Albert Tannenbaum (January 17, 1906 – November 1976), nicknamed Allie or Tick-Tock, was a

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

- American hitman for Murder, Inc., the enforcement arm of the

National Crime Syndicate The National Crime Syndicate was the name given by the press to the multi-ethnic, loosely connected, American confederation of several criminal organizations. It mostly consisted of and was led by the closely interconnected Italian-American Maf ...

, during the 1930s. Tannenbaum was born in

Nanticoke, Pennsylvania Nanticoke is a city in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, United States. As of the 2020 census, the population was 10,628, making it the third largest city in Luzerne County. It occupies 3.5 square miles of land. Nanticoke is part of Northeastern Penns ...

, to Sam and Anna Tannenbaum (née Schwartz), and moved to the

Lower East Side The Lower East Side, sometimes abbreviated as LES, is a historic neighborhood in the southeastern part of Manhattan in New York City. It is located roughly between the Bowery and the East River from Canal to Houston streets. Traditionally ...

of Manhattan at the age of three; his family later relocated to

Brooklyn Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York (state), New York. Kings County is the most populous Administrative divisions of New York (state)#County, county in the State of New York, ...

. He quit school at the age of 17 to work as a stock boy in the garment district. After a stint as a salesman, he began work at the

Loch Sheldrake Loch Sheldrake is a hamlet and census-designated place (CDP) in the Town of Fallsburg, New York, United States, in Sullivan County. The zip code for Loch Sheldrake is 12759. The community was originally named Sheldrake Pond after a deep, glacia ...

Country Club, which was owned by his father. When Tannenbaum was 25, he met a guest at the club by the name of Jacob "Gurrah" Shapiro, a close associate of infamous Jewish gangster

Lepke Buchalter Louis Buchalter, known as Louis Lepke or Lepke Buchalter, (February 6, 1897March 4, 1944) was an American mobster and head of the Mafia hit squad Murder, Inc., during the 1930s. Buchalter was one of the premier labor racketeers in New York City ...

. Shapiro felt that Tannenbaum had what it took to become a mob hitman, and introduced him to the underworld. Tannenbaum progressed rapidly through the ranks of organized criminal violence. He began as an enforcer and strikebreaker being paid $50 a week; his salary was raised to $75 and then later to $100. When he became a full-fledged contract killer in Murder, Inc., he was paid $125 a week for his services. Perhaps the most famous murder committed by Tannenbaum as a member of Murder, Inc. was that of

Harry Greenberg Harry "Big Greenie" Greenberg (1909November 22, 1939) was an associate and childhood friend of Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel, and an employee of both Charlie "Lucky" Luciano and Meyer Lansky. Early years He was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1909. Gree ...

, nicknamed "Big Greenie", in

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the wor ...

on November 22, 1939. Tannenbaum had been assigned to the hit by Buchalter, who at the time was on the lam from New York District Attorney

Thomas E. Dewey Thomas Edmund Dewey (March 24, 1902 – March 16, 1971) was an American lawyer, prosecutor, and politician who served as the 47th governor of New York from 1943 to 1954. He was the Republican candidate for president in 1944 and 1948: although ...

and was trying to eliminate potential witnesses that Dewey could use. Tannenbaum followed Greenberg first to

Montreal Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the second-most populous city in Canada and most populous city in the Canadian province of Quebec. Founded in 1642 as '' Ville-Marie'', or "City of Mary", it is named after Mount Royal, the triple- ...

and then to

Detroit Detroit ( , ; , ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is also the largest U.S. city on the United States–Canada border, and the seat of government of Wayne County. The City of Detroit had a population of 639,111 at ...

before finally catching up to him in Los Angeles and killing him under the supervision of (and with the assistance of) the Syndicate's West Coast representative,

Bugsy Siegel Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel (February 28, 1906 – June 20, 1947) was an American mobster who was a driving force behind the development of the Las Vegas Strip. Siegel was not only influential within the Jewish Mob, but along with his childhood fri ...

. Tannenbaum's slaying of Greenberg is generally regarded as the first-ever mob assassination in Southern California. However, in 1940, under pressure from Brooklyn authorities, Tannenbaum became a "stool pigeon" himself, testifying in Buchalter's trial about the involvement of Lepke and Charles Workman in the murder of

Dutch Schultz Dutch Schultz (born Arthur Simon Flegenheimer; August 6, 1901October 24, 1935) was an American mobster. Based in New York City in the 1920s and 1930s, he made his fortune in organized crime-related activities, including bootlegging and the ...

, among others. In 1950, Tannenbaum testified in the murder trial of Jack Parisi. He lived in Atlanta.

References

External links

Kill The Dutchman! by Paul Sann
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Tannenbaum, Albert 1906 births 1976 deaths People from Nanticoke, Pennsylvania Jewish American gangsters Murder, Inc. 20th-century American Jews