19 Facts About David Frankfurter

David Frankfurter was a Croatian Jew known for assassinating Wilhelm Gustloff, the Swiss branch leader of the Nazi Party, in February 1936 in Davos, Switzerland.

David Frankfurter was born in Daruvar, Croatia, to a Jewish family: father Mavro and mother Rebekka David Frankfurter.

David Frankfurter's father was a rabbi in Daruvar and later the chief rabbi in Vinkovci, where the Frankfurter family relocated in 1914.

David Frankfurter was a sickly child and suffered an incurable periostitis for which he underwent seven operations between the ages of six and twenty-three.

David Frankfurter's doctors feared he would not live a normal lifespan.

David Frankfurter graduated from elementary and later secondary school, in 1929, with high marks.

David Frankfurter's father sent him to Germany to study dentistry, first in Leipzig and then in 1931 in Frankfurt, the town of his ancestors.

David Frankfurter found Gustloff's address, which was listed in the phone book.

When Gustloff, who was in the adjoining room, entered his office where David Frankfurter was sitting opposite a picture of Adolf Hitler, the young man pulled out his revolver and shot Gustloff five times: in the head, neck and chest.

David Frankfurter left the premises and prepared to commit suicide.

David Frankfurter wanted to use the Games to promote propaganda on the world stage about the size, power and ideology of the Nazi movement.

David Frankfurter's assassination was later used in propaganda, serving as pretext, along with Herschel Grynszpan's assassination of German diplomat Ernst vom Rath, for the 1938 Kristallnacht pogrom.

David Frankfurter was convicted of murder and sentenced to 18 years in prison and subsequent expulsion from the country.

In 1941, as the Nazis occupied Vinkovci, David Frankfurter's father was forced to stand on a table while the German soldiers spat in his face, pulled out hair from his long beard, and struck him with their rifle butts.

David Frankfurter's father was later killed by Ustase in the Jasenovac concentration camp during the Holocaust.

David Frankfurter later became an employee of the Israeli Minister of Defence and later an officer in the Israeli Army.

David Frankfurter lived and worked in several Israeli cities until his death in 1982.

David Frankfurter died in Israel, in the city of Ramat Gan on 19 July 1982, aged 73.

The film ends with documentary footage of David Frankfurter living in Israel.