müller was based on Georg Bell who worked with the Nazis and was allegedly involved in an attempt to flood Soviet Russia with fake Roubles.

I have always found this argument a little weak since Puschov, the actual leader of the Black Island gang, has a very Jewish-like appearance.

In one scene, Tintin bursts into an office on the Black Island where he watches the Thompsons's aerial acrobatics on the TV. There he also finds a list of associates which includes the name Otto Steinkopf of Potsdam, which is in Germany.

If this was a German government plot, it would have quite likely have been handled by the Gestapo or Abwehr (German military intelligence) from Berlin.

For me the Black Island gang is just another bunch of crooks, but there have been instances of such characters being employed by the secret service. I'm thinking that Müller, having escaped from a British prison, would have made his way back to Germany. He probably had friends in high places and they would have found him a job in the Abwehr. Since Europe may have been a bit too hot for him (figuratively speaking) he would be sent to the Middle East to disrupt oil supplies.

Perhaps. Having adapted to the ways of the Middle East, he would probably also want revenge for the humiliations of "Land of Black Gold".

That seems like even more of a stretch - I can't see that anything in his appearance hints at any particular ethnicity; we know that Hergé certainly wasn't backwards in coming forwards with racial and ethnic stereotypes (Scotland being populated by Harry Lauder and John Laurie look alikes, if one is to believe that the inhabitants of Kiltoch are a representitive sample), so Puschov is almost bland and featureless by comparison, and certainly difficult to construe as Semitic, I would have thought.

Given that he is a forger, and he is working with a German, the hypothesis that he is part of a plot to upset the enconomy as outlined above, and referenced by Michale Farr certainly seems to fit the information. I don't see that it is a necessary condition, but it is sufficient.

well in Black Gold Müller is supposedly working for a foreign power, and given that it was written during the Third Reich, could this not be evidence?

It could be, but it doesn't have to be: it just can't be said for sure.

Food for thought though, and worth considering.

Müller was a fifth columnist. But it would seem he, like so many others, escaped from Germany and fled to England or America.

Big bushy beard and a Slavic-like name strike me as typical Jewish stereotypes.
Müller is the kind of adventurer who would do anything just to make a quick buck. Going from mere crook to secret agent would be a natural thing for the likes of him.

Books like "Soviet", "Blue Lotus", "Broken Ear" and "Ottokar" make their political points very clear: the Bolsheviks are a bunch of evil so-and-sos; the Japanese are Imperialist warmongers; the western businessmen provoking a war over oilfields are beneath contempt; and stealing the sceptre is just one aspect of an attempted invasion by a foreign power.

If Hergé did intend a political message for "Black Island", i.e. this is a plot by a foreign power to undermine the local economy, then I think that he would have made the point more firmly rather than just leave it to speculation.

Why not a bushy-bearded non-Jewish Slavic person? How would Hergé have drawn that in any way differently?
Or a Russian?
The assumption may be one you have made, but it certainly isn't implicit.

That would also apply to the ethnicity question, don't you think? There isn't an answer to this I know, as there isn't a way to tell, but it just isn't convincing to me.

I must agree with jock, I don't see any Jewish stereotype in Puschov. And regarding Müller, there isn't even any indication in the original French versions that he's German, let alone a Nazi.
Of course, it's great to speculate. We've all speculated about how Haddock has British roots, but there isn't any real evidence of this in the books.

In the French editions Müller doesn't even have a German accent. In French books, a German accent can be indicated by someone mixing up their Bs and Ps, like Grossgrabenstein in Le Mystere de la Grande Pyramide who says things like "Eh, pien Monzieu!" and "n'est bas".

He says "Ach", "Himmel",etc, in the English books, so the English translators might have assumed he was German (or they might even have asked Hergé since they consulted him about their translations).

Having said all that, The Black Island is apparently inspired a bit by The 39 Steps (with it's German fifth columnists, written just before the First World War) and Müller is a very German name.
But is it even his real name? He calls himself Smith in Land of Black Gold and Mull Pasha in The Red Sea Sharks.
Perhaps Müller was also an assumed name....?

There may not have been any evidence in the books, but Haddock was meant to be English.
Hergé came up with the character after his wife remarked that a haddock was a 'sad English fish'...