Erwin Kern (assassin)

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Erwin Kern (born August 8, 1898 in Gumbinnen ; † July 17, 1922 at Saaleck Castle ) was a naval officer and one of the murderers of Walther Rathenau . His accomplices were Hermann Fischer , Ernst Werner Techow and Ernst von Salomon . Kern was a member of the Ehrhardt Marine Brigade and the Consul organization .

Life

Born in 1898 as the son of the Berlin Administrative Court Director Erich Ferdinand Urban Kern from Breslau, Kern became a first lieutenant in the sea . After his discharge from the Navy in 1921, he studied in Kiel jurisprudence .

In 1920 he met Ernst von Salomon while French troops were entering . Together with Friedrich Wilhelm Heinz, they formed a local group of the Consul organization in Frankfurt am Main and carried out arms deliveries, prisoners liberation and counter-espionage in the Ruhr area . During the fighting in the Third Polish Uprising in 1921, Kern fought with many other members of the Ehrhardt Brigade in the Koppe storm company under Manfred von Killinger in Upper Silesia .

On August 10, 1921, together with Karl Tillessen , Kern tried in vain to free the two lieutenants Johann Boldt and Ludwig Dithmar, who had been convicted of war criminals in the Leipzig trials for the sinking of the English hospital ship Llandovery Castle, from the Leipzig prison. In January 1922, Kern and the Frankfurt district of the Consul organization succeeded in liberating Dithmar from the Naumburg / Saale prison . In March 1922 the getaway car, Erwin Wagner, one was in the driver's Fememordversuch perpetrated because core and Tillessen thought he was a spy. In the Gießen Fememord Trial in 1927, Kern was assigned the main responsibility for this. When Heinrich Tillessen received a summons from the Munich police after the murder of Erzberger, Kern took him across the border to Austria. It is also assumed that Kern was the third person who accompanied the assassination attempt by Hanns Hustert and Karl Oehlschläger on Philipp Scheidemann on June 4, 1922. After he saw that the cyanide injection was not working, the assassination plan for Rathenau was changed.

On June 24, 1922, Kern and Hermann Fischer killed Reich Foreign Minister Rathenau in the open rear of his car with a hand grenade and several shots from a submachine gun in Koenigsallee ( Berlin-Grunewald ). According to a later interrogation by Karl Tillessen, the core political motive was to bring about a right-wing government by eliminating Rathenau, who had all the strings in hand . The murderers were searched for in one of the largest manhunters ever run in Germany.

Today no longer existing memorial stone at Saaleck Castle in 1943

The assassins were finally caught on July 17, 1922 at Saaleck Castle near Bad Kösen . During the exchange of fire, Kern was fatally hit by a police bullet behind a window; Fischer then committed suicide.

After his death, Kern was temporarily one of the suspects for the never-solved murder of the USPD politician Karl Gareis , who was shot on June 9, 1921 in Munich. Corresponding references, which first appeared in 1929, are, however, according to recent research incorrect.

literature

  • Ernst von Salomon: The questionnaire. Rowohlt, Reinbek bei Hamburg 18 2007 (1st edition 1951), ISBN 978-3-499-10419-0 .

Web links

Commons : Erwin Kern  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Cord Gebhardt: The case of the Erzberger murderer Heinrich Tillessen: a contribution to the history of justice after 1945. Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen 1995, ISBN 3-16-146490-7 , p. 51.
  2. ↑ Martin Sabrow : The suppressed conspiracy. The Rathenau murder and the German counter-revolution . Fischer Taschenbuch-Verlag, Frankfurt 1999, ISBN 3-596-14302-0 , pp. 114 and 186.
  3. ↑ Harald Wiggenhorn: “ A debt almost without atonement ”, in: Die Zeit 34/1996.
  4. ↑ Martin Sabrow: The Rathenaumord. Reconstruction of a conspiracy against the Republic of Weimar . Munich 1994, pp. 128-134.
  5. ^ Cord Gebhardt: The case of the Erzberger murderer Heinrich Tillessen: a contribution to the history of justice after 1945. Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen 1995, ISBN 3-16-146490-7 , p. 46.
  6. ↑ Martin Sabrow: The suppressed conspiracy. The Rathenau murder and the German counter-revolution . Fischer Taschenbuch-Verlag, Frankfurt 1999, ISBN 3-596-14302-0 , p. 187.
  7. ↑ Martin Sabrow: The suppressed conspiracy. The Rathenau murder and the German counter-revolution . Fischer Taschenbuch-Verlag, Frankfurt 1999, ISBN 3-596-14302-0 , p. 125.
  8. ↑ Martin Sabrow: The suppressed conspiracy. The Rathenau murder and the German counter-revolution . Fischer Taschenbuch-Verlag, Frankfurt 1999, ISBN 3-596-14302-0 , p. 129.
  9. ↑ Cf. Cord Gebhardt: The case of the Erzberger murderer Heinrich Tillessen: a contribution to the history of justice after 1945. Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen 1995, ISBN 3-16-146490-7 , p. 50 with further information in note 25.
  10. ↑ Ulrike Claudia Hofmann: Traitors fall for the distance! Femicide in Bavaria in the twenties. Böhlau, Köln / Wien 2000, ISBN 3-412-15299-4 , p. 265 with note 242.
personal data
SURNAME Kern, Erwin
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Knauer, Erwin; Körner, Erwin
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Naval officer and murderer of Walther Rathenau
DATE OF BIRTH August 8, 1898
PLACE OF BIRTH Gumbinnen
DATE OF DEATH July 17, 1922
Place of death Saaleck Castle