The Assassination of Matthias Erzberger, Signatory of the Compiègne Armistice and Versailles Treaty

Matthias Erzberger

After World War I, numerous politicians were assassinated. Most were in protest against the Versailles Treaty and the ensuing disorder of the Weimar Republic. The assassins were often connected to paramilitary groups like the Freikorps, which had over 1.5 million members.

Organization Consul swiftly made a mark as one of the era’s most powerful—and dangerous—groups. Its first target was Matthias Erzberger, Germany’s Catholic and anti-Marxist minister of finance. The right wing was furious that he had signed both the Armistice agreement at Compiègne and the Treaty of Versailles and angry about the strict tax reforms he ushered in after the war in an attempt to stabilize the country’s faltering economy. Erzberger was also blamed for the fact that the German Navy had been handed over to the Allies and interned at Scapa Flow, where it had been scuttled in the summer of 1919. He was targeted in several murder attempts, including the firebombing of his home. He was also targeted politically, and a libel suit necessitated his resignation from office. Nevertheless, to the right he was beyond forgiveness.

On 26 August 1921, while on holiday in the Black Forest and walking with a friend, Erzberger was shot dead by two young men, Heinrich Tillessen and Heinrich Schulz, who had direct links to the Navy and to Organization Consul which had been founded by disillusioned naval officer Korvettenkapitän Erhardt. Many in the Weimar Republic were appalled at this act of violence, but Erzberger’s enemies rejoiced at his demise, including the former Kaiser Wilhelm II, who celebrated the news with champagne in his exile in Doorn in the Netherlands. The assassins meanwhile, were assisted in fleeing the country, first to Austria, then Hungary, Spain, and Africa, returning to Cologne in 1932. After World War II, they were tried twice and convicted in the second trial. They were both paroled by 1952. While his assassins have been forgotten, Matthias Erzberger has a great hall named for him in the Berlin government building housing the Ministry of Finance.

Freikorps Unit in Berlin

The group struck again in 1922. This time, their target was Walther Rathenau, Germany’s foreign minister. An economic genius, he was put in charge not just of handling Germany’s dicey foreign relations after the war but of helping the country’s economy recover. But the far-right resisted his economic policies and vilified his work, which included orchestrating reparations payments to the war’s victors. Rathenau was also Jewish—and well aware that his religion made him a target. In June 1922, he was gunned down at close range by an Organization Consul assassin carrying a machine gun.

Sources: Britannica; Spartacus-Educational