Detlev Karsten Rohwedder (16 October 1932 – 1 April 1991)[1] was a German manager and politician,[2] as member of the Social Democratic Party.[3] He was named president of the Treuhandanstalt, the agency responsible for the reprivatization/privatization of all state-owned property in the former German Democratic Republic (GDR),[4] in September 1990, and served until his assassination by a Far Left terrorist organization, the Red Army Faction, in April 1991. He had also been CEO of the steel manufacturer Hoesch AG since 1980.[5]
Detlev Karsten Rohwedder | |
|---|---|
 Rohwedder in 1990 | |
| President of the Treuhandanstalt | |
| In office 29 August 1990 – 1 April 1991 | |
| Appointed by | Lothar de Maizière |
| Preceded by | Reiner Maria Gohlke |
| Succeeded by | Birgit Breuel |
| State Secretary in the Ministry for Economics | |
| In office 22 October 1969 – 16 February 1978 | |
| Chancellor | Willy Brandt Helmut Schmidt |
| Minister | Karl Schiller Helmut Schmidt Hans Friderichs Otto Graf Lambsdorff |
| Preceded by | Klaus von Dohnanyi |
| Succeeded by | Dieter von Würzen (1979) |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 16 October 1932 Gotha, Free State of Thuringia, Weimar Republic |
| Died | 1 April 1991 (aged 58) Düsseldorf-Niederkassel, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany |
| Political party | Social Democratic Party |
Death
editOn Monday, April 1, 1991, at 23:30, Rohwedder was shot and killed through a window on the second floor of his house in the suburb of Düsseldorf-Niederkassel (Kaiser-Friedrich-Ring 71) by the first of three rifle shots. The second shot wounded his wife Hergard; the third hit a bookcase.
The shots were fired from 63 m away from a rifle chambered in 7.62×51mm NATO. It was also the same rifle that was used during a sniper attack on the American embassy in February committed by the Red Army Faction, a West German far-left terrorist group. An inspection of the scene found three cartridge cases, a plastic chair, a towel, and a letter claiming responsibility from an RAF unit named after Ulrich Wessel, a minor RAF figure who had died in 1975. The shooter has never been identified.[6][7]
In 2001, a DNA analysis found that hair strands from the crime scene belonged to RAF member Wolfgang Grams. The Attorney General did not consider this evidence sufficient to name Grams as a suspect of the killing. Grams was killed in a shootout with police in Bad Kleinen in 1993.
On April 10, 1991, Rohwedder was honoured in Berlin with a day of mourning by German President Richard von Weizsäcker, Minister-President of North Rhine-Westphalia, Johannes Rau, and Chairman of the Board of Treuhandanstalt Jens Odewald. The Detlev-Rohwedder-Haus, the seat of the Federal Finance Ministry, is named in his honour.
Films
editIn 2020, A Perfect Crime, a documentary about the Rohwedder assassination, was released by Netflix.[8]
See also
editReferences
edit- ^ Siemens, Ansgar (5 November 2018). "Google Translate". Der Spiegel. Retrieved 2019-04-04.
- ^ "SHOTS FROM THE GARDEN". looks.film. 31 December 2010. Retrieved 2019-10-30.
- ^ "Google Translate". translate.google.com. Retrieved 2019-04-04.
- ^ Treuhandanstalt: Privatisation, Unemployment, Protests. In: Sites of Unity (Haus der Geschichte), 2022.
- ^ Spiegel.de:Unzumutbarer Partner (October 4, 1982) (german)
- ^ "Google Translate". translate.google.com. Retrieved 2019-04-04.
- ^ Der Fall Rohwedder, archived from the original on 2021-12-21, retrieved 2019-10-30
- ^ "A Perfect Crime: Netflix to examine Germany's answer to JFK assassination". TheGuardian.com. 23 September 2020.