On the Lower Rhine / in the Rheingau.
The Niederwald monument near Rüdesheim was inaugurated in 1883. Nobody suspected at the time: Wilhelm I was supposed to be murdered by an anarchist from Krefeld.
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It was drizzling on September 28, 1883, a Friday by the way. From noon on the sun comes out again and again, but the sky remains gray. So no imperial weather.
The atmosphere around the Niederwald, above Rüdesheim am Rhein, is nevertheless – splendid. After all, Wilhelm I has announced himself to the inauguration of the new monument. He had already traveled to the Rheingau for the laying of the foundation stone six years earlier – now he wants to hand over the cast-iron Germania with the wreath in hand to the public. An act of national importance.
Death to the German Kaiser!
The anarchist August Reinsdorf thinks it is exactly the right moment to murder the aged head of state and as many as possible from his imperial entourage. But because he was in hospital at the time with an injury to his leg, he was unable to carry out the attack himself.
He lets Reinhold Rupsch and Emil Küchler know about his murderous plan to carry out the deed on the slopes of the vineyards. Not entirely uninteresting from the Lower Rhine perspective: Emil Küchler comes from Krefeld.
Küchler? From Krefeld? Almost unknown
In his hometown, only the birth certificate, issued by the registry office, reminds of the man who went down in the history books as the assassin of the Niederwald monument. The document can be found in the city archives to this day.
To come to the point: the attack fails, the perpetrators are identified and brought to justice. According to the historian Marcus Mühlnikel, the hearing from December 15 to 22, 1884 in Leipzig is considered “the most important criminal case against anarchists in the German Empire”.
A typesetter, lives in Elberfeld
The six-day trial triggered a lot of media coverage at the time, not least the reports by court reporter S. Werner shed some light on the inconspicuous figure named Emil Küchler.
He is charged with high treason and attempted murder in “the criminal case against Friedrich August Reinsdorf and comrades” and listed as one of the main perpetrators – namely as “Emil Küchler, typesetter, born on February 9, 1844 in Krefeld, residing in Elberfeld”.
No ringleader, no mastermind – a henchman
He will only be heard on the third day of the hearing. It becomes clear that Emil Küchler is neither seen as the political ringleader of a conspiracy nor as the intellectual mastermind behind the attack; rather than a compliant henchman who is fully aware of his deed and its gravity.
In his closing argument, the public prosecutor explicitly mentions Emil Küchler as an accomplice. His assurances before the judge that it was not he who detonated the explosive charge, but Reinhold Rupsch alone are forgotten. And meeting Emperor Wilhelm I in a targeted manner, of course he never wanted that.
Talkative would-be assassins
In fact, the attack fails miserably. The insidious plan to transport the monarch and his entourage to the afterlife with 13 pounds of dynamite probably fails because of a cheap fuse. The fuse, which lies for hours in the drizzling rain at the edge of the path, is not waterproof. The Kaiser and 112 carriage wagons, in which Crown Prince Friedrich Wilhelm is also sitting, roll past the ambush unscathed.
Wilhelm I and the rest of the world only find out about the unsuccessful attack after the would-be assassins later betray themselves: through talkativeness.
Dilettantes !, grumbled August Reinsdorf when he found out about the failed murder attempt. He explicitly warned of such a breakdown in advance and urged his accomplices to buy expensive, i.e. weatherproof, fuses.
Under the guillotine in the Red Ox in Halle
Vain. Like Emil Küchler’s innocent expression, who followed the trial with a “somewhat sedate, downright good-natured impression” and heard his death sentence “a shade paler than usual” on the day the verdict was pronounced.
On February 7, 1885, he was executed with the guillotine by the Prussian executioner Julius Krautz in the Rote Ochsen, a penal institution in Halle.
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