May 1945. The legend of "Tessier" In April 1943 the American journalist George W. Herald published the story "My favorite Assassin". He claimed to have met a captain of the French foreign legion with the name of Tessier in 1940. This captain, Herald claimed, turned out to be Ernst Werner Techow. He had been deeply moved by Mathilde Rathenau's letter, abstained from antisemitism and joined the French foreign legion. In 1941, Herald further reported, Techow-Tessier helped save hundreds of Jews in Marseilles. Although this story was soon called into question because of some major inconsistences it still took on a life of its own. By reconstructing Techow's biography historian Martin Sabrow has proved the story to be completely unfounded. In popular media Conspiracy against the Republic: Der Mord an Walther Rathenau The assassination of Walther Rathenau directed by Heinrich Billstein Jack Mayer's award-winning historical fiction, "Before the Court of Heaven" (2015) tells the story of Rathenau's assassination and Ernst Werner Techow's complex and harrowing redemption. Bibliography Notes References - Total pages: 276 German assassins 1901 births 1945 deaths 20th-century Freikorps personnel Imperial German Navy personnel of World War I Sturmabteilung personnel People from Berlin People from the Province of Brandenburg Kapp Putsch participants Volkssturm personnel German prisoners of war in World War II held by the Soviet Union Walther Rathenau