Karl Raimund Hofmeier

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Karl Raimund Hofmeier (born January 26, 1912 in Vienna ; † January 5, 1944 in Natal-Freetown-Enge) was an Austrian journalist of Jewish origin. He was best known publicly as an alleged Soviet agent and second Richard Sorge .

Life

In the early 1940s, Karl Hofmeier reported, among other things, on the Japanese campaign in Malaya. He then worked as a photo reporter for the Thai army.

On July 15, 1942, at the instigation of the police attaché at the German embassy in Tokyo, Josef Meisinger was arrested as an alleged Soviet agent. He remained in Japanese detention for about six months and was then extradited to the German authorities. They then tried to bring him to Germany using a blockade breaker .

When the blockade breaker “Burgenland”, who was carrying Hofmeier as a prisoner, was shot at by the USS Omaha in the Natal-Freetown-Enge on January 5, 1944, SS man Herbert Ender received the order from the captain of the “Burgenland” to shoot Hofmeier what he did with a pistol. Before departure, Vice Admiral Paul Wenneker , naval attaché at the German Embassy in Tokyo, had given the order at Meisinger's insistence that Hofmeier would not be released if the ship was scuttled because he could make treasonous statements if the Allies captured him. Meisinger had apparently succeeded in doing this by submitting forged documents and feigning false facts.

On July 21, 1965, the Hamburg public prosecutor's office against Admiral a. D. Paul Wenneker charged with murder. The Hamburg jury decided, however, that it was not murder, but manslaughter, which has now expired.

In the case of Hofmeier, both the judges and the trial observers assumed that he was a spy and as a result could actually have made “treasonous statements” if captured by the Allies. The fact that Hofmeier most likely fell victim to an intrigue by Meisinger only became public in 2020.

literature

  • Gerhard Mauz: SOMETHING DOESN'T JUST SIGN IN : Der Spiegel. October 20, 1965, pp. 69–79 ( PDF file; 1.5 MB ).
  • John Chapman: Ultranationalism in German-Japanese Relations, 1930–1945: From Wenneker to Sasakawa Global Oriental, 2011, ISBN 9789004212787 .
  • Clemens Jochem: Your murderer - I am innocent! On the fate of the journalist Karl Raimund Hofmeier in Japan In: OAG Notes. No. 04, 2020, ISSN  1343-408X , pp. 8–36 ( PDF file; 0.8 MB ).

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Clemens Jochem: Your murderer - I am innocent! On the fate of the journalist Karl Raimund Hofmeier in Japan. Tokyo 2020, p. 8 ff.
  2. ↑ Clemens Jochem: Your murderer - I am innocent! On the fate of the journalist Karl Raimund Hofmeier in Japan . In: OAG Notes . No. 04, April 1, 2020, ISSN  1343-408X , pp. 8-36.
  3. ↑ Clemens Jochem: Your murderer - I am innocent! On the fate of the journalist Karl Raimund Hofmeier in Japan . In: OAG Notes . No. 04, April 1, 2020, ISSN  1343-408X , pp. 8-36.
personal data
SURNAME Hofmeier, Karl Raimund
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian journalist
DATE OF BIRTH January 26, 1912
PLACE OF BIRTH Vienna
DATE OF DEATH January 5, 1944
Place of death Natal Freetown Narrow