Detlev Karsten Rohwedder

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Detlev Karsten Rohwedder
Bundesarchiv Bild 183-1990-0821-025, Detlev Rohwedder, Präsident der Treuhandanstalt.jpg
Detlev Karsten Rohwedder (1990)
President of the Treuhand
In office
1 September 1990 – 1 April 1991
Preceded byReiner Maria Gohlke
Succeeded byBirgit Breuel
Personal details
Born(1932-10-16)16 October 1932
Gotha, Germany
Died1 April 1991(1991-04-01) (aged 58)
Düsseldorf-Niederkassel, Germany
Political partySocial Democratic Party

Detlev Karsten Rohwedder (16 October 1932, Gotha – 1 April 1991, Düsseldorf-Niederkassel)[1] was a German manager and politician,[2] as member of the Social Democratic Party.[3] He was named president of the Treuhandanstalt, responsible for the privatisation of state-owned property in the former German Democratic Republic (GDR), in September 1990, and served until his assassination in April 1991. He had also served as CEO of steel manufacturer Hoesch AG since 1980.[4]

Murder[]

On 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 with 7.62×51mm NATO standard calibre, 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.[5][6]

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.

Films[]

In 2020, A Perfect Crime, a documentary about the Rohwedder assassination, was released by Netflix.[7]

See also[]

References[]

  1. ^ "Google Translate". translate.google.com. Retrieved 2019-04-04.
  2. ^ "SHOTS FROM THE GARDEN". looks.film. Retrieved 2019-10-30.
  3. ^ "Google Translate". translate.google.com. Retrieved 2019-04-04.
  4. ^ Spiegel.de:Unzumutbarer Partner (October 4, 1982) (german)
  5. ^ "Google Translate". translate.google.com. Retrieved 2019-04-04.
  6. ^ Der Fall Rohwedder, retrieved 2019-10-30
  7. ^ "A Perfect Crime: Netflix to examine Germany's answer to JFK assassination". 23 September 2020.

External links[]

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