
Bruno Wolter (1869-June 1929) was a German police detective in Berlin during the Weimar era. Wolter was a double agent of the nationalist Black Reichswehr, resulting in his death in the Zossen train explosion in 1929.
Biography[]
Bruno Wolter was born in Berlin, German Empire, and he married Emmi Wolter before serving in the Imperial German Army on the Western Front of World War I. He fought alongside Major-General Wilhelm Seegers in Belgium and France, and he remained a staunch nationalist and crypto-monarchist after Germany's defeat in 1918. During the Weimar era, Wolter joined the Berlin Police and was partnered with Cologne transfer Gereon Rath in April 1929. The two men were initially close friends, and Wolter helped Rath find lodgings at his friend Elisabeth Behnke's boarding house and even let Rath's sister-in-law Helga Rath and nephew Moritz stay at his family's home during their visit to Berlin. At the same time, Wolter was involved in the shadowy Black Reichswehr, meeting with Seegers and his associates. He also blackmailed the police typist and prostitute Charlotte Ritter into spying on his mysterious partner Rath, finding out that his purpose in Berlin was to destroy incriminating tapes of his family friend Konrad Adenauer, and that Rath abused painkillers to deal with his PTSD. Wolter's duplicity occasionally caused violent tensions between him and Rath, but their relationship recovered when they both destroyed the tapes in May 1929.
At the same time, Wolter's right-wing associations aroused the suspicion of political police chief August Benda, who assigned Stephan Jänicke to spy on Wolter. After Wolter caught Janicke observing one of his meetings, he ambushed him in an industrial area at night and shot him dead, while taking his notebook of observations. Rath and Ritter investigated Janicke's death and came to believe that Wolter was responsible, as Wolter had once taken Rath with him to a secret Black Reichswehr gathering, and the gun used in Janicke's death was also used in Rath's shooting of Joseph Wilczek. When Rath confronted Wolter about murdering Janicke, Wolter threatened to claim that Rath, under the influence of drugs, had killed both Wilczek and Janicke. Rath was thus unable to deal with Wolter immediately, but he succeeded in foiling his attempt to assassinate the German and French foreign ministers at an opera house during Operation Prangertag on 30 May 1929.
However, Rath and Benda still lacked enough evidence to incriminate Wolter, especially after President Paul von Hindenburg released the leaders of the Black Reichswehr from jail and had a Soviet train carrying a shipment of phosgene gas (meant to be smuggled to the Black Reichswehr) sent back to Russia. Rath decided to defy orders and ambush the train before Wolter and the Black Reichswehr could ambush it and recover their gas, but the Berlin Mafia had a similar idea, resulting in a three-way standoff at Milestone 127. The Black Reichswehr were ambushed and slaughtered by the mafia, who fled due to a phosgene gas leak, leaving just Rath to face Wolter as Wolter forced the train driver to continue on his way to Russia. Wolter nearly escaped by cutting loose the first two cars of the train from the other eleven, seemingly stranding Rath, but Rath fired a bullet at Wolter's carriage as Wolter smoked a celebratory cigarette. The flames from the cigarette ignited a gas leak, causing the carriage to explode and kill Wolter.