Karl Baur (Femeopfer)

Karl Baur (born March 21, 1901 in Wismar , † February 18, 1923 in Munich ) was a German political activist. He is considered the last victim of the series of killing acts known as " Fememorde ", committed between 1919 and 1923 by members of right-wing extremist organizations in Germany in the first years after the end of the First World War of actual or supposed political opponents or traitors from their own ranks were.

Live and act

Baur's career until 1922

Baur was born in 1901 as the son of a railway secretary in Wismar, Mecklenburg. After attending the community school, he was given training in the Neukloster teacher training college.

While still a minor, Baur volunteered for the Prussian Army in 1918, during the last year of the First World War , against the wishes of his parents. He was assigned to a grenadier regiment . It is doubtful whether he got to the front before the end of the war.

In the spring of 1919, Baur reported for duty at the Eastern Border Guard , d. H. to participate in securing the German eastern border against Poland (at that time there were conflicts between the two states over the question of the future course of the border between them). There he fell into Polish captivity and was sentenced to death by a Polish court martial.

After he managed to escape from Polish captivity, Baur wanted to rejoin the border guards, but this was prevented by his father, who had his underage son's employment with the border guards terminated and sent him back to the teachers' college.

Although the experience in Poland caused a nervous breakdown at Baur, he passed his exams in the seminar and was able to start a one-year internship at a rural school in Mecklenburg in 1919.

During this time, Baur began to be active in the right-wing extremist scene in his home country. In 1922, as a member of the secret organization Organization Consul (OC), he supported the murderers of Reich Foreign Minister Walther Rathenau as an escape helper.

Activity in the right-wing extremist milieu of Munich (1922/1923)

At the end of 1922, Baur moved from Mecklenburg to Bavaria, where he lived in poor conditions in Munich.

However, he managed to connect with the right-wing extremist scene in Munich. So at the beginning of 1923 he was part of the local Roßbach group, d. H. the union of the paramilitary organized supporters of the radical right-wing Freikorpsführer Gerhard Roßbach , recorded in the Bavarian capital. In addition, Baur served briefly in the 20th SA Hundred in Munich, which was recruited from members of the Roßbach group .

In the circle of his like-minded comrades, Baur soon fell through the boastful sayings and unrealistic plans that he forged. In addition, the notoriously clammy student acquired the reputation of a riot and scrounger.

At the beginning of January 1923, after attending a Hitler speech about the "crime" of the November Revolution of 1918 , Baur developed the plan to assassinate the former Chancellor and then Lord Mayor of Kassel, Philipp Scheidemann . He began to forge preparations for such an act and tried to recruit accomplices for its execution and sponsors. However, he was granted little success with this, partly because his plans were not taken seriously, partly because they were viewed by his like-minded people as inopportune because they did not serve their political goals, despite their fundamental willingness to murder.

Since Baur spoke to everyone about his plans to assassinate Scheidemann without being asked, the Munich police became aware of him: on January 19, 1923 he was arrested. In the interrogation that followed, he admitted his plan of assassination had been reversed, but, at the request of the police, promised not to carry out the act. The initiation of proceedings against him was waived because he had not yet attempted his act, but had not yet got beyond the stage of a deliberation or a mental game.

Instead, Baur was expelled from Bavaria on February 6th by the government of the State Commissioner for Munich. However, he ignored the instruction and continued to stay in Munich.

At the same time, the National Socialist circles in Munich suspected that Baur could be the source for a series of articles in the social democratic Munich Post , in which the public was informed about secret activities of the right-wing extremist scene in the Bavarian capital based on inside information .

Around January 20, 1923, through the mediation of Felix Aumüller , Baur joined the right-wing Blücherbund . In this organization he took on the role of platoon leader of a federal company. After his expulsion on February 6, 1923, Baur was accommodated by the head of the Munich district office of the Blücherbund, Johann Berger, in his apartment, which also housed the federal office.

On February 7, 1923, through Berger's mediation, Baur received the position of private secretary to private lecturer Arnold Ruge, who played a leading role in the Blücherbund. Ruge was a radical advocate of völkisch ideas, in particular he took the view that it was legitimate to kill opponents of patriotic goals. Baur, who was verbally particularly right-wing extremist, therefore seemed to him to be the right man to take on the post as his assistant.

Already after about a week Ruge began to distrust his new secretary: In his bramar-based slogan knocking, he appeared to him as not sufficiently secretive and as reckless and unreliable, so that he dismissed him again.

Involvement in right-wing extremist overthrow plans in spring 1923

Parallel to his work in the Blücherbund, Baur became better acquainted with the journalist Hugo Machhaus , one of the most important protagonists of a separatist putsch planned for spring 1923 in Bavaria. In preparation for this undertaking, Baur was supposed to undertake a trip to Regensburg and then to Northern Germany in order to get in touch with the ethnic circles of Regensburg and the ethnic circles in Northern Germany in order to induce them to support an overthrow starting from Munich. He was supposed to do the trip together with two other members of the Blücherbund, Hermann Ströbl and August Zwengauer.

To finance the trip, Baur contacted Ruge by telephone on February 16, 1923, from whom he demanded 40,000 RM for this purpose, but the latter refused. Instead, on February 17, 1923, Baur sought out Berger, whom he reprimanded for the lack of funding for his trip and threatened that if the requested sum was not made available, the authorities or political opponents of the Blücherbund would disapprove of his plans to inform. Berger then gave him 7,000 RM. With this money he traveled to Regensburg. There Baur met with Zwengauer and Ströbl, whom he had sent ahead, and the local National Socialist Max Stubenrauch.

After Berger finally received the money for Baur's trip from Machhaus around February 18, 1923, he sent two other members of the Blücherbund to Regensburg with the order to hand over the money to Baur in order to get the upcoming company going financially, and himself To join Baur and the others.

In Regensburg, Baur caught his eye with his inconsiderate behavior: he insulted his companions and allowed them to endure him. While he was staying in a hotel, he let Zwengauer sleep in the station hall. Above all, he complained about the lack of money and ordered the next day to return to Munich to raise more money. Since Baur slept and did not appear on the platform at the agreed time, Ströbl and Zwengauer drove back to Munich alone, accompanied by Stubenrauch.

After their return to Munich, Zwengauer, Ströbl and Stubenrauch went to see Johann Berger, to whom they reported on the events in Regensburg. Berger was extremely indignant about Baur's behavior and declared that he had finally proven to be a "pig" that belonged out of the national movement. If the north German patriotic circles are not sufficiently prepared, if an action to "save" the empire from the "red" rule is triggered in Bavaria, and due to their lack of preparation they are not able to support and support them practically in their areas of activity to contribute to their success, it was Baur's fault. He also suspected that Baur could take away the funds they had with them from the federal members who had meanwhile been sent to Regensburg and use them privately. In the further course of the conversation, the first thought arose of getting rid of Baurs by murder. Zwengauer and Ströbl talked in general about how people could be killed.

The Karl Baur murder case

On the evening of February 18, 1923, Baur was picked up at the Munich train station by Zwengauer, Stubenrauch, Johann Berger and his brother Ernst Berger. On this occasion, the Berger brothers reproached him for his behavior. The five men then went back to Johann Berger's apartment, where the verbal arguments between the Berger brothers and Zwengauer and Baur continued.

Zwengauer finally stated that the trip to northern Germany should be carried out by car instead of by train, as funds were now available. On a map, Baur was the meeting point where he and his companions were supposed to get into the car in question to begin the journey to Regensburg and then north. Baur was then advised that it was too dangerous to take ID cards or other identification papers with you on the trip and was prompted to pack his papers in a suitcase that he had left with Berger, which he would use in the apartment during the car journey Should leave custody behind.

Ernst Berger and Stubenrauch then went back to the train station, supposedly to pick up other members of the Blücherbund. Meanwhile, Zwengauer left Berger's apartment together with Baur, to whom he pretended to want to lead him to the waiting car. In fact, he guided him unobtrusively to a deserted place on the banks of the Isar . There, Zwengauer suddenly began to reproach Baur for his behavior in the past few days and to hold him against the damage he had done to the national cause. His brief accusation speech against Baur culminated in the opening that he, Baur, was going to die. He drew a revolver and told Baur to jump into the river. Baur refused to obey this instruction. Zwengauer then shot him on the spot and then threw him into the Isar.

Zwengauer now went back to Berger's apartment, where Stubenrauch and Ernst Berger had also returned. He informed them that Baur was no longer able to reveal anything. With regard to Baur's bag, it was agreed that Berger would bring it to Ansbach the next day . On February 19, 1923, Berger actually drove to Ansbach, where he handed over Baur's suitcase to the district manager of the Blücherbund in the city for safekeeping.

Baur's body was discovered and recovered on March 27, 1923, more than a month after his death, near Freising in the Isar.

literature

• Ulrike Claudia Hofmann: The murder of Karl Baur. In: This: “Traitors fall for the distance!”. Femicide in Bavaria in the twenties. Böhlau, 2000, pp. 66-74.

Web links

• Entry "Fememorde" in the Bavarian Historical Lexicon (with a brief mention of the Baur case)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Hofmann: Verräter, p. 66, where the case is expressly identified as "the last fememord on record".