It was subsequently established that the fatal shot had been fired by "his own people"[4] - possibly a "plainclothes SS man".
[2] Spotting an opportunity, the state government under the leadership of Dietrich Klagges immediately blamed the killing of Landmann on "the communists".
Landmann was quickly raised to heroic status, and received an elaborate state funeral in the cathedral on 4 July 1933.
[2] On the day of the funeral the police chief, Friedrich Jeckeln, selected ten communist prisoners from the several hundred who had been rounded up after Landmann's killing and had them transported to a confiscated trades union building that the SS were planning to convert into a concentration camp in nearby Rieseberg (Helmstedt).
[5] Although the Rieseberg Murders were widely publicised, they were only one part of a wider backlash that the authorities choreographed following the killing of Gerhard Landmann.