“Four years of political murder” was also the title of a book published in 1922 by the statistician Ernst Julius Gumbel (1891-1966). Referring to the enormous rise in politically motivated murders that had taken place between 1918 and 1922, Gumbel collected his data with meticulous precision; he counted 354 murders committed by the radical right and 22 murders committed by the radical left. He also pointed out that the criminal prosecution of radical right and radical left murders differed fundamentally: 326 murders carried out by radical right perpetrators remained unpunished whereas this was true for only four left-wing motivated murders. The average sentence for a radical right murder was four months imprisonment and a two Reichsmark fine, Gumbel computed. A radical left perpetrator typically faced 15 years in prison or a death sentence. Although the victims came from all parts of society and sometimes were, like Rathenau, even members of the acting government, the murders were accompanied by a climate of acceptance.