05-01-2010
Rudaw- A German citizen who designed the Kurdish flag and organized a Kurdish uprising against the British, passed away at age 95.
Gottfried Johannes Muller along with Ramzi Fatih, a Kurdish citizen, designed the Kurdish flag in the early 1940s. Since then the flag with colors red, white, yellow and green, has been recognized by majority of Kurds in the world as their national flag.
Frank Haller, a close friend of Muller, told Rudaw that in the last days of his life Muller asked him to bring him a Kurdish flag so that he can take it with him to his grave.
“I was one of those people who talked with Muller and he asked for a Kurdish flag," Muller said. "When I took him one, he kept it until his death and he still has it in his grave”, Haller, 53, said.
In 1943 he, as a German Major and Ramzi Nafie Agha carried out a mission to start an Kurdish uprising and to gain control of the oil fields for the Germans. In return, the Kurds would be assisted in creating an independent Kurdistan. But the operation failed and he was betrayed. He was captured by the British and Iraqi forces and sentenced to death, but escaped out of prison. Later he was captured again and he was sent to a military prison in Hamburg in Germany after the end of the World War. He was freed in 1948.
Muller has written a few books about his experience in Kurdistan and Kurdish issues and Kurdish people were close to his heart. Later he founded the non-profit Christian welfare organization Salem International in 1957.
© Rudaw
