Historica Wiki
Historica Wiki
Advertisement
Richard Pechtmann SA

Richard Pechtmann (22 April 1904-September 1929), alias Fritz Hockert, was a German Nazi Party and Sturmabteilung (SA) member. In 1929, Pechtmann and Horst Kessler infiltrated the KPD's Red Front Fighters League using aliases, and "Fritz" decided to seduce fellow rowing club member Greta Overbeck after hearing that she worked as a domestic servant at the house of SPD political police chief August Benda. Pechtmann attempted to convince Overbeck that her boss and the Berlin Police were murderers due to the Blutmai massacre of 1 May 1929, but Overbeck initially doubted these claims. However, Overbeck later witnessed Pechtmann be shot during a KPD demonstration against the police, and Kessler informed her that "Fritz" had died, and persuaded her to help him plant a bomb in Benda's home. After doing so, Overbeck chanced upon a SA-uniformed Pechtmann at a U-bahn station where he and Kessler were shouting at Foreign Minister Gustav Stresemann, and she angrily confronted Pechtmann, who claimed that she was confusing him for someone else, and threw her to the floor when she attacked him. She then rushed back to Benda's home, hoping to save him from the bomb, but she was too late, and she was ultimately executed for Benda's murder, which was blamed on the KPD. Policeman Gereon Rath arrested Pechtmann in September after finding out his alter ego from a police blacklist and accusing him of murdering Benda, but Overbeck refused to tell the police that she recognized Pechtmann. Pechtmann was promptly released, and he met with Oberst Gottfried Wendt in the woods to tell him about the incident. Pechtmann said that, if the police knew his name, they would get to Wendt at some point. Pechtmann asked Wendt to pay him off for the loss of his anonymity, only for an insulted Wendt to shoot Pechtmann dead.

Gallery[]

Advertisement