Erich Münter
Professor Erich Münter , also written Muenter (born March 25, 1871 in Uelzen , † July 6, 1915 in Mineola , Nassau County ), was a German-American university professor and assassin .
biography
Münter originally taught German and German literature at Harvard University . His wife, Leone Krembs-Münter, died on April 15, 1906, and Münter was suspected of having poisoned her with arsenic . Thereupon Münter went into hiding.
He acquired a new identity and from then on called himself Frank Holt . Under this name he began studying at the Fort Worth Polytechnic Institute and after four years went to Cornell University in New York, where he took an exam and earned a new doctorate .
On the afternoon of July 2, 1915, Münter went to the Capitol in Washington , where hardly anyone was, as there was a period without meetings. Unhindered and unnoticed, he got into the reception room of the Senate and hid an explosive device there . Since he had no intention of harming people, he set the time fuse to a time when he believed the building should be empty. Then he left the Capitol and watched from a safe distance.
The explosive device exploded loudly at 11:23 p.m. as planned, but without injuring or killing people and causing only minor property damage . In an anonymous letter of confession that he sent to the Washington Evening Star newspaper , Münter explained his motivation: He hoped the explosion would ... make enough noise to drown out the voices of those calling for the war. This explosion is an exclamation point in my call for peace. Münter was particularly angry about the American bankers who, despite the previously valid official neutrality of the USA during World War I, supported Great Britain in its war efforts against the German Reich .
On the morning of the following day, July 3, 1915, Münter returned to New York City. He went to Long Island to the estate of the banker John Pierpont Morgan Jr. , Great Britain's foremost American supporter and principal broker of ammunition , food and war materials to the United Kingdom. Münter managed to get in under threat of gun violence and allowed himself to be led to Morgan. There was a scuffle in which Münter fired two shots from his pistol. Morgan was hit in the abdomen, but despite the injuries, was able to disarm and overpower Münter with the help of his butler .
During the interrogations that followed, Münter initially stated that his name was Frank Holt. His statements about his motives were the same as those he had given in his letter of responsibility for the bombing in the Capitol. He denied having any sympathy for Germany and said that he was simply against mass murder .
On July 6, committed Münter in Nassau County Jail suicide by rushed three meters upside down on a concrete floor. Only after his death was he identified as Erich Münter by two former professor colleagues Hugo Münsterberg and Chester Nathan Gould .
literature
- Ron Chernow : The House of Morgan. An American Banking Dynasty and the Rise of Modern Finance . Grove Press, 2001, ISBN 0802138292
- Thomas Joseph Tunney and Paul Merrick Hollister: Throttled! The Detection of the German and Anarchist Bomb Plotters . Small, Maynard & Company, 1919 OCLC 349392
- Morris Bishop: A History of Cornell . Cornell University Press, 1962, ISBN 0801400368
- The Harvard Graduates' Magazine . Harvard Graduates' Magazine Association, 1934
- The New York Times Current History. The European War, Volume IV . The New York Times Co., 1915
Web links
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Münter, Erich |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Holt, Frank |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German-American university professor and assassin |
| DATE OF BIRTH | March 25, 1871 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Uelzen |
| DATE OF DEATH | July 6, 1915 |
| Place of death | Mineola , Nassau County (New York) |