Arthur Herrmann (34)

Thirty-four-year-old Senior Constable Arthur Herrmann of Police Station 243 was on bicycle patrol in Grünauer Forst on the evening of March 24, 1937. At around 8:15 p.m., on the Adlergestell road, three kilometers behind Grünau station in the direction of Schmöckwitz, he noticed something unusual: the track of his bicycle showed that he was changing direction. Around 10:40 p.m., a call was then received at Grünau police station: Gerhard Rotsch reported a dead body in the forest. He was alerted by the burning carbide lamp from the service bike, which was visible from the car in the dark March night. He found the body lying on its back. Commissioners Dunker and Elger initially took over the investigation and had forensics done. Already the following day, the well-known criminalist Ernst Gennat took over. The investigations revealed that Herrmann had stopped a pedestrian carrying a purse and had been so severely injured by a shot to the left side of his chest that he died. However, he was still able to pursue the fleeing perpetrator about 30 meters into the forest and fired one shot from his service pistol. However, his service pistol type 08 had an escapement, so no further shot was fired. The bullet that fatally wounded Herrmann, however, was conspicuously shaped. There was a match with the ammunition used in a robbery of a BVG bus in Müggelheim. This ammunition was also found again…