 August Frühling (1885–1966), the perpetrator, had been a ship's engineer.He was at sea from 1908 on, served in the First World War with the German Imperial Navy, and after 1920 worked as a mechanical engineer and operations manager for various companies, or was unemployed.Frühling joined the SA in 1933 and the NSDAP in 1937, and in 1938 was appointed SA Scharführer.