| Ernst Werner Techow | |
|---|---|
| Born | Germany |
| Nationality | German |
| Other names | Tessier |
| Known for | Took part in the assassination of Rathenau |
Ernst Werner Techow (b. 1901, Berlin) was a member of a far-right political group in Germany and harboured anti-Semitic views. In 1922, he was convicted for taking part in the assassination of Walther Rathenau, the Jewish Foreign Minister of Germany during the Weimar Republic. Following the assassination he changed beliefs and after his release from prison in 1927, he joined the French Foreign Legion and later embarked on helping Jews escape from occupied France.
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He came from a distinguished magistrate's family; his grandfather had been one of the heroes of the liberal revolution of 1848.[1]
Ernst Werner Techow had joined the Organisation Consul and was its Berlin agent.[2] Organization Consul was a right-wing anti-Semitic organization who killed their opponents and Germans who took part in the capitulation of the German Empire.[3]
On June 24, 1922, two months after the signing of the Treaty of Rapallo, 1922, Rathenau was assassinated in a plot led by two ultra-nationalist army officers, Erwin Kern and Hermann Fischer (aided and abetted by others) linked to Organisation Consul. On that morning, he was driving from his house to Wilhelmstraße, as he did daily. During the trip his car was passed by another in which three men were sitting. Kern used a pistol to shoot Rathenau while Fischer threw the grenade into the car before Techow quickly drove them away.[4] [5] A memorial stone in the Koenigsallee in Berlin-Grunewald marks the scene of the crime. Rathenau was fervently mourned in Germany, with flags officially at half mast, although this was not compulsory.
Within five days, Erwin Kern and Hermann Fischer were cornered by police in the Saaleck castle, near Koesen, and committed suicide. Techow, who drove the car, was turned in by relatives and sentenced to 15 years in prison.[6] At his trial he claimed that he had acted under duress, as Kern threatened to kill him when he tried to withdraw from the murder plot.[6]
Following Techow's arrest, Mathilde Rathenau, the victim's mother, wrote to Techow's mother:
In grief unspeakable, I give you my hand... Say to your son that...I forgive [him], even as God may forgive [him], if before an earthly judge your son makes a full and frank confession...and before a heavenly judge repents... May these words give peace to your soul....
Techow later told Rathenau's nephew that his transformation had been triggered by Mathilde Rathenau’s letter.[1] Upon his release from prison for good behavior in 1927, he volunteered for the French Foreign Legion.[7]
During the Second World War he helped save hundreds of Jews in Marseilles.[7] On the Tunisian front, he single handedly captured a German unit by shouting orders to them in German.[7]
Although no certain knowledge of his death has been confirmed, it is likely that Techow died in the 1980s or 90's; an estimate not unreasonable, considering his birth in 1901.