Mannheim’s Chicago-style mail robbery

A movie-like mail robbery, which according to a US major from the Criminal Investigation Division in Heidelberg could only have been committed by gangsters from Chicago, took place on June 9, 1949, in front of the post office at Mannheim Central Station. The gang of gangsters who went down in criminal history with their spectacular coup consisted of 20-year-old Günther Hörner, a notorious post-war crook, and his accomplices of the same age, the Stuck brothers, Peter Breuning, and Robert Panko, better known as Knabenschuh, who was a real womanizer of the easy girls of Mannheim. An insider, postal worker Honickel, had informed the Stuck brothers of both the exact schedule of the route and the amount of money in the cash transport vehicle. At around 10 a.m., Peter Breuning, who had been chosen by lot, drove past the cash transport vehicle in a stylish gray Ford Model 48 with US license plates belonging to the occupying forces and cut it off. Accomplices Panko and Hörner, who were waiting at the corner of Schloßstraße, and the Stuck brothers, who were also waiting in front of the post office, rushed over. They pressed American self-loading pistols to the chests of the two postal workers, including Honickel. Then they snatched the money bags and sped away in the Ford at full throttle. The whole robbery took just 15 seconds. Their escape was almost cut short when they narrowly avoided a crash while overtaking a truck on the Jungbusch Bridge. They also almost knocked down a traffic cop, who managed to get out of the way just in time. He had noted the license plate number, but it later turned out to be incorrect. In total, the gangster crew had stolen an impressive 160,000 marks, a considerable sum for that time. The Stuck brothers bribed postal worker Honickel, telling him that if he didn’t spill the beans, he would receive a handsome sum from the loot, which he did. They disposed of the gray Ford in the Hüttenfeld Forest, not far from where they had parked the red Chevrolet. Robert Panko had stolen both cars from a US lieutenant in Zwingenberg. The plan was to commit the robbery with the red Chevy, but it had engine trouble. So eight days later, Panko stole the US lieutenant’s Ford. This showed how brazen the gangsters were. Both cars were seized by the criminal investigation department, but there were no usable clues. The criminal investigation department had its suspicions, but could not prove anything. They had the gang of crooks monitored and interrogated. But they kept their mouths shut. It was only when Kripo chief Riester received a tip from passers-by who had often seen suspicious men with a motorcycle, a Zündapp 200, at the spot where the Chevrolet had been parked that the case gained momentum. A gas receipt with a phone number on it was actually found there. But since it had been used as toilet paper, the shit-covered gas receipt had to be cleaned first. After removing the feces, the police finally had the phone number, which led them to the gang of crooks. The phone number belonged to the aunt of the Stuck brothers, who had a daughter who was one of Robert Panko’s lovers. However, in order to convict the gang of criminals, they set the pretty detective Inge Lothmann on Robert Panko. He was released from custody for one night specifically for this purpose, so that he could work with Inge Lothmann to track down the masterminds. This was a pretext to break Panko’s silence. Inge Lothmann was out in the red-light district with Robert Panko and his girlfriend Anita. Inge Lothmann played her role so well that even Panko’s lover Anita wanted to scratch her eyes out if she got too close to Panko. Cognac flowed freely. At some point, Inge went to a corner of the sofa and pretended to be asleep. Then the unbelievable happened. Robert Panko and his girlfriend Anita spoke openly about the hiding place of the mail robbery. Inge now knew that the loot was in Panko’s bungalow in Waldhof. She informed the head of the criminal investigation department, Riester, who drove there with the public prosecutor, Dr. Angelberger, and found several tens of thousands of marks that came from the mail robbery. The rest had already been squandered on luxury goods. With that, the gangster crew from Mannheim had finally been convicted. The perpetrators were sentenced to five years in prison. The mail robbery, which had kept the media world in suspense for months, had fascinated actor Otto Wernicke so much that he made a film about it entitled “Wer fuhr den grauen Ford?” (Who drove the gray Ford?), which was his only directorial work and in which he also played the lead detective.