until they were cornered in the Thuringian castle Saaleck on July 17. After Kern was killed by a stray bullet, Fischer took his own life. So at the murder trial in October 1922 Techow was the only defendant indicted for murder. He narrowly escaped capital punishment, when in a last-minute confession he convinced the court that he had acted under duress, as Kern threatened to kill him when he tried to withdraw from the murder plot. Thus he got away with 15 years in prison for accessory to murder. He also may have benefitted by a letter which had been written by Mathilde Rathenau, the victim's mother, to Techow's mother: In grief unspeakable, I give you my hand. You, of all women, the most pitiable. Say to your son that in the name and spirit of him who was murdered, I forgive, even as God may forgive, if before an earthly judge he makes a full and frank confession of his guilt, and before a heavenly one repent. Had he known my son, the noblest man earth bore, he had rather turn the weapon on himself than on him. May these words give peace to your soul.... Techow's sentence was reduced by an amnesty in 1928. Upon his release from Roter Ochse prison in Halle, Saxony-Anhalt on 7 January 1930 he was welcomed by delegations of the local chapters of Der Stahlhelm, the German National People's Party and the NSDAP. Techow himself joined the Nazi party, the SA and the editorial staff of the Berlin Nazi newspaper Der Angriff in early 1931. Alienated by Hitler's politics he took part in the Stennes Revolt and was expelled from the party in April 1931. His last noted public appearance was in October 1933, when a monument for his fellow assassins Fischer and Kern was unveiled in Saaleck. In 1934 he published an apologetic pamphlet about Rathenau's assassination. During the following years Techow worked for the Deutsche Umsiedlungs-Treuhand-Gesellschaft. In May 1941 he enlisted in the German navy. He was a war correspondent, until he was severely injured while the ship he was on was sunk in October 1942. Shortly before the end of the war he joined the Volkssturm. He was taken prisoner of war at the military training ground of Königsbrück near Dresden and allegedly killed by a Soviet soldier because of a misunderstanding. The certified date of his death is 9