Bernd Koehler

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Bernd Michael Köhlert (born November 10, 1942 in Stettin ; † August 29, 1964 near Albertville ) was a German mercenary . He and Walter Nestler were the first Germans to fall in the Congo during the Simba rebellion . His death caused a stir in the West German media and was responsible for the DDR occasion for a propaganda campaign against the Federal Republic .

Life

Childhood and youth in the GDR and the Federal Republic

Köhlert grew up in Torgelow . In October 1957 his mother fled with him from the GDR and moved to Saarbrücken . Köhlert trained as an electrician and signed up for three years with the paratroopers of the Bundeswehr , where he achieved the rank of non-commissioned officer . He completed his training at the air landing and air transport school in Altenstadt (Upper Bavaria) and was dismissed at the end of June 1964.

Deployment and death in the Congo

On August 3, 1964, he flew from Frankfurt am Main to Johannesburg . He had told his family that he wanted to emigrate . Perhaps at that time he was already planning to go to the Congo as a mercenary. This is supported by the fact that Köhlert flew to the Congo with the first transport, which was put together before the recruitment measures began. On August 21, he and other mercenaries arrived in Kamina on a Hercules transport plane . Köhlert and around 30 other newcomers formed the first mercenary unit of the Simba conflict. It was led by Mike Hoare . Köhlert was assigned to Siegfried Müller's train .

Just one day after arriving in Kamina, the unit was relocated to the vicinity of Moba by plane . From there, Hoare wanted to advance with 24 men in three assault boats across Lake Tanganyika to attack Albertville, today's Kalemie, and to free European hostages there. Due to his technical qualifications, Köhlert was entrusted with the maintenance of the outboard motors . The journey on the lake turned out to be arduous, on the second night two of the three outboard motors failed and the mercenaries had to paddle long distances. After fighting between government troops and rebels had already broken out in Albertville, the unit went in search of the airport, which Hoare suspected was still in enemy hands. Müller was entrusted with the investigation with five men . On the outskirts, the group was shot at from a hospital where the airport crew was staying. One officer was badly wounded , Köhlert and Nestler died. According to Müller, this happened through hits in the head. The rest of the unit withdrew to the assault boats, unable to recover the bodies, and made their way to Kamina. From the death of Köhlert and Nestler, Hoare concluded that future operations would have to be preceded by a thorough training of the mercenaries.

The next morning, the French journalist Yves-Guy Bergès photographed the bodies of the two. Bergès had come to town with the rebels. His photos of Köhlert and Nestler were published in the media around the world, including in the GDR. After the rebels had to flee the city on the same day, the returned mercenaries buried the two men in emergency graves on the lake shore. A few days later, the German journalist Hans Germani arrived in Albertville. Because Germani had a medical education, he was asked by a paramedic from the Red Cross to help with the recovery of the corpses. For identification, the dentures of the "half-charred, half-decomposed corpses" were documented and they were reburied in Albertville's cemetery. Köhlert's name was misspelled as "Koehtler" on the improvised grave crosses. At the beginning of September Müller gave the funeral oration for his subordinates, on December 5, 1965 Mike Hoare visited the graves before he left the Congo.

Reporting on Köhlert's death in East and West

Köhlert's mother learned of the death of her son from two Quick reporters , who confronted her with one of Bergès' photos at her apartment door . Quick had acquired the exclusive rights to the photos for Germany. A photo of the crying mother then appeared in the magazine with the heading "Tears for the dead son". The SED newspaper Neue Erde in the district of Neubrandenburg reprinted the Quick's photos, whereupon some friends and relatives recognized Köhlert.

The GDR filmmakers Walter Heynowski and Gerhard Scheumann were made aware of Köhlert's former classmate Dieter Gibson of his fate. Heynowski and Scheumann had previously made three propaganda films about Siegfried Müller in the Congo, which were supposed to prove the neocolonialist role of the Federal Republic in Africa . The films had received a lot of attention in the GDR, in the Federal Republic as well as internationally. One of the films, The Laughing Man , consisted entirely of an interview that the filmmakers conducted with Siegfried Müller under false pretenses. Müller said in the interview: "He was a soldier through and through. I would like to say that Koehler was the best I had with me." Heynowski and Scheumann shot their last film in their Congo series through Bernd Köhlert. The half-hour film entitled Der Fall Bernd K. was first shown on GDR television on December 3, 1967, and the book of the same name was published the following year.

Heynowski and Scheumann reconstruct the life story of Köhlert in books and films. From her point of view, his mother is to blame for his fate, because by fleeing to the West she exposed her son to the manipulations by Siegfried Müller, the school, the armed forces and the media of the Springer Verlag , which killed his human conscience. As a contrast, Dieter Gibson and two other friends of Köhlert are introduced, "as witnesses for the socialist GDR". Unlike the previous films, The Bernd K. case was hardly noticed in the West because the topic was no longer relevant. Siegfried Müller and other mercenaries had left the Congo two years earlier.

literature

  • Christian Bunnenberg: The "Congo miller". A German mercenary career , Lit-Verlag, Münster 2006, ISBN 978-3-8258-9900-4 , pp. 111-114
  • Hans Germani: White mercenaries in the black country , Ullstein, Frankfurt am Main / Berlin 1966, pp. 5–8
  • Walter Heynowski / Gerhard Scheumann: The case of Bernd K. , Mitteldeutscher Verlag, Halle (Saale) 1968
  • Mike Hoare: Congo Mercenary , Paladin Press, Boulder / Colorado 2008, ISBN 978-1-58160-639-3 , pp. 48-59
  • Thomas P. Odom: Dragon Operations: Hostage Rescues in the Congo, 1964-1965 , Combat Studies Institute US Army Command and General Staff College (Leavenworth Papers No. 14), Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, 1988, p. 30 here:

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Christian Bunnenberg: The "Congo Miller". A German mercenary career , Lit-Verlag, Münster 2006, ISBN 978-3-8258-9900-4 , p. 113
  2. ^ Christian Bunnenberg: The "Congo Miller". A German mercenary career , Lit-Verlag, Münster 2006, ISBN 978-3-8258-9900-4 , p. 113, footnote 546
  3. ↑ Mike Hoare: Congo Mercenary , Paladin Press, Boulder / Colorado 2008, ISBN 978-1-58160-639-3 , p. 50
  4. ^ Mike Hoare: Congo Mercenary , Paladin Press, Boulder / Colorado 2008, ISBN 978-1-58160-639-3 , p. 57
  5. ^ Walter Heynowski / Gerhard Scheumann: Der Fall Bernd K. , Mitteldeutscher Verlag, Halle (Saale) 1968, p. 122
  6. ↑ Mike Hoare: Congo Mercenary , Paladin Press, Boulder / Colorado 2008, ISBN 978-1-58160-639-3 , p. 60
  7. ^ Hans Germani: White Mercenaries in the Black Land , Ullstein, Frankfurt am Main / Berlin 1966, pp. 5-8
  8. ^ Anthony Mockler: The new mercenaries . Corgi Books, London 1986, ISBN 0-552-12558-X , photo gallery, p. 3
  9. ^ Walter Heynowski / Gerhard Scheumann: Der Fall Bernd K. , Mitteldeutscher Verlag, Halle (Saale) 1968, p. 126f
  10. ^ Walter Heynowski / Gerhard Scheumann: Der Fall Bernd K. , Mitteldeutscher Verlag, Halle (Saale) 1968, p. 132f
  11. ^ Walter Heynowski / Gerhard Scheumann: Der Fall Bernd K. , Mitteldeutscher Verlag, Halle (Saale) 1968, pp. 5-8
  12. ^ Christian Bunnenberg: The "Congo Miller". A German mercenary career , Lit-Verlag, Münster 2006, ISBN 978-3-8258-9900-4 , pp. 66–111
  13. ^ A b Walter Heynowski / Gerhard Scheumann: Der Fall Bernd K. , Mitteldeutscher Verlag, Halle (Saale) 1968, p. 6
  14. ^ Walter Heynowski / Gerhard Scheumann: Der Fall Bernd K. , Mitteldeutscher Verlag, Halle (Saale) 1968
  15. ^ Walter Heynowski / Gerhard Scheumann: Der Fall Bernd K. , Mitteldeutscher Verlag, Halle (Saale) 1968, p. 143
personal data
SURNAME Koehler, Bernd
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Köhlert, Bernd Michael (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German mercenary
DATE OF BIRTH November 10, 1942
PLACE OF BIRTH Szczecin
DATE OF DEATH August 29, 1964
Place of death at Albertville