Murder of Paul Anlauf and Franz Lenck
The murders of Paul Anlauf and Franz Lenck were a double homicide that took place in Berlin, Germany on 9 August 1931, when Berlin police captains Paul Anlauf and Franz Lenck were assassinated by the paramilitary wing of the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) on the orders of KPD leader and future East German Premier Walter Ulbricht.
"[1] As a result of Ulbricht's words, Kippenberger and Neumann decided to assassinate Captain Paul Anlauf, the forty-two-year-old commander of the Berlin Police's Seventh Precinct.
[2]On the morning of Sunday 9 August 1931, Kippenberger and Neumann gave a final briefing to the hit team in a room at the Lassant beer hall.
That evening, Captain Anlauf was lured to Bülowplatz by a violent rally demanding the dissolution of the Prussian parliament.
According to Koehler: As was often the case when it came to battling the dominant SPD, the KPD and the Nazis had combined forces during the pre-plebiscite campaign.
At one point in this particular campaign, Nazi propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels even shared a speaker's platform with KPD agitator Walter Ulbricht.
"[7] As Captain Anlauf turned towards the sound, Mielke and Ziemer opened fire at point blank range.
The parliamentarian's wife Thea, an unemployed schoolteacher and as staunch a Communist Party member as her husband, shepherded the young murderers to the Belgian border.
In the aftermath, Captain Anlauf's oldest daughter was forced to drastically rush her planned wedding in order to keep her sisters out of an orphanage.
[10] Senior Sergeant Max Willig was hospitalized for 14 weeks, but made a full recovery and returned to active duty.
")[13] According to Koehler: In mid-March 1933, while attending the Lenin School, Mielke received word from his OGPU sponsors that Berlin police had arrested Max Thunert, one of the conspirators in the Anlauf and Lenck murders.
However, all suspects were in the custody of the regular Berlin city criminal investigation bureau, most of whose detectives were SPD members.
[citation needed] The three deemed most culpable, Michael Klause, Max Matern, and Friedrich Bröde, were sentenced to death.
[citation needed] Erich Ziemer was officially killed in action[18] while serving as an agent in the Servicio de Información Militar, the secret police of the Second Spanish Republic.
[19][20] A monument, created by Hans Dammann, was erected to commemorate Anlauf and Lenck at the former Bülowplatz, then renamed Horst-Wessel-Platz, in 1934, and was opened with a ceremony on 29 September that year.
[23] During his trial, Mielke appeared increasingly senile, admitting his identity but otherwise remaining silent, taking naps, and did not show much interest in the proceedings.
[24] When a journalist for Der Spiegel attempted to interview him in Plötzensee Prison, Mielke responded "I want to go back to my bed"[25] (German: "Ich möchte in mein Bett zurück").
In pronouncing sentence, Judge Theodor Seidel, told Mielke that he "will go down in history as one of the most fearsome dictators and police ministers of the 20th century.
