Emil Hartwich

Emil Ferdinand Hartwich (born 9 May 1843, Danzig, Kingdom of Prussia – 1 December 1886, Berlin) was a German judge and promoter of sports education, remembered for his death in a duel.

In the summer of 1881 Hartwich, who was suffering from the throes of his unhappy marriage, became acquainted with young Elisabeth von Ardenne, who was ten years his junior.

Ardenne, however, saw his secretly harboured suspicions confirmed when he located the hiding place of the letters which his wife and Hartwich had been exchanging over the course of several years.

Thereupon he filed for divorce and challenged his rival to a duel, an event upon which massive media coverage had been centred before it took place on 27 November 1886.

Although Armand von Ardenne was initially sentenced to two years’ imprisonment, his prison term was reduced to merely eighteen days not long afterwards.