Murder of Paul Anlauf and Franz Lenck

Summary

On 9 August 1931 a double homicide took place in Berlin, Weimar Germany, when Berlin police captains Paul Anlauf and Franz Lenck were assassinated by the Parteiselbstschutz, the paramilitary wing of the Communist Party of Germany (KPD), on the orders of Walter Ulbricht, the regional KPD leader. One of the murderers, Erich Mielke, later became the head of the Stasi, the secret police of East Germany; he was not tried and convicted of the murders until 1993.