On 1 December 1942, General Fleischer was ordered to the position of Military Attaché to Washington D.C. This was another obvious humiliation, since usually officers of the ranks of Major or Lieutenant-Colonel served in this role. Being too much for him to swallow, he shot himself with his own gun through the heart on 19 December 1942. He was found by his adjutant Lieutenant Richard Brinck-Johnsen who brought the urn with the General's ashes to London in a Liberator aircraft. In London Brinck-Johnsen was ordered to keep the circumstances of Fleischer's death secret. Only in 1995 did Brinck-Johnsen speak out, stating that in his opinion Fleischer had taken his own life in sorrow of being set aside and not being needed by anyone.