Arthur Simon Flegenheimer, a man of Jewish descent known throughout the criminal underworld as Dutch Schultz, was a formidable figure whose violent ambition propelled him to the heights of New York's crime scene. Born on August 6, 1901, the 34-year-old male's reign came to a bloody end in the fall of 1935. His story, however, did not conclude with a simple demise but rather a dramatic and brutal assassination that would be whispered about for years to come.
The evening of October 23, 1935, found Schultz and three of his trusted associates—Otto Berman, his accountant; Abe Landau, his chief lieutenant; and his bodyguard, Bernard 'Lulu' Rosenkrantz—at the Palace Chop House in Newark, New Jersey. In a fateful moment, Schultz excused himself to the men's room. It was during this brief absence that two hitmen from the notorious Murder, Inc., Charles 'The Bug' Workman and Emanuel 'Mendy' Weiss, entered the establishment. Workman made his way to the restroom and shot Schultz.
The single bullet struck him below the heart. Simultaneously, Weiss and Workman opened fire on Schultz's crew in the back room.
Though mortally wounded, Schultz staggered out of the restroom and collapsed at a table. He, along with his men, were rushed to a local hospital. His associates did not last long; Berman died first, followed by Landau, and then Rosenkrantz succumbed to his injuries twenty-nine hours after the shooting. Schultz, however, clung to life for twenty-two hours, drifting in and out of consciousness before ultimately dying from peritonitis on October 24, 1935.
The order for Schultz's murder came from the very top of the criminal hierarchy, the Commission. Schultz had become a liability due to his insistence on assassinating Thomas Dewey, a special prosecutor who was relentlessly targeting organized crime. Fearing the immense law enforcement backlash that such a high-profile murder would provoke, the Commission decided to eliminate Schultz before he could act. For their roles in the hit, Emanuel Weiss was later executed for an unrelated murder, while Charles Workman was eventually convicted of Schultz's murder in 1941 and served 23 years in prison.
