page_title: Hans Kippenberger
section_title: Planning
hierarchical_section_title: Hans Kippenberger / The Bülowplatz Murders / Planning
caption_attribution_description: For documentary purposes the German Federal Archive often retained the original image captions, which may be erroneous, biased, obsolete or politically extreme. Illus Sturm Kno-Be. 15.11.1950 Neue Regierung der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik gebildet. Am 15.11.1950 trat die Volkskammer zu ihrer 2. Plenarsitzung zusammen. Auf der Tagesordnung stand die Erklärung des Ministerpräsidenten über die Bildung und das Programm der Regierung der DDR.UBz: Stellvertretender Ministerpräsident Walter Ulbricht. Leihweise Illus Berlin W8 Wegen Hamann 6.6.1969 Hg Gesperrt
context_page_description: Hans Kippenberger was a German politician. Between 1928 and 1933 he sat as a member of the National Parliament.
  Like many Communist Party members at the time, he also operated under "party names", by which he may be identified in sources. These included "A. Neuberg", "Leo Wolf" and "Ernst Wolf".
context_section_description: During the last days of the Weimar Republic, the KPD had a policy of assassinating two Berlin police officers in retaliation for every KPD member killed by the police.
  On August 2, 1931, KPD Members of the Reichstag Kippenberger and Heinz Neumann received a dressing down from Walter Ulbricht, the Party's leader in the Berlin-Brandenburg region. Enraged by police interference and by Neumann and Kippenberger's failure to follow the policy, Ulbricht snarled, "At home in Saxony we would have done something about the police a long time ago. Here in Berlin we will not fool around much longer. Soon we will hit the police in the head."
  Enraged by Ulbricht's words, Kippenberger and Neumann decided to assassinate Paul Anlauf, the forty-two-year-old Captain of the Berlin Police's Seventh Precinct. Captain Anlauf, a widower with three daughters, had been nicknamed Schweinebacke, or "Pig Face" by the KPD. 
  According to John Koehler, "Of all the policemen in strife-torn Berlin, the reds hated Anlauf the most. His precinct included the area around KPD headquarters, which made it the most dangerous in the city. The captain almost always led the riot squads that broke up illegal rallies of the Communist Party."
  On the morning of Sunday 9 August 1931, Kippenberger and Neumann gave a last briefing to the hit-team in a room at the Lassant beer hall. Parteiselbstschutz members Erich Mielke and Erich Ziemer were selected as the shooters. During the meeting, Max Matern gave a Luger pistol to fellow lookout Max Thunert and said, "Now we're getting serious... We're going to give Schweinebacke something to remember us by."
  Kippenberger then asked Mielke and Ziemer, "Are you sure that you are ready to shoot Schweinebacke?" Mielke responded that he had seen Captain Anlauf many times during police searches of Party Headquarters. Kippenberger then instructed them to wait at a nearby beer hall which would permit them to overlook the entire Bülow-Platz. He further reminded them that Captain Anlauf was accompanied everywhere by Senior Sergeant Max Willig, whom the KPD had nicknamed, Hussar.
  Kippenberger concluded, "When you spot Schweinebacke and Hussar, you take care of them." Mielke and Ziemer were informed that, after the assassinations were completed, a diversion would assist in their escape. They were then to return to their homes and await further instructions.
  That evening, Captain Anlauf was lured to Bülow-Platz by a violent rally demanding the dissolution of the Prussian Parliament. 
  According to John Koehler, "As was often the case when it came to battling the dominant SPD, the KPD and the Nazis had combined forces during the pre-plebiscite campaign. At one point in this particular campaign, Nazi propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels even shared a speaker's platform with KPD agitator Walter Ulbricht. Both parties wanted the parliament dissolved because they were hoping that new elections would oust the SPD, the sworn enemy of all radicals. That fact explained why the atmosphere was particularly volatile this Sunday."
caption: Walter Ulbricht, mastermind of the Anlauf-Lenck murders, General Secretary of the East German SED (1949–1971).
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