ASSASSINATION
Publié le 22/02/2012
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A conspicuous part of Weimar history was political murder.
Rosa Luxemburg* and Karl Liebknecht,* leaders of the new KPD, were
assassinated in Berlin* on 15 January 1919 by Waldemar Pabst's* Gardekavallerie-
Schu¨tzendivision (Guard-Cavalry-Rifle Division). Kurt Eisner,* leader
of a coalition socialist government in Bavaria,* was murdered on 21 February
1919 by Anton von Arco-Valley,* a misguided aristocrat. Leo Jogiches, erstwhile
companion of Luxemburg, was killed while in police custody on 10 March
1919, while Hugo Haase,* chairman of the USPD, died on 7 November 1919
of complications from a gunshot wound.
From 1920, with abolition of the Freikorps,* political violence was institutionalized
under the heading Femegericht* (‘‘folkish justice''). Among such
groups as the notorious Organisation Consul* (OC), murder was deemed a
means for destabilizing the Republic; indeed, it increasingly became its own
raison d'eˆtre. On 9 June 1921 members of OC killed the USPD leader Karl
Gareis in Munich. On 26 August 1921 they murdered Matthias Erzberger,*
chairman of Germany's Armistice* delegation. They attempted to blind Philipp
Scheidemann,* the Republic's first Chancellor, by spraying his face on 4 June
1922 with prussic acid. One month later they brutally assaulted Maximilian
Harden,* editor of Die Zukunft. But their most celebrated victim was Foreign
Minister Walther Rathenau,* assassinated in Berlin on 24 June 1922. This act
forced the Reichstag* to pass its Law for the Protection of the Republic.* Providing
a prohibition against extremist groups and stiff penalties for conspiracy
to murder, the law was opposed by the DNVP, the BVP (Bavaria refused to
recognize the law), and the KPD. Its impotence ultimately resulted from a judiciary
enamored of the Right.
According to research completed in 1922 by Emil Gumbel,* 354 people had
been assassinated since 1919. Significantly, in the 22 cases attributed to the Left,
17 people were punished; only 27 right-wing assassins were punished for the
remaining 332 murders. According to Gustav Radbruch,* justice* was ‘‘blind
in the right eye.'' When Gerhard Rossbach,* another Freikorps leader, was tried
in Stettin's 1928 Fememord Prozess, it was disclosed that 200 political murdershad been carried out in Upper Silesia* alone. In the unstable atmosphere of the
depression,* this culture of violence only intensified. Richard Bessel noted that
by ‘‘the time the Weimar system crumbled, there was hardly a city or town in
Germany which had been spared political violence.'' In the seven weeks preceding
the 31 July 1932 Reichstag elections, Prussia experienced 461 political
riots that resulted in 82 deaths and approximately 400 serious injuries. During
early August a city councilor from Ko¨nigsberg was murdered, the mayor of
Norgau was shot to death, two police officers were killed in Gleiwitz, a Nazi
was killed in Kreuzburg, two Communists and two Social Democrats were seriously
wounded in Ko¨nigsberg, the leader of Lo¨tzen's Reichsbanner* was shot
to death, a Nazi accidently blew himself up in Silesia, and a Communist was
killed by Nazis in Potempa.* Ultimately, the NSDAP, creating disorder while
promising order, was the beneficiary of this gruesome orgy.