Kurt Vogel (officer)

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Kurt Vogel (born October 11, 1889 , † 1967 ) was a German officer in World War I , member of the Guard Cavalry Rifle Division and was involved in the murder of Rosa Luxemburg . But according to today's knowledge, he was not the murderer.

Early career

Vogel served as an air officer in the First World War . After the end of the war he was first lieutenant a. D. dismissed and then joined a volunteer corps , which, subordinated to the Guard Cavalry Rifle Division under Lieutenant General Heinrich von Hofmann , operated in Berlin.

Assassination of Rosa Luxemburg

On January 15, 1919, Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht were discovered in Berlin-Wilmersdorf and were interrogated and severely abused by members of the Guard Cavalry Rifle Division in their headquarters in the Eden Hotel under the orders of the First General Staff Officer, Captain Waldemar Pabst . During her removal from the Hotel Eden by members of the division, Rosa Luxemburg was shot in the car; her body was later found in the Landwehr Canal. For years the transport leader Kurt Vogel was named as a shooter. It was not until 1959, when Pabst made a confession, that Hermann Souchon jumped on the car while it was being transported away and killed Rosa Luxemburg, who had already been severely injured by the hunter Otto Wilhelm Runge with a blow with a rifle butt, with a pistol shot in the head.

process

From January 17, 1919, Judge-Martial Judge Paul Jorns dealt with the Luxembourg and Liebknecht murders at the Field War Court in the Guard-Cavalry-Rifle Division , after General Hofmann, as the military judge of the division, had removed another judge-martial, whom Hugo Haase sought after Attested objectivity. Initially, criminal proceedings against alleged perpetrators did not get underway. Jorns first released Kurt Vogel and Horst von Pflugk-Harttung again.

Wilhelm Canaris , a member of the staff of the Guard Cavalry Rifle Division, became an associate judge on the initiative of Waldemar Pabst .

Since February 16, 1919, KPD members have unsuccessfully requested an independent investigation by a non-military special court because of the risk of blackout . Hoffmann and Jorns were therefore forced to bring in two members each of the Central Council of the German Socialist Republic and two members of the Berlin Executive Council. Jorns himself rejected proposals from the civilian members of the investigative commission. After the front page of the “Red Flag” on February 12, the headline: “The murder of Liebknecht and Luxemburg. The deed and the perpetrators ”brought about by Leo Jogiches , Oskar Rusch , Paul Wegmann and Hugo Struve withdrew from participating in the investigation the next day. Was not resigned Hermann Wager , who on January 21 for Hermann Müller had stepped. The civilian members of the commission of inquiry found that Judge-Martial Jorns did nothing to prevent the facts from being covered up.

It was not until May 1919 that some of the accused - including Otto Wilhelm Runge and First Lieutenant Kurt Vogel - were brought before a field war tribunal of their own division. The main hearing took place from May 8-14, 1919. Wilhelm Pieck became one of the most important witnesses to the incidents in the hotel that preceded the murders. He and hotel employees had noticed the mistreatment of those who were then murdered and telephone calls between officers and their superiors. Jorns petitioned the four officers who shot to be sentenced to death for committed murder.

Vogel was sentenced to two years and four months in prison on May 14, 1919 for "removing a corpse", "deliberately incorrectly filing an official report" and other offenses. Runge received a two-year prison sentence and Souchon received a fine. The officers involved, Horst and Heinz von Pflugk-Harttung , were acquitted. Their leader Pabst was not charged, and possible employers had not been sought. As commander in chief of the troops, Gustav Noske personally confirmed the judgment with his signature.

Escape

On May 17, 1919 Canaris identified himself as "Lieutenant Lindemann" in the Moabit prison , presented a displacement order signed by Jorns for the inmate Vogel, climbed into a car and gave him an ID card in the name of Kurt issued by the passport office of the War Ministry Velsen . Vogel settled in the Netherlands.

Hans Günther von Dincklage was entrusted with the investigation of Vogel's escape as " Public Prosecutor Spatz". He was informed that Wilhelm Canaris had become engaged to Erika Waag on May 17, 1919 in Pforzheim , which he recognized as an alibi .

Aftermath

Only two years after the trial against Vogel, Runge and others did the driver of the Luxembourg car, soldier Janschkow, testify in a new investigation that the “third man” was Hermann Souchon. Despite the summons, Souchon did not appear at the trial. After Adolf Hitler had granted those involved in the Luxemburg and Liebknecht murders in 1934 amnesty and even compensation, the Nazi regime granted Otto Runge compensation and Vogel a cure from tax money.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Kurt Vogel in the online version of the Edition Files of the Reich Chancellery. Weimar Republic
  2. ↑ http://www.bundesarchiv.de/aktenreichskanzlei/1919-1933/0010/adr/adrhl/kap1_3/para2_48.html
  3. ↑ Frederik Hetmann: Rosa L. , Fischer, p. 271f.
  4. ^ Elisabeth Hannover-Drück / Heinrich Hannover, The murder of Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht, Documentation of a Political Crime, Frankfurt am Main, 1967 based on: [1]
  5. ^ Elisabeth Hannover-Drück / Heinrich Hannover (ed.): The murder of Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht. (Judgments of the 1st instance) Frankfurt / Main 1967, p. 116. ( Memento of May 14, 2013 in the Internet Archive )
  6. ↑ Klaus Gietinger, A corpse in the Landwehr Canal , new edition 2018
  7. ↑ Michael Mueller, Geoffrey Brooks, Canaris: the life and death of Hitler's spymaster
personal data
SURNAME Vogel, Kurt
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German officer, involved in the murder of Rosa Luxemburg
DATE OF BIRTH October 11, 1889
DATE OF DEATH 1967