Albrecht Höhler

Albrecht Höhler
Mugshot of Höhler (1930)
Born	(1898-04-30)30 April 1898 Mainz, German Empire
Died	20 September 1933(1933-09-20) (aged 35) Frankfurt on the Oder, Brandenburg, Nazi Germany
Cause of death	Execution by shooting
Known for	Killing Horst Wessel, who later became a martyr for the Nazi cause
Political party	Communist Party of Germany
Conviction(s)	Manslaughter
Criminal penalty	Six years and one month imprisonment

Albrecht "Ali" Höhler (30 April 1898 – 20 September 1933) was a German communist. He was a member of the Red Front Fighters Association (Roter Frontkämpferbund or RFB), the street-fighters of the Communist Party of Germany. He is known for the killing of Horst Wessel, a local leader in Berlin of the Nazi Party's SA stormtroopers. After the Nazis came to power, Höhler was taken out of prison and executed by the SA. The triggerman was the Berlin SA leader Karl Ernst.

Born in Mainz,^[1] Höhler was a carpenter and a member of the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) in 1924. He was also a member of the Red Front Fighter Association and continued to be active in the RFB after its prohibition in 1929.^[2] By 1930, he was residing in the Mitte borough of Berlin.^[3]

The Red Front Fighter Alliance was alerted about a rental dispute between the communist affiliated landlord Elisabeth Salm and her tenant Horst Wessel on 14 January 1930. According to information revealed in court, the notorious SA man was targeted for a "proletarian beating". This action was most likely politically motivated; Horst Wessel was called out as the "murderer of workers" in neighborhood posters put up by the Communist Party. Wessel was involved in numerous violent actions against communists in Berlin and was well known to Nazi Party Gauleiter (regional leader) Joseph Goebbels.^[4] Since it was known that Wessel had a firearm, Höhler took his gun in the RFB-led confrontation with Wessel. Höhler later stated in court that he shot Wessel as he reached for his pocket. The seriously injured Wessel died on 23 February 1930, as a result of the gunshot wound.

Höhler first fled to Prague, but then returned to Berlin, where he was arrested.

On 26 September 1930, Höhler was convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to six years and one month imprisonment at Wohlau Prison. After the seizure of power by the Nazi Party, Höhler was transferred to a Gestapo prison in Berlin, allegedly to interrogate him about a retrial. He demanded to be returned to Wohlau.

On 20 September 1933, Höhler was taken on the orders of SA-Gruppenführer Karl Ernst by three detectives; also involved were Prince August Wilhelm of Prussia (died 1949); Rudolf Diels (died 1957); SA Adjutant Walter von Mohrenschildt; SA member Willi Schmidt (Died 1972);Richard Fiedler (died 1974), Willi Markus (died 1975). He was transferred from the police prison at Alexanderplatz on the basis of a Gestapo signed delivery order. Near Potsdamer Platz, several more vehicles approached the prisoner van. The vehicle column drove towards Frankfurt on the Oder. About 12 km (7.5 mi) from Frankfurt, the column stopped. Höhler was ordered to leave the transport and was led by a group of at least eight people away from the road to a nearby forest. There, Gruppenführer Ernst gave a short speech, in which he condemned Höhler to death as the murderer of Horst Wessel. Höhler was then shot by several of those present near the Berlin-Frankfurt Chaussee. The body was barely buried on the spot. Ironically his remains were found in August 1934-just 2 months after Karl Ernst and Walter von Mohrenschildt had been "executed" by order of Adolf Hitler.

In 1933, the investigation into Höhler's death was aborted due to political pressure. The official police report to the prosecutor allegedly stated that the transport had been intercepted on the street by a group of seven to eight SA men and that the officers had been forced to surrender Höhler under threat of violence, who had then been abducted with an unknown destination.

When the investigation was reopened by the Berlin prosecutor's office in the 1960s, the true course of events was discovered by interrogating Willi Schmidt and Kurt Wendt (the chauffeur of Karl Ernst). At that time, Höhler's murderers were identified as Gruppenführer Prince August Wilhelm of Prussia,^[5] Gestapo chief Rudolf Diels (who concealed the facts in his memoirs), Karl Ernst, his adjutant Walter von Mohrenschildt, the SA-Standartenführer Richard Fiedler, the Sturmbannführer Willi Markus, the detectives Maikowski and Walter Pohlenz and possibly Gerd Voss, the legal adviser of the SA group in Berlin-Brandenburg. The fatal shots were likely made by Ernst and Mohrenschildt, according to the findings of the prosecutor. Ernst was said to have organized the murder on the orders of Ernst Röhm, who had in turn received orders from Adolf Hitler that the killer of Wessel be summarily shot.^[6]

Less than a year after executing Höhler, Ernst, Mohrenschildt, Voss, and Röhm were all executed themselves during the Night of the Long Knives. Prince Wilhelm was interned by the U.S. Army after the war. He was sentenced to two years in prison by a denazification court in 1948, and died in 1949. Diels was interned by the Allies until 1948, and died after his rifle accidentally discharged while he was hunting in 1957.

The investigation of the surviving perpetrators- Schmidt, Pohlenz, Markus, and Fiedler- was finally discontinued in 1969, as the prosecutors could only prove aiding and abetting the murder, for which the statute of limitations had already passed.

• Daniel Siemens: Infamer Mord an einem Mörder. einestages; über die Ermordung Albrecht Höhlers
• Daniel Siemens: Höhler, Albrecht et al., in: Kurt Groenewold, Alexander Ignor, Arnd Koch (Hrsg.): Lexikon der Politischen Strafprozesse, Online, Stand Mai 2016