Eric Muenter
Eric Muenter (March 25, 1871 – July 6, 1915), also known as Erich Münter, Erich Muenter, Erich Holt or Frank Holt, was a German-American political terrorist, activist, spy, professor and would-be assassin. Although employed as a German professor at elite American universities, he was actually a spy and a "fanatic in the clandestine service of the Imperial German government."[1] While an instructor at Harvard University, he poisoned and killed his pregnant wife.
Eric Muenter
March 25, 1871
July 6, 1915 (aged 44)
- Erich Münter
- Erich Muenter
- Erich Holt
- Frank Holt
Professor of German
- Bombing the United States Capitol
- Attempting to assassinate J. P. Morgan Jr.
He appeared as Cornell University professor Frank Holt who contacted the German spy network which undertook to sabotage US aid to the war in Europe against Germany. In 1915, he planted a bomb that exploded in the US Capitol, shot Jack Morgan, son of financier J. P. Morgan in his home, and predicted the bombing of a steamship bound for England before committing suicide while in police custody. His activities, and those of other Germans, were played up by the press as "Hun barbarity"; anti-German feelings rose in the years as America eventually entered the war with Germany.[2]
Biography[edit]
Murder of wife[edit]
While teaching German at Harvard University in 1906 he poisoned his pregnant wife. Leona Muenter (née Krembs) died on April 16, 1906, of arsenic poisoning. On April 27, 1906, Cambridge, Massachusetts police issued a warrant for the arrest of Erich Muenter. On June 5, 1906, Muenter mailed a pamphlet entitled "Protest" to his wife's family from New Orleans. He vowed that he would "annihilate" Chicago and Cambridge in one blow if he could for accusing him of poisoning his wife, and claimed that he actually feared the punishment inflicted on Christian Scientists who refused medical treatment.[3][4][5][6] He fled before this was discovered, and spent the next decade in various places in the United States under assumed identities.[7] [8] He was a committed German nationalist and opposed the US policy of selling arms to Great Britain and France, Germany's enemies in World War I.[9]
German saboteur[edit]
Muenter went underground in Mexico for a period, then emerged in Texas under the name "Frank Holt", where he graduated from Texas A&M University and married a new wife. He got jobs in colleges, working his way up to the Ivy League as Professor of German at Cornell University. In 1915, Muenter was inspired by the book The War and America by Hugo Münsterberg, another German sympathizer, who had been on the faculty at Harvard along with Muenter. He became involved with the German spy group Abteilung IIIb, which planted time bombs on vessels carrying arms for the Allies from US ports.
German intelligence was later alleged to have supported his attacks, but Muenter maintained he was just an angry peace activist acting on his own.[10] Muenter clearly had connections to the German network and taunted authorities with veiled statements about Abteilung IIIB's ship sabotage efforts.[11]