Feme murders

The number may have been in the hundreds,[1] although one source reports just 23 between 1920 and 1923 in Bavaria and the eastern states of East Prussia, Pomerania, Mecklenburg, Brandenburg and Upper Silesia.

[7] While the Weimar judiciary rigorously prosecuted leftists involved in the German revolution of 1918–1919 and in the political activities of the Bavarian Soviet Republic, police and judicial investigations of the Feme crimes were slow, and the murderers, if they were identified, often received lesser sentences or acquittals.

In 1920, the Bavarian Landtag set up its own investigative committee to look into the situation after former Reichswehr soldier Hans Dobner was unsuccessfully targeted when he attempted to sell information on a weapons cache to the authorities.

In November 1925, the journal Die Weltbühne published an unattributed article by Carl Mertens, a German officer and pacifist, about the Feme murders of more than twenty members of right-wing groups.

Within the Black Reichswehr, First Lieutenant Paul Schulz commanded a special unit that killed those who were seen as having betrayed the country by leaking military secrets.